UK and US reviews split over Kong: Skull Island

The reviews for blockbuster monster movie ‘Kong: Skull Island’ are in, and they show a marked difference of opinion between the UK and US critics.

In the main, the US critics have celebrated the latest in the King Kong franchise.

But the majority of critics in the UK have given it short shrift.

In a two-star review from Clarisse Loughrey in The Independent, she writes: “It’s a film that, somehow, takes the fun out of watching a giant monkey slam-dunk a helicopter into the ground.

“It’s surprising, really, to see a film so willingly destroy its own sense of dramatic climax; with such a deep lack of build-up eventually turning the whole affair into a lengthy slog of endless creature punch-ups.”

The Guardian‘s Peter Bradshaw was less enthusiastic still, writing in a one-star review: “This fantastically muddled and exasperatingly dull quasi-update of the King Kong story looks like a zestless mashup of Jurassic Park, Apocalypse Now and a few exotic visual borrowings from Miss Saigon.

“How did we get from the 1933 King Kong to this? A theory of de-evolution is needed.”

Meanwhile, Chris Hunneysett in the Daily Mirror writes: “Wafer thin characterisation is the norm, and not just of the humans. The filmmakers have little interest in their biggest star. Never has any version of Kong lacked such personality.

“Going full frontal demonstrates how the once proud King of the jungle has been neutered. And he’s just like this beautiful but sexless film: all fur coat and no boll**ks.”

Conversely, the US critics have been kinder – if only a little.

Alonso Duralde in The Wrap says: “Scratches your monster-movie itch without ever once providing an injection of unpredictability or eccentricity. It lacks neither fun nor polish, but it has the square tidiness of a compartmentalized fast-food meal.”

In The Village Voice, Bilage Ebiri writes: “A charming, insistent trifle, a monster movie that’s unafraid to be cruel while also mining the genre’s inherent silliness.”

And on Forbes, Scott Mendelson called it ‘a visually striking, character-driven monster mash adventure. So yeah, it’s pretty darn good’.

Elsewhere, Todd McCarthy in The Hollywood Reporter writes: “All the requisite elements are served up here in ideal proportion, and the time just flies by, which can rarely be said for films of this nature.”

‘Kong: Skull Island’, starring Tom Hiddleston, Brie Larson, Samuel L. Jackson, John C. Reilly and John Goodman, is out across the UK on March 9.

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