Tuesday, February 28, 2017

Kong: Skull Island coming


Frankly, I've had just about enough of Year of the Monkey that I haven't been paying much attention to the approach of Kong: Skull Island. but as it turns out, this might be a pleasant mistake when I put on my kaiju appreciation hat.

They've decided to go with a Vietnam War-era time frame to reboot the story, which naturally gets my attention.

I'm also intrigued by the presence of some of my favorite actors including John C. Reilly, who looks ready to steal the show with a comedic character who reminds me of Dennis Hopper's whacked-out reporter in Apocalypse Now. As far as the trailer goes, it appears there are plenty of cinematic nods to Francis Ford Coppola's opus, as well as other classics addressing this era such as Platoon. The natives are always a problematic element of any Kong film but we'll see what happens.

From a narrative standpoint, I hope we're not going to go the standard route and bring Kong back to New York and watch him fall off of the World Trade Center over Brie Larson's Mason Weaver. The reports suggest that Kong: Skull Island is set within the Monsterverse, a premise that also includes Godzilla (from the 2014 US version, which I try very hard to scrub from my mind) and we should be on the lookout for references to the Monarch monster hunting organization and things that set up a fight between Godzilla and King Kong in a few years, and later on Rodan, King Ghidorah and the like.

While I have no say in the matter, I would hope that the studio could have an even greater ambition than bringing together Toho Studios greatest hits and in fact recover kaiju from other great cult classics of the 20th century such as Gamera, certainly, but also films such as Reptilicus, the Beast from 20,000 Fathoms, Gorgo, Valley of the Gwangi, and Ymir from 20 Million Miles To Earth. Hmm. Or basically the Harryhausen films.

Of course, I had my own ideas of what we might have done with a Kong set in or near Southeast Asia, but following the trailer, I'm looking forward to seeing what they're trying to do here.

No comments: