"Kong: Skull Island: Cute Guys, Gay Subtexts, and Ludicrous Monsters

I have seen Kong: Skull Island (2017), a reboot of the King Kong mythos that takes place in an alternate world 1973: Nixon has just announced the end of the Vietnam War. Two scientists get permission to co-opt some returning soldiers to help them map a previously uncharted island in the South Pacific.

Well, "scientists."  One (Corey Hawkins) did his thesis on the Hollow Earth, and the other (John Goodman) is a bubbling cauldron of pseudoscience and conspiracy theories.

Also going along on the expedition to the Heart of Darkness:

1. Conrad (Tom or Tim Hiddleston, top photo)< a surly wilderness expert.
2. The Girl (Brie Larson)< a photojournalist.
3. Another Girl, who doesn't really do anything.

And the soldiers:
1. Packard (Samuel L. Jackson< the hard-driven, "let's kill the sucker" commander.
2.-4. The Three Guys (Jason Mitchell, Shea Wigham, left, Thomas Mann), who provide comic relief with their jokes and weird non-sequieters ("Key West isn't an island, it's an atoll.")

I expected a small military attache to the scientific expedition, but there are dozens more soldiers: they go in with an aircraft carrier and about a million helicopters.

They immediately encounter the 100-foot tall gorilla,and instead of backing off (save the ecosystem), they zoom in like pesky wasps.  Kong bats them away like pesky wasps.  When the smoke clears, all of the helicopters are down, and everyone is dead except for the main cast and a few redshirts who will be picked off later.   Still too many for any character development.

Especially since they need to make their way to the north side of the island, where they will be resuced in three days, and there are lots of ludicrous monsters to run from, including a giant spider, a giant ox masquerading as an island, and the things Kong is protecting the islanders fom, giant reptiles with skull heads (Kong's final battle with their leader seems to go on forever; that thing can't be killed0.

Someone please explain to me what these giant monsters eat?  There are herds of wild cattle, but a 100-foot gorilla would swallow them all in a few days.

Fortunately, they have help:  Marlow (yet another Heart of Darkness reference), who crash landed on the island during World War II, and has been living with the islanders (a scruffy bunch in Malay costumes, who are apparently telepathic and immortal).  He had a partner, Ikari, a Japanese pilot who crashed with him (played by Japanese pop star Miyagi), but Ikari has recently died (the grave is in Marlow's living room!).

Obvious gay-subtext.  They were partners for over 20 years.  .  There's lots of women among the islanders, so if they were so inclined, wouldn't they have married?  Marlow had a wife back home, but she thought he was dead and would certainly have moved on.  Maybe that's why Ikari doesn't appear: don't want the subtext to be too obvious.

And why there's a heteronormative epilogue in which Marlowe goes back to Chicago and reunites with his wife and son, who have apparently been sitting around waiting for him for 30 years)  The son  (Will Brittain) looks like a teenager, but he has to be pushing 40.

Plus:  Nobody falls in love. There are some glimmers of interest,  but nothing goes anywhere, which is a plus -- no fade-out kiss (except for Marlow and hisw wife).

Plus:  You know soldiers in movies talk about incessantly?  The Three Guys don't.  They have lengthy conversations about what they will do when they get home, but not a word about girls.  That's extremely rare, a breath of fresh air in both the military and the monster-movie genres..

Now, if only the movie weren't so darn boring.

My grade: B