Review: Kong - Skull Island

In 2014, Legendary Pictures released their new take on the long-running Godzilla franchise. Expectations were extremely low, however, given the character's previous attempt from an American studio. Despite some middling reviews, Godzilla 2014 was met with decent fan reception. After learning the new King Kong reboot, Kong: Skull Island would share a continuity with Godzilla and also establish a new universe of connected films, my hope was firmly that the film could show the studio knew which problems to fix from Godzilla. The concern, though, was whether or not the movie would be able to stand up to its nearly century-long legacy.

Review: Kong - Skull Island

Kong: Skull Island takes place immediately following the conclusion of the Vietnam War--in fact, within a few minutes of the film's opening characters stop to watch President Nixon's announcement to end the war. John Randa, played by the excellent John Goodman, of the government agency Monarch gathers an expedition to chart the eponymous Skull Island, located in a dangerous area of the sea known for causing mass disappearances. The expedition, consisting of ex-SAS James Conrad, a Vietnam helicopter squadron, and an anti-war photojournalist travel to the storm-shrouded island and are quickly stranded after their squad is attacked by a colossal ape. The group have only a few days to reach their rendezvous before they're lost forever, but the island's prehistoric monsters complicate the mission.

The first element I noticed about the film, aside from its rich color palette and often jarring camera, is that the pacing seems like a direct response to that of Godzilla. Kong is introduced within a few minutes of the film and the crew are stranded on the island within half an hour. Skull Island wastes no time in introducing its large cast and multiple subplots, though many of the characters are extremely flat. That doesn't mean they're uninteresting, and in general with a film as simple as this the characters are often best served as being easily identifiable. Shea Whigham's character, for example, is always entertaining on-screen as a brash, though empty-headed, soldier with a love of weaponry.

Samuel Jackson's delivers a solid performance as Colonel Preston Packard, the head of the military squad. Packard is a war hawk, reluctant to leave Vietnam and eager at the chance to continue his mission if only as an escort to Randa's expedition. After Kong obliterates the helicopter squad, Packard loses himself with an obsession to take down the giant ape. Despite the film being relatively shallow, I appreciate that a human character in a monster movie can sufficiently complicate the plot without necessarily being an outright villain. His goals are murky, but still reasonable given his character.

The arguable protagonists Conrad and Mason, however, are not quite as instantly likable as Jackson's character. In fact, I'd argue they're some of the worst parts of the movie. Conrad, played by Tom Hiddleston, is a completely bland gruff ex-military man who spends most of his time scowling and just following Mason around. Mason--played by Joseph Gordon-Levitt stand-in Brie Larson--is easily the most irritating character in the movie and possibly one of my biggest negative marks against it. Her character is focused entirely on exposing the military but instead she just comes off as one-note and grates on the viewer. I wish I knew this was the director's intent, but given how close Mason grows to Kong in their brief encounters I'd wager it's the opposite.

Kong, as one would guess, is easily the most likable character in the entire film. Unlike Godzilla in his recent American film, Kong appears frequently and participates in many of the film's major plot points. Ironically, the only big action scene he's not involved in is so bad that it's nearly unwatchable--I suppose it's necessary given it's one of the few times the human characters are thrown into a large conflict, but the scene itself is shot extremely poorly and looks cheap. Kong himself does not look cheap at all; in fact, of all the CG monkeys in the world of film, Kong is easily the best-looking.

His body is covered in detailed scars and every inch of his body is covered in moving hair, and his movements and actions carry a great deal of weight. I can see a fight with Kong and Godzilla being more of an even match given Kong's acrobatics, but unlike Godzilla he is wounded easily. As it turns out, an entire subplot is dedicated to Kong recovering from his wounds after the helicopter attack and it makes the monster feel more vulnerable as a result. Godzilla, while being imposing and incredible to watch, likely had to have his screen-time reduced because he was just such an unstoppable force of nature in the recent Godzilla film.

The insistence on placing the humans in the way of every single encounter with the MUTO made them feel small and powerless, but at the end of the day nearly every human scene in Godzilla came off like filler. In Kong: Skull Island, the humans are actively involved with the plot given that they are all desperate to escape the island so the action comes to them, rather than them seeking out the monsters. The creatures of Skull Island are also incredibly well-designed, unique in their appearance while coming off as believable in the scope of the prehistoric nature of the island. Giant bison roam the landscape, but the forest is full of enormous insects and other fauna which just beg the world to be explored closer.

