★★★
(M) 118 minutes
The story of King Kong has the permanent quality of ancient myth, yet none of the retellings and spinoffs of this story remotely measure up to the original film from 1933.
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Trailer: Kong - Skull Island
An action/adventure story centered on King Kong's origins.
Perhaps this is because the creators of that film were largely unaware of its racial and sexual subtext, or at least felt no need to appear politically correct. As the director of the rebooted Kong: Skull Island, Jordan Vogt-Roberts has to tread more carefully, signalling knowingness while avoiding anything that might provoke.
It's 1973, with America in the process of withdrawing from Vietnam. When monster hunter Bill Randa (John Goodman) embarks for the mysterious Skull Island in the South Pacific, the adventure is represented as a continuation of the war by other means, by a team that includes a gung-ho army officer (Samuel L. Jackson), a pragmatic mercenary (Tom Hiddleston), and a hippie photographer (Brie Larson).
![Brie Larson as photojournalist Mason Weaver.](/web/20170311145040im_/http://www.theage.com.au/content/dam/images/g/u/n/f/3/m/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.gutcvm.png/1489034632489.jpg)
Kong, who shows up early on, is far from the only monster in the vicinity, and much of what follows can be understood as a reflection on US foreign policy, leaning towards the view that giant gorillas can be tolerated if they serve to keep worse threats at bay.
But the allegory clearly isn't meant too seriously, and Vogt-Roberts and his writers do their best to steer away from the more "problematic" aspects of the Kong mythos, which, for better or worse, account for much of its enduring power.
The local tribespeople are portrayed as enlightened rather than "savage", though this is basically a matter of trading one set of stereotypes for another. More crucially, there's no transgressive romance between Kong and his leading lady, something which Peter Jackson was happy to play up in his 2005 remake.
This is, in short, a neutered Kong – yet taken as a straightforward adventure movie, it's enjoyable enough. The dialogue is often witty, and Vogt-Roberts, who started out in online comedy shorts, maintains the breezy, tongue-in-cheek tone.
![Don't mess with King Kong.](/web/20170311145040im_/http://www.theage.com.au/content/dam/images/g/u/n/f/4/a/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.gutcvm.png/1489034632489.jpg)
Presumably he's too young to remember the 1970s at first hand. Perhaps for this reason, he gets a kick out of stuffing the margins of the movie with junk-shop ephemera, from a portable record player to a Richard Nixon bobblehead.
More generally, his pleasure in the mechanics of filmmaking is displayed in stylish, isolated flourishes, such as an encounter between Kong and Jackson's character filmed in spaghetti western close-ups, or a gruesome yet bloodless dismemberment against the backdrop of the setting sun.