There are certain things about this movie that people will simply not like. The script isn't exactly the best thing here, and it's just plot points strung together. The dialogue is more focused on exactly three things; exposition, humor, and "cool monologues." The character development is more like undeveloped characters. The social commentary it does have are simply presented to us in this story, but not completely explored. The Michael Bay style of quick cut editing are going to annoy many. With all that said, if you are looking for a simply told action-adventure monster movie, that doesn't really aspire to be more than just an action-adventure monster movie, then you may have come to the right place.
Simple premise and characters aside, I thought this was very entertaining to watch. This story of a motley crew of people exploring and trying to survive in a mysterious island, that has a very prominent giant ape that's the size of a building, that's fighting other giant monsters, or helping other giant monsters, is like the kind of premise you would find in a low budget gonzo B-movie monster flick, in some geek's fan-fiction, or in the imagination of an 8 year old boy. If you can accept that spirit of this movie, then you should have a fun time with it. Yes it can be accused for being a bit too shallow of a film, but I honestly thought it gave me enough depth to care about what's going on.
Visually this movie is quite spectacular to look at, despite the aforementioned Michael Bay style editing by film editor Richard Pearson. Cinematographer Larry Fong gave us some excellent eye-candies of camera shots and angles here, from amazing close ups of faces, fantastic use of reflections, to incredible vistas. The CG work by Industrial Light & Magic, Hybride, Rodeo FX, and the rest, are also phenomenal and deserves a lot of credit for bringing the monsters and the island to life. The action sequences wouldn't be as good as they are without these visual effects teams.
Despite the obvious negatives that this movie has, there are three takeaways from seeing this. King Kong is awesome to see being this huge, John C Reilly is always entertaining to watch, and expect more monster on monster action to come in the near future.
lovedit ENJOYED IT itsokayitsmehitsterrible