The exploration of the island is cut off with desperation when John C. Reilly's character is introduced. Marlow was lost at sea during World War II, crash-landing on Skull Island with a Japanese fighter pilot and forced to survive with the natives. The natives, for their part, are portrayed as noble and peaceful, giving the movie a humane touch. Marlow is goofy and aloof as expected of a character played by Reilly, and he even sports a leather coat emblazoned with what I can only assume is a reference to his popular Steve Brule character. On a side note, not only is Steve Brule referenced but a certain famous line from Jurassic Park is shouted almost verbatim by its original speaker, Sam Jackson. I'd have liked the film to contain more irreverent references like these, but sadly these are the only two that jumped out at me during my first viewing. I say first because you can bet I'm going to see it again.

Marlow creates a great contrast to the expedition and the banter between them is humorous, especially since Marlow has been separated from society for nearly a quarter of a decade. When push comes to shove, the character changes gears to a much more serious attitude and the viewer can really get a sense that Marlow has seen the worst the island has to offer. When he's giving the crew exposition, it doesn't feel unnecessary or forced because it's necessary information which he gained from experience. To say he steals the show is a fair criticism, but given how boring many of the other main characters are it's a nice change of pace. He's also the first and last character to be seen in the film, so to have him reappear and take over never feels like his character is shoehorned into the script.

What does feel shoehorned is the obnoxious action shots which utterly destroy the otherwise excellent pace of the movie. You know that annoying shot every single 3D movie used when a character would throw something? That same type of shot appears multiple times, and since so much of the budget was spent on Kong and the island's monsters all but one of the human action scenes look like a cheap pile of crap. I don't know how a script with John C. Reilly butchering pterodactyls with a katana could possibly translate to an incoherent mess, but Kong: Skull Island manages to pull it off. There's a shot that's so bad during this one scene that I really can't do it justice by describing it, but I'm sure you'll recoil the same way I did when it finally comes up. There's also an egregious use of first-person video game camera angles interspersed only a couple of times, and it's both so ugly and used so few times that it's completely jarring. I don't understand what these camera shots are even doing in the movie and their inclusion only hurts the overall quality of the film. If someone knows why these shots are used at all and why the director didn't have someone violently tear this out of the film please call me. Please. I'm so lonely.

Aside from the question of Kong: Skull Island fixing the trove of pacing issues with Godzilla, one of the major points of contention is whether or not this serves as a respectable King Kong movie. Don't get me wrong, the series is full to the brim with horrible schlock and I'd even argue the original King Kong is hilariously stupid at times, but given its importance in cinema I know that this statement damages my credibility as a critic. That said, King Kong is not a stranger to silly sequels and spinoffs, so unlike Godzilla this movie really didn't have a negative reputation to live up to. A bad King Kong movie isn't going to destroy any possibility of a foreign movie firm permanently locking up their characters, so to be completely honest I wasn't too concerned with the movie living up to any standards.

That said, the film doesn't actually borrow too heavily from its lineage in obvious ways. A very short scene features Kong violently fighting a giant octopus in a fitting nod to King Kong VS Godzilla and the iconic scene with Kong and a human woman is played with in an interesting form, but the main influences, as the director is extremely forthcoming with, is in war movies--especially Francis Ford Coppola's astounding Apocalypse Now. The shot composition works very well and the influence can be seen clearly, but thankfully the tone of the movie actually compliments the setting and characters.

One obvious benefit to the shift away from its lineage is in distancing the film from its previous entry, Peter Jackson's bloated fifty-hour epic from 2005. The two movies are so wildly different in both tone and approach to the subject matter that they feel like extremely distinct films, and while the previous movie was obviously made with more care and attention it's just so goddamn long and uninteresting that I can't see myself ever going back to it. On the other hand, Kong: Skull Island is fast, energetic, and full of humorous if not shallow characters. No characters feel miscast--like 2005 King Kong's Jack Black--and the story moves along briskly with hardly any filler. Does it stick to the plot of the original King Kong? No, not at all. Truth be told, I don't think it needs to either.

Verdict

Kong: Skull Island moves along at a brisk pace with tremendous action, though the budget is inconsistent and some action scenes look terrible. The characters are hit-or-miss and I can see others liking the characters I didn't, but a few of the actors--especially Brie Larson--are completely boring on screen. The movie wears its inspirations on its sleeves and doesn't shy away from gruesome violence, but on the flip side the film can become so gory that a discerning prude of a parent should probably consider that before taking their poor sheltered child to see it. For my part as a big kaiju fan I utterly adored this movie, and if you approach it knowing it can get cheap or weird then you'll have a great time. The ties to Legendary's MonsterVerse are very apparent and if this doesn't make you leap out of your chair in excitement for what's to come, I don't know what will.

