Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		5.0
Audio		5.0
Extras		3.0
Overall		4.0

Kong: Skull Island Blu-ray Movie Review

The New King of Kong

Reviewed by Michael Reuben July 20, 2017

With 2014's reinvention of Godzilla and this year's Kong: Skull Island (or "K:SI"), Warner Brothers and Legendary Pictures have achieved a studio executive's fondest dream, melding cutting edge technology with venerable name brands to create a successful new franchise. Dubbed "the MonsterVerse", the series is now plunging ahead with its third installment, which will reportedly pit the titular heroes of the first two episodes against each other, thereby updating King Kong vs. Godzilla for the 21st Century. For anyone who remembers the giddy sensation of sitting in a theater watching Toho's original 1962 monster smackdown, the prospect of seeing it revived and reinvigorated should inspire giggly anticipation. Meanwhile, one can enjoy director Jordan Vogt-Roberts (The Kings of Summer) imaginative take on cinema's most beloved ape in this superior Blu-ray presentation.

Where Peter Jackson's 2005 remake of Kong hewed closely to the narrative outlines of the 1933 classic, K:SI takes a different approach. It opens in the waning days of World War II, when a pair of aerial combatants inadvertently discover the existence of Kong on a remote island in the South Pacific. But then the film fast-forwards to 1973, in the waning days of yet another war, as U.S. forces withdraw from Vietnam following the Paris Peace Accords. Into this fraught environment comes an expedition led by Bill Randa (John Goodman), who is equal parts scientist and charlatan, and who has persuaded a reluctant U.S. Senator (Richard Jenkins) to fund an effort to map the newly discovered Skull Island. Perpetually shrouded by storms, the island has gone undetected until the advent of satellite imaging. Randa, whose "Monarch" operation should be familiar to veterans of the 2014 Godzilla, says he's only interested in exploration, but he may have ulterior motives.

K:SI's script staffs Randa's expedition with a diverse collection of personalities, the better to fill the time between deadly encounters. The company includes a pair of young scientists working for Monarch, one a biologist (Jing Tian) and the other a geologist (24: Legacy's Corey Hawkins); a former British Special Services operative named "Conrad" (Tom Hiddleston), whom Randa hires for his skills as a tracker; a member of the Landsat mapping project (John Ortiz), who's a briefcase-clutching desk jockey wholly out of his element in the jungle; and a combat photographer named Weaver (Brie Larson, Room), who is the very opposite of a flailing damsel-in-distress, having spent the last few years gamely thrusting herself into the worst fire fights she can find.

The group's military escort is commanded by Lt. Col. Preston Packard (Samuel L. Jackson), a career officer and seasoned combat veteran who clearly would prefer to remain in Vietnam and finish the job he believes he was sent there to do. Packard leads a squadron of loyal soldiers who are as varied and colorful as the PBN boat crew in Apocalypse Now. Midway through their adventure, the group encounters a former military man named "Marlow" (John C. Reilly), whose history is best left for the viewer to discover.

It’s no accident that K:SI's band of adventurers includes namesakes for both the real and the fictional authors of Heart of Darkness—Joseph Conrad and Charles Marlow. Just as Apocalypse Now drew on Conrad's novella for inspiration, Vogt-Roberts' film consciously evokes both Coppola's Vietnam epic and, less directly, an entire canon of Vietnam films such as Platoon and Casualties of War. As helicopters swoop and hover, plumes of napalm billow and consume, and a fragile boat chugs upriver through a treacherous land, K:SI repeatedly recalls the futile expenditures of military might so memorably portrayed by Coppola, Stone, De Palma and others. Here, too, those excessive displays of force prove to be no match for an enemy defending his homeland, of which the human inhabitants, a reclusive tribe known as the Iwi, worship Kong as their god.

K:SI's version of Kong is a triumph of CGI, a photo-realistic creation blended seamlessly with live action and breathtaking jungle landscapes shot on location. (In an ironic turn, many of Skull Island's jungle environs were photographed in Vietnam.) The same convincing realism applies to the menagerie of equally outsized creatures inhabiting Skull Island, including the bloodthirsty subterranean reptiles dubbed "Skullcrawlers", who are Kong's greatest foe. Director Vogt-Roberts cheerfully acknowledges his indebtedness to video games, but where that comparison is often used pejoratively in film, here the helmer has made gaming perspectives work to his advantage, infusing his sequences with a kinetic energy so infectious that you forget you're looking at a digital simulation and surrender to the ride. Standout sequences like Kong's early battle with an entire fleet of helicopters and his final showdown with the Skullcrawler "queen" achieve a convincing and immersive excitement that sets a new standard for the use of CGI in action sequences. And Vogt-Roberts and his team don't skimp on the quieter moments. Kong's interactions with Brie Larson's photographer may offer an homage to Fay Wray, but they're weightier and more emotionally complex, even if one party to the relationship is nothing more than a fabrication of ones and zeros.

