At first I really thought I was going to be disappointed by this movie since the score on sites like IMDB was very low with only a 6.7/10 but when I start to go through the reviews most of them were positive, lots of 7+ reviews but it was only a few bastards that gave the movie a 2 or 3 complaining about the story that they probably didn't that much attention to, others complaining about how the concept about Kong was completely change from this giant ape who normally terrorize cities to now been the guardian of the island. I think MONARCH made a favor to Kong bringing it into the MONSTER VERSE, no body cares about movies based on the same concept over and over, what they were trying to do is build up the foundation to something bigger that now days will turn into a TV Series potentially extending the story of all this monsters into something different and bigger.
The Vietnam war is about to be over and all troops send back home, Bill Randal currently in charge of MONARCH knows that the program can be shut down at any moment because so far they have found nothing and when the war ends things are going to rapidly change politically, he feels its now or never go make a discovery and prove the monsters he and his assistant Houston Brooks have been speculating about do exist so they talk to Senator Willis, ask him for one last chance to send them on an expedition to Skull Island, a place that has not been explore yet with many stories about boats disappearing, mysterious bombing like they were trying to kill something but its all speculation, luckily there is already an expedition to Skull Island and Bill and Houston knew about, LANDSAT a program to discover and explore the Earth is sending a team to Skull Island so MONARCH was able to piggy back after Senator Willis approval. A common question that came up was WHY THE FUCK ITS NOT BEEN EXPLORE? the reason is because its surrounded by a perpetual storm system like God doesn't want anyone else inside the island.
Bill ask for a military escort, he knows if they find something on that island only military power can help them to get out alive, that's when one of my favorite characters comes in by the hand of Samuel Jackson, Colonel Preston Packard who doesn't want to leave the war, he is that soldier who feels there is nothing else at home that matters and he just want to keep pushing not to mention that they are "abandoning" the war but that's a total different topic. Colonel Packard is in charge to take LANDSAT and MONARCH to Skull Island and provide protection so they can explore it and come back home.
As secondarily characters there are soldiers under Packard wing, most pilots, there is Cole, Slivko, Reles and Chapman all this pilots will follow Packard orders at all times, that was at first, until Packard obsession gets them close enough to death.
Chapman a pilot who was flying the helicopter with the most gun power is played by Toby Kebbell who is on For All Man Kind new season, he did very well on this movie although his part was very small, this is Packard's first obsession to find Chapman when his helicopter goes down after an attack but not necesarly because he wants to safe Chapman, Packard was really after all the armament on Chapman's helicopter.
#photo fotographer and james
Last duet of the story are James Conrad and Mason Weaver, Conrad the man in charge to guide them through the island he is famous for exploring inhabitable places and getting out alive so Bill and Houston look for him, they knew it would be expensive and they running low on money but if they want the best chances to get out alive Conrad is the guy to go with, as a bonus we get Mason Weaver who is going to play the pretty lady on the movie, photographer who actually goes to cover the LANDSAT expedition but she knows there is something else cooking besides the LANDSAT expedition but none of them have a clue of what they going to find on Skull Island.
There is one detail that I didn't like and that was the amount of Choppers on the first shots when they get to the Island, there was only one ship that look like it can hold at best five to seven of them but when they start flying towards the Island looks like they were ten of them, also when already in the island they started to drop some small bombs to map out the surface because of the seismic waves.
After they start dropping bombs this obviously disturb nature, you got the noise, the impact on earth, animals going wild running scared and this is when big dawg Kong shows up for the first time on the movie, I really like how they gave it this classic Vietnam war scenery with the sun going down and the sky orange but in some cases it was hard to see although I still think it look great, Kong itself was very well design in my opinion but it look small, latter on during the movie it is mention that he is still small, he is probably on his teens, point is that he got mad as fuck for all the bombing and shuts down all the choppers one by one this made him enemy number one to Colonel Packard, on this movie Kong is the protector of the Island, he is not a predator he protect humans and animals mainly for the real predators, GIANT LIZARDS!!
After Kong shuts them down Packard had a little chat with Bill who then told him why they were there, what is MONARCH, he is not there to explore the land, he is there to find monsters and bring proof back because he believes there are way more monsters that have not been discover and they need to prepare, bring the cavalry, on the island they had many encounter with huge animals, from what looks like a giant Buffalo, spiders, insects, its like Australia x100.
The survivors of the attack start exploring looking for shelter and how to get out of the island, the group split in two, you got Packard and his soldiers looking for Chapman and all that fire power and then there is Conrad leading the other group (MONARCH and LANDSAT) until they found Hank Marlow, the guy I mention crash the island many years ago during WW II, he has been living there for twenty eight years waiting to be rescue without luck until now when Bill and the rest arrive but this was not necessary a good thing for the island. Hank has been living with natives of the island and gave the guys a tour and had a short Q&A with them so they know whats the deal of the island, who is Kong to them and where not to go.
I don't like to spoil the cool scenes so I'm just going to mention that there was NO LACK at all of fight scenes between humans and monsters and monster against monsters, you got flying monsters, you got giant baby lizard and then you got big mama lizard against Kong in the final fight, nothing was left to the imagination wondering of why things happen or what if, none of that bullshit, its true that we don't know yet from where all this monsters are coming but Houston did mention that his planet is not theirs, it belongs to this monsters and it was just a matter of time before they take it back, that's one of the reasons why MONARCH exist to prevent all this events.
This was for sure the beginning of MONARCH, on this movie we only get that a man called Harry Truman funded MONARCH in 1946 but that's all we got from this movie, after credits there is a scene where Houston give more details to Conrad and Weaver of who are they facing but that's it, but he does show them some pictures of cave explorations and images on the walls of this caves that represent many of the different titans like Godzilla.
The reason to watching this movie was to find out more about MONARCH, I know I can go and read the MONARCH Fandom but that is not what I want, I want to have the same perspective of any other viewer once MONARCH: Legacy of the Monsters TV Show starts and that is the reference to the movies themself, my next movie to watch is Godzilla (2014) that is heavy shown on the first trailer for the tv series.
Kong Skull of Island as a Monster or Titans because when you say monster most people think about demons probably but this case its titans or MUTOS as MONARCH describe, this movie did a great job, the CGI was very good nothing to criticize also the amount of monsters that appear on the movie is good enough since it was not only Kong, on the movie appear seven monster animals in total that I can remember so it was not only about Kong, there is even an extra small fight between Kong and a Giant squid that felt like a bonus fight. In terms of the cast it had a good amount of known actors who also did a good job at bringing all this characters alive, I don't feel anything was fake or over the top neither. The only thing that I would do different is not killing Bill on this movie because I think he was a leader for MONARCH and finally when they get all proof they need to show he was right about all this monsters he gets killed, I don't him been alive would change the end/meaning of the movie but just a small detail that I would prefer.
Referring to MONARCH itself this is the movie that opens the door to explore what they have discover so far, from here its all about looking for all those other monsters out there, try to understand them, protect from them and even dominate or kill them depending on how dangerous they are, MONARCH already knows there are more out there and its a matter of time before they claim Earth back.
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