Mini movie review: Kong: Skull Island

I'm not going to lie to you: 2017 has been a rough year.  I mean, I have had it exceedingly easy compared to most people.  But I have been anxious/unhappy/frustrated/sad/angry under our country's current administration.  I have needed to escape in pop culture that has no connection with current events, the more fantastical the better.  That's how I found myself watching Kong: Skull Island the other day. 

I liked Peter Jackson's King Kong film, finding myself appreciating and connecting with Andy Serkis's Kong.  This iteration does not have that personal connection: Kong disappears from the screen for long periods of time and when he is onscreen, he is all rampaging warrior.  His posture is strange: upright, like a human; but there is no personality peering out of those big brown eyes this time.  Still, K:SI is hugely entertaining.  And as has been said, sometimes you don't know you needed to see a gas-mask-wearing Tom Hiddleston slicing mutant pterodactyls with a samurai sword until you see a gas-mask-wearing Tom Hiddleston slicing mutant pterodactyls with a samurai sword.  Escape accomplished.