It makes sense that a new take onKing Kongwould come out in the wake ofGareth Edwards’Godzilla. In terms of tone and style, Edwards’Godzillarewrote the book for many monster movies. The stress was no long merely on the size of the creature and the vibrant bedlam - orange fire reaching up to the heavens, 30-story buildings collapsing into wreckage and dust - that it enacted in search for whatever beast or element it required. Edwards instead seemed to seek out grace and god-like astonishment at his creatures, and in calibrating his visions, the director at once confronted the real death toll from a monster attack and the existential indifference to those deaths in contrast to the arrival of something like a god on Earth.
Even in the first trailer forKong: Skull Island, it was clear that directorJordan Vogt-Robertshad picked up on a few of Edwards' tricks, which theRogue Onehelmer had honed while working onMonsters, his debut work. There’s a clear focus on how someone might see the beast shrouded by surrounding destruction and nature in the early trailers as well as the latest TV spot for the film, which you can take a look at below. Vogt-Roberts has also seemingly added another promising element to his visual palette in his bewitching use of color. The one thing that plagued Edwards’Godzillawas it’s largely monochromatic aesthetic and Vogt-Roberts has seemingly learned from that. The world ofKong: Skull Islandlooks like a joy to simply explore visually, which helps out in movies when scripts hit a rough patch of exposition or any dialogue-heavy scene really. There’s no telling how the script will turn out from what the trailers unveil but from the look of things overall,Kong: Skull Islandcould be as mesmerizing in its way asGodzilla.
Watch the new TV spot forKong: Skull Islandabove. Here’s the official logline forKong: Skull Island:
Warner Bros. Pictures and Legendary Pictures’ “Kong: Skull Island” reimagines the origin of the mythic Kong in a compelling, original adventure from director Jordan Vogt-Roberts (“The Kings of Summer”).
In the film, a diverse team of explorers is brought together to venture deep into an uncharted island in the Pacific – as beautiful as it is treacherous – unaware that they’re crossing into the domain of the mythic Kong.
