It doesn’t flagrantly retread the original (in fact, some of its ideas – the storm surrounding the island and mapping it with seismic charges – were so interesting they were reused in Skull Island), but instead introduces a somewhat nibbling commentary on the oil industry, with corporation Petrox the ones heading to Skull Island, and early on looks great – the way the location shooting is handled is miles ahead of their contemporaries (one intense zoom-out is one of the best shots in all of all Kong movies).īut the moment Jeff Bridges and co. King Kong Lives (1986) – The Belated Sequel To The Terrible Remakeįor the first forty minutes or so, the 1976 remake feels like it’s going to be an at worst interesting exercise. With a MonsterVerse in the making, this a version of the monster we’ve got for the next few years, but is it the best? Let's go through the murky history of King Kong movies and find out. It’s no less important a Kong movie, however, with the monster here set to take on the King of Monsters in 2020’s Godzilla vs. The latest outing, Kong: Skull Island, is making its way into cinemas now and diverges heavily from that narrative, with just a few sly references peppered throughout.
There he breaks his chains and runs amok before climbing to the top of the then-highest building, ultimately killed by gunfire (but set on his fate by love). An American team comes along, the ape falls in love with their female member, and he’s captured and taken to New York. The conventional Kong story, as laid out in the original, is that Kong lives on Skull Island (although the island wasn’t given that name on film until the 2005 remake) where he is worshipped by the natives and kept at bay with a giant, ancient wall. Although the giant ape of Skull Island is best remembered for his fateful stop-motion showdown with biplanes atop the Empire State Building, the eighth wonder of the world has lived long beyond his first tangle with beauty – there's been remakes, regional translations and some sequels that are best left forgotten.
King kong movie movie#
Schoedsack created the great American movie monster: King Kong.