#JustaQuickiePlease: Kong: Skull Island Review

So, we tried to have a cinematic genius like Peter Jackson, make a good King Kong film, and failed. What do we do now?  I know! Let's have an indie comedy director, with two whole films to his name, try his hand at it.  What could possibly go wrong?   Umm...how about two hours of disappointment.  However, if Ray Harryhausen ever dabbled in CGI, this would be the film he would make, as the effects are the only star of this feature that actually delivers.   What, in essence, is the cast as Marvel's Avengers 2.5, this stellar cast should have brought us epic performances as enormous as a skyscraper-sized ape.  Instead, the acting is stale and disingenuous, riddled with poorly executed Bathos style humor meant to defuse tension but instead quickly becomes counterproductive in setting the right tone of tension needed.   Even when these behemoths battle, we don't really care who or what gets caught under foot, or tail for that matter, because the character development is so superficial, every portrayal feels undeniably stereotypical and predictable.  I will give some points to the writers for their attempt at a modern take on Moby Dick, making the King of Monsters Sam Jackson's white whale. Instead, his performance is so over the top, it borders on silly,  diluting any symbolism or merit.  There is a very cool end credits scene leading into a bigger universe, which now seems to be a moral imperative for any and all productions these days.  However, Godzilla was just slightly worse than this monster foray, so a clash of these titans, maybe more hype than horror.  2 out of 5 Kernels; Please let this be the last reboot of Mighty Joe's bigger cousin, or are we going to have a freshman film school student direct the next one and really kill the franchise.