Kong: Skull Island Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Kong: Skull Island was photographed digitally by Larry Fong (on the Alexa XT Plus, according to IMDb), who has shot most of Zack Snyder's effects extravaganzas and obviously knows how to create fertile raw material for effects wizards and digital colorists. Warner's 1080p, AVC-encoded Blu-ray presents one of the finest digitally originated images I have seen to date, with exceptional sharpness and detail in both the realistic and CG-dominated sequences. K:SI has many dark passages, all of them featuring excellent blacks and shadow detail. Director Vogt-Roberts and his team aren't afraid to cloud the image with smoke or fog or to wash over the entire frame with tinted light (e.g., the intense red of Weaver's dark room), but they always maintain a level of visibility appropriate to the needs of the narrative. Fong and the digital colorists have aptly re-created the dull look of early Seventies film for the opening scenes in Washington, D.C., but the colors perk up as soon as the action shifts to Southeast Asia, achieving a green and golden richness when the expedition reaches the island. The opening scenes in 1945 have an almost storybook brightness and intensity, while a concluding sequence set in the U.S., which can't be further described without spoilers, accurately simulates the appearance of a home movie shot on 16mm.

One of K:SI's most impressive visual accomplishments is the seamless integration of spectacular location photography with meticulously detailed digital creations. The Blu-ray reproduces these effects flawlessly, allowing the viewer to slip into the action without distraction. Warner has mastered K:SI at an average bitrate of 24.09 Mbps. The theatrical group continues its stubborn refusal to use all available space on the disc, but the compression appears to have been capably performed.

Kong: Skull Island Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

K:SI arrives with what is fast becoming a standard choice on Warner's A-list titles between Dolby Atmos and DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1. I don't know why anyone would select the latter, since even for those without Atmos decoding, the Atmos track offers a 7.1 Dolby TrueHD core, making the lossless DTS track a lesser option and a waste of space. Still, Warner insists on including it, and in what is fast becoming a familiar slap in the face to 3D fans, the 3D Blu-ray of K:SI omits the Atmos track altogether.

The Atmos track is superb, and the dizzying effects begin even before the first frame appears on screen after the company logos. K:SI opens with an off-screen dogfight between a pair of World War II fighter planes, which swoop, dive, evade and fire their weapons back and forth and up and down throughout the listening space. The helicopter squadron's approach to the island through the surrounding storms is an organized cacophony of roaring winds, struggling engines and thunderous lightning strikes. Scenes on the island are accompanied by a symphony of jungle rustles, insect buzzing and animal noises, routinely punctuated by the thunderous roar of Kong and Skull Island's other mighty beasts. The precision of the Atmos placement of sound "objects" is matched by the track's broad dynamic range, with deep bass extension that will challenge your subwoofer.

Dialogue is clearly rendered and appropriately localized. The stirring adventure score is by Henry Jackman, the British composer of Kick-Ass, Kingsman and numerous films from the Marvel Cinematic Universe. The soundtrack is enhanced by a well-selected medley of period-specific tunes from familiar artists like the Hollies, Jefferson Airplane, Credence Clearwater Revival and David Bowie.

Kong: Skull Island Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Commentary with Director Jordan Vogt-Roberts: K:SI's director provides an energetic and informative account of making the film, and his comments are enlivened by a "gee whillikers!" enthusiasm from a young filmmaker who still can't believe his luck in being handed a valuable franchise and $185 million to reinvent it. The helmer discusses everything from script development and casting to the visual inspirations for specific shots and the challenges his ideas often posed for the effects team.



• Creating a King (1080p; 1.78:1)


• Realizing an Icon (11:39): This first featurette focuses on the history and mythology of Kong.


• Summoning a God (12:47): The second featurette deals with the effects technology required to create K:SI's super-sized version of Kong.



• On Location: Vietnam (1080p; 1.78:1; 5:38): Cast and crew describe their experiences filming in a region where no major Hollywood production had previously ventured.



• Tom Hiddleston: The Intrepid Traveler (1080p; 1.78:1; 6:53): In what is obviously a promotional short, the actor recounts his experiences in the film's three main locations: Hawaii, Vietnam and Australia.



• Through the Lens: Brie Larson's Photography (1080p; 1.78:1; 2:19): Director Vogt-Roberts describes his insistence that Larson have a genuine Leica camera loaded with film. Included is a selection of the photos she took during production, and they're good enough that I'd like to see more.



• Monarch Files 2.0 (Companion Archive) (1080p; 1.78:1; 7:58): These fictitious reports from the mysterious Monarch organization provide an "official" account of Randa's expedition. The "2.0" designation presumably refers to the fact that the Godzilla Blu-ray also offered entries from the Monarch archives.



• Deleted Scenes (1080p; 1.78:1; 3:45): This is a selection of brief trims, most of which focus on Col. Packard. The scenes are not separately listed or selectable.



• Introductory Trailers: At startup the disc plays trailers for Geostorm and the MonsterVerse official comic, Skull Island: The Birth of Kong, along with the familiar Warner promo for 4K discs.

Kong: Skull Island Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

K:SI is yet another example of an overworked franchise being effectively revived by an enthusiastic filmmaker who melds contemporary flair with a respectful appreciation of what initially made the property a success. Ryan Coogler's Creed resuscitated the Rocky saga by imagining a modern-day version of Sylvester Stallone's original underdog, and now Vogt-Roberts has revitalized King Kong by successfully re-creating the same cocktail of danger, surprise and wonderment that made the 1933 film a landmark. K:SI provides a convincing demonstration that the endless internet complaining about reboots and remakes misses the point entirely. With talent, taste and imagination, even the oldest story becomes new again. Highly recommended.