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Subjective Objective's Complete Zelda Retrospective [Updated]

Over the month of February I undertook a task I thought impossible: review every single title in the Legend of Zelda series. Four Swords doesn't count, shut up. Despite some time constraints and more than a few grievances, I managed to get the entire ridiculous thing out on time. For the sake of convenience, I've compiled the whole retrospective in a handy list as a treat for readers who came to this blog late. Just click on the pictures below and dig in for my reviews!

The Legend of Zelda

Zelda II: The Adventure of Link

The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past

The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening

The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time

The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask

The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Seasons and Oracle of Ages

The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker

The Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap

The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess

The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass

The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks

The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword

The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds

The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

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Zelda Retrospective: The Legend of Zelda - A Link Between Worlds Review

Despite its overwhelming critical success, Skyward Sword saw a very firm rift in the Zelda fanbase. The messaging, though, was clear: there would be no critical consensus among fans and the game has still not dragged itself out of the realm of mediocrity. Things weren't looking so hot for Nintendo as a whole, who realized to their great horror that branding their new home console with an almost identical name to their existing hardware--and completely failing with its marketing--meant that the fate of their existing franchises was dire. Do they continue to release games on the console despite knowing it was on its way to fail entirely, or waste resources on games that their dedicated base might never see? On the flipside, the handheld 3DS was seeing a new surge of popularity after a similarly rocky launch--and with that popularity, Nintendo decided to revive a Zelda game which had been shelved for years. In 2013, with faith in the series at an all-time low, a new entry descended onto the unwashed masses: the world was finally given the official sequel to the masterpiece A Link to the Past.

Review: The Legend of Zelda - A Link Between Worlds

If Skyward Sword was Nintendo's arrogant failure to shake up the Zelda series unnecessarily, A Link Between Worlds would serve as both an apology and a desperate return to basics. With two years since the last game and four since the previous handheld Zelda, A Link Between Worlds had been highly anticipated not only because of the promise of a return to the classic Zelda format but also because an irregular amount of time had passed since the last traditionally-controlled game in the series. I don't just mean a traditional top-down game, either: if one were to go back and look at the games prior to the release of A Link Between Worlds, a disturbing trend begins to emerge which I frankly believe signifies Nintendo as a whole during this period.

From 2011, Skyward Sword required the Wii Motion Plus in order to carry out even the smallest of tasks--in my review, I heavily criticized its forced implementation even in unnecessary aspects like picking up and throwing items. Before Skyward Sword came the two DS Zelda games, Phantom Hourglass and Spirit Tracks. Despite the fact that these games could have been controlled with the console's buttons with room to spare, they're instead controlled by the stylus on the bottom touch screen of the handheld. And before that, the most widely-circulated version of Twilight Princess, the Wii port, was also controlled using the Wii Remote and forced players to shake the controller in place of a button. I should reiterate that even though I played the Gamecube version first, it's clear Nintendo wanted the Wii version to get into people's hands because they wouldn't have pushed back the game's release to coincide with the Wii's console launch.

Without including Twilight Princess, the last Zelda game created with traditional, non-gimmick control and presentation was another handheld title and a game which I now love with all my heart. Let me just remind you of this glorious beauty:

I wish I could liquify this game and inject it into my brain.

You read that correctly: with the sole exception of the rare, forgotten Gamecube port of Twilight Princess, the last traditional Zelda game before A Link Between Worlds was 2004's The Minish Cap. Aside from my unending love for the game, I feel it's necessary to discuss how Nintendo kind of went through a cycle of their own, testing out gameplay concepts which barely worked in the first place before circling around, even if unintentionally, to a game that wasn't even made by a Nintendo subsidiary.

A Link Between Worlds is nearly everything you'd want from a game following The Minish Cap, though for every improvement there's a small downside. Since the 3DS is swamped with buttons, players finally have enough buttons to control Link much in the same way as the 3D games in the series. For no reason at all the multitude of sword techniques introduced in The Minish Cap have been cut to offer an experience more closely resembling a mash-up of 3D Zelda and A Link to the Past, but in order to accomplish this the developers finally managed to give players a dedicated button for the shield while also allowing for two buttons to be used for quick-selecting items. For the first time in a handheld Zelda, the Roc's Feather and Cape items have been entirely removed and I feel that's the main reason the sword techniques were removed, but it still feels like wasted opportunity.

