Long Live the King

HE'S BACK: Yesterday, the kids were happy to have older brother Kennedy take the time to take them to a matinee. 

They chose to see a good ol' monster matinee. Specifically, "Kong: Skull Island," because after 84 years, there still can't be enough King Kong reboots.  

I'll let Annabelle tell you a bit about the movie first. Warning: Spoiler alerts ahead. ... 
Kong: Skull Island is a movie about a scientist (whose name I never found out) who believes in monsters such as Kong. He asks his governor to let him go on a “geographical” research mission to Skull Island, an island mysteriously surrounded by storm clouds all the time for some reason that is never explained. The governor grants him permission and sends military backup, per request. This island turns out to be filled with giant creatures and, you guessed it, Kong is one of them! The army general (who I strongly dislike) decides the best way to land on this island with this presumably peaceful creature is to begin shooting it in the face. Needless to say, 80% of the fleet goes down, with the other 20% containing our main characters- photographer girl, tracker guy, scientist dude, and army general (I have no idea what these character’s names are, which shows you a little about the film).
After Kong swiftly punches away many of our main character’s reinforcements, there are two groups left: Main characters and the army general with about 5 troops. These two groups promptly split up and both find themselves discovering crazy things about this island. The army group finds more scary giant creatures (I.E. a giant bamboo spider who impaled a dude with its leg) and decide to shoot them, again. Meanwhile, our main characters discover a peaceful giant water buffalo thing. They decide not to shoot it, and continue on to find a tribe of people who have been living on the island, led by a man from WW2 who’s been there for about 20 years as of the movie’s events. He tells them about how Kong is King of the island, and the tribal people consider him a god and protector because he fights off the other giant creatures that actually want to hurt people. WW2 survivor joins the main characters’ group on their way to a point where helicopters can rescue them.
Overall, the movie contains a lot of graphic violence and special effects, usually paired together. I wouldn’t go if you’re expecting to see King Kong scaling the Empire State Building, because the movie stays on the island and doesn’t even remotely focus on Kong alone. It’s a good movie if you’re into giant CGI monsters, violence, and giant CGI monster violence.

No surprise, CJ had to weigh in, as well.

I wish I just saw Shin Godzilla.

This afternoon, my older brother Ken took my sister and I to see Kong: Skull Island, the second installment in Legendary Pictures' Monsterverse series (starting with Godzilla 2014). A few months earlier, I had seen Shin Godzilla, a superior, Japanese-made kaiju film, from its limited theater release in October.
Here's my review of Skull Island:

Kong: Skull Island is a reboot of the King Kong film series, which started with the original King Kong in 1933. Skull Island is primarily set around a group of people visiting the titular island to see King Kong in 1973, near the end of the Vietnam War.
Hoo boy. This is where things start declining:

For starters, there are far too many monsters. While Shin Godzilla had just one monster, and made it a very interesting and well-designed kaiju, Kong: Skull Island uses several poorly-developed and explored kaiju throughout its 2-hour runtime, weakening the audience's interest in the beasts. Second off, while the special effects were evidently well-funded and well done, there's a certain sense of charmlessness that comes with using high-budget special effects and CGI in kaiju films. Contrast Shin Godzilla, which, while it made use of CGI, also opted to use some practical effects (if I remember correctly).

Personally, my biggest issue with Skull Island has to be the film's omnipresent gore (no, not the man who should've became President in 2000). Throughout most of Skull Island, seeing large amounts of graphic violence (such as King Kong ripping the tongue and internal organs out of one monster) does not help one's appetite. A character is impaled vertically through their body, and there are several other bloody character deaths throughout the film.

While Skull Island might be an entertaining way to spend two hours munching popcorn (if you're okay with nauseating graphic violence), it probably won't win any Oscars, and is inferior to Shin Godzilla.