The other major criticism I'd give between the two is that while The Minish Cap creates a brand-new version of Hyrule for the players to explore, the Hyrule of A Link Between Worlds is literally the exact same as A Link to the Past. I don't suppose it's fair to criticize this harshly--after all, the Japanese title for the game is Triforce of the Gods 2 and sharing a world seems only natural--but it's annoying to know exactly where dungeons, villages, and caves are located. The developers had the foresight to shift some of these locations around in Hyrule, but it's not until Lorule that the game really takes on a life of its own.

Lorule fulfills a similar role to the Dark World in A Link to the Past, though a direct comparison would show just how different the two worlds really are. Lorule is actually populated with NPCs, unlike the Dark World, and every section of the world is divided by impassable canyons and sheer cliffs giving the kingdom a tense, foreboding atmosphere. The world can't be explored seamlessly, but as soon as Lorule is accessed it's possible for the player to explore almost all of it at once--given they find the fissures associated with the given area.

The fissures lead into the main gameplay hook: Link's new ability to merge into walls. I mentioned before that each major Zelda seems to carry at least two new innovations but they're not always implemented well; for instance, the wolf in Twilight Princess felt more like a crutch than an interesting gameplay mix-up. The core gameplay of A Link Between Worlds feels like a tighter Link to the Past, but the ability to merge into walls allows players to survey the usually top-down landscape using the Z-Axis--that is, the world can be explored with full attention to the 3D aspect of the environment. By scaling each area by the side, players can discover hidden cracks or secrets otherwise hidden by the perspective.

Additionally, players are given the ability to fast travel very early in the game with a nice little callback to the Oracle games, so if they choose the player can simply return to a warp point and constantly bash their head against a location until all the secrets are discovered. It's quick and allows the overworld to feel very approachable, but since it requires the player to discover fast travel through save points it gives a secondary objective to exploring every nook and cranny of the overworld.

The wall mechanic is an absolutely brilliant touch and I can't imagine playing a top-down Zelda without a similar mechanic going forward since it adds such a subtle layer to exploration. Exploration, in turn, makes its most triumphant return to the series since the likes of A Link to the Past and The Wind Waker. Unlike past games, items are no longer found in dungeons; instead, players are given the option to rent every single exploration item from Ravio, a mysterious character who forces Link to allow him to stay in Link's house. If the player falls in battle, Ravio's bird will come to collect all of the items Link has rented, and to get them back the player needs to revisit him and spend the rental fee again. This constitutes the second major innovation of the game, but I'm not quite as positive on it as I am with the wall mechanic.

Giving the player the ability to buy items otherwise found after spelunking an entire dungeon causes the items in A Link Between Worlds to feel undeserved, and part of me feels it cheapens the experience of players discovering the game world for themselves. A core component of the exploration aspects of The Legend of Zelda and A Link to the Past is solving the mystery of the item picked up in each dungeon. For example, finding the stepladder in The Legend of Zelda doesn't offer any immediate benefits, but since it appears whenever a player is near a body of whatever (which in turn will likely be in the same dungeon the raft is discovered) it's easy for a player to deduce where it can be used. This element of deductive reasoning is the key to giving the player a sense of fulfillment when using an item, and just giving away every single item with the exception of the sand rod at the very beginning of the game diminishes that sense of accomplishment.

The sand rod is the only item which becomes unlocked after finishing a specific dungeon in Lorule, and while its use is limited I'm glad that the developers decided to hold back on every surprise. This is really the only complaint I can think of when considering the item rental system because it does allow players a great deal of freedom when exploring; aside from the very first dungeon of the game and the dungeon which requires the sand rod, there's no specific order the player is required to tackle each dungeon. As a matter of fact, A Link Between Worlds goes a step even further than A Link to the Past by foregoing an order number on the world map--I do have a problem with this, but first I want to show what I mean by order numbers.

While not necessary, the dungeon order shown on the map represents the general difficulty of each dungeon.

Due to its completely open nature, the dungeons here can be approached in any order. This is reflected in its overworld, where the dungeons are not numbered. Don't give me shit, this is the best map I could find online.

It's probably clear what the problem is with allowing players to choose their destination, but in case it's not I'll just put it bluntly: throwing the player into Lorule and asking them to go where they want utterly decimates the difficulty curve. On the one hand, monsters roaming Lorule can take upwards to two or three hearts as soon as the player begins their journey, but after finding the blue mail this damage is reduced by half. Since the dungeons can be approached in any order, this means most players will make a beeline to the dungeon containing the blue mail and coast through Lorule. Each dungeon has to be balanced in a way that it won't feel the player is in over their heads, but at the same time the overworld begins more threatening than any past Zelda game.

As a remedy to the problem of the difficulty curve, the Lorule dungeons each contain items which increase Link's combat abilities. Three of the dungeons contain items which can upgrade the Master Sword while another reduces the amount of magic used by each item. Of course there are dungeons which grant a better shield and the blue mail, as well as one dungeon which allows Link to lift heavier objects. In short, the dungeons trade the ability to explore the world with outright benefits to Link's inherent abilities so the player can explore almost everything from the start of the game.

Item usage has been drastically overhauled; rather than bags for finite-use items, A Link Between Worlds ties everything to the returning magic meter--which, curiously, has been missing since The Wind Waker. As much as I'd like to find some pedantic reason to complain about this, I honestly feel like it's implemented in an intelligent way. The Ice and Fire Rods naturally consume more magic than anything else in the game while smaller objects like the Hookshot hardly affect the magic meter whatsoever. It also fits the frantic pace of the game; after entering Lorule, the player only sees a cutscene when rescuing a sage with the occasional brief appearance by Hilda, Lorule's counterpart to Zelda. As a side note, could we please have The Legend of Hilda in the future? I love her character.

All of Ravio's rental items can be bought, though rupee requirements to buy out each item is utterly ridiculous. As an example, the Rods can be bought for a staggering 1,200 rupees apiece while many of the returning Zelda items, like the bombs or Hookshot, cost 800. While I complained about the absurd prices in Phantom Hourglass and Spirit Tracks, I'm overjoyed to see that rupees are thrown at the player at a pace beyond anything the Zelda series has ever seen. By merely collecting every chest in the dungeons, players will almost definitely earn enough rupees by the third Lorule dungeon to permanently buy everything in Ravio's shop.

As an added feature, items bought fully can be taken to a creature called Mother Maiamai who will upgrade the items to gain added functionality. The bow can shoot three arrows at once, for example, while the Hookshot merely gains a faster shot. While it's easy enough for players to coast through the game on rental items, upgrading items through Mother Maiamai adds so many new options for the player that it would be foolish to not make an attempt at buying each item. There's also the benefit of not being worried about losing items if the player falls in combat, but the game is not difficult enough for that to be a big concern.

Hero mode returns from Skyward Sword and the HD remake of The Wind Waker, but like Skyward Sword it requires a completed playthrough before players can access it. I deeply love that this is reminiscent of the "second quest" feature of the original Zelda, but keep in mind the second quest could be tackled from the start. Hero mode should be included in all Zelda games from this point onward, but it shouldn't be hidden behind a completion requirement.

On one hand, I'm not so keen on the Maiamai collection side quest simply because it's the core side quest throughout the entire game, Master Sword upgrades notwithstanding. Mother Maiamai begs Link to find her missing children across Hyrule and Lorule, and since they're so small it can be difficult to find them when they're hidden along the landscape. In order to make collecting easier, the map is updated with the total amount of Maiamai babies in each of the game's main sections to allow players to gather the 100 baby Maiamai using a simple layout.

On the other hand, I don't mind the idea of this kind of collectathon since it's entirely optional and there are usually enough Maiamai just lying out in the open for the player to casually upgrade no less than three or four items throughout a playthrough. The issue I have is that tying all non-dungeon content to this one side quest causes Link to feel less involved with Hyrule in general; while Lorule feels far more lived-in and populated than the Dark World of A Link to the Past, there's less involvement since none of the side quests involve helping the characters around the world. In general, side quests in A Link Between Worlds are often connected to dungeon entrances or helping characters stuck in dungeons, so in terms of side content the player has to concentrate on the Maiamai collection and search for Pieces of Heart, some of which are hidden behind generic mini-games.

The main question I really have is if Nintendo really needed to make a sequel to A Link to the Past. That game had a very conclusive ending, and even though later games would use the Master Sword it never felt like the promise of the Master Sword resting for eternity was broken since A Link to the Past is the final game in its timeline to use the blade--well, unless you're counting the linked Oracle game, but you shouldn't. A Link Between Worlds shatters that promise for no real reason, and for that alone I think the story is a bit unnecessary. That aside, it's nice to return to the world and I appreciate seeing the Link to the Past designs after the general Ocarina of Time character designs began to seep into everything else--in particular, the return of the old Zora race made me happier than I thought was possible over something so small.  I didn't think I would like the graphical style and I'm still a bit torn over it, but in general I feel like the characters have a certain toyish look which fits the perspective.

More than that, the game simply feels great to play. A Link Between Worlds is the only Zelda game using 3D graphics to run at sixty frames per second; I'd have liked the framerate to be tighter as the occasional stuttering makes the game feel worse than it should, but it's mostly stable and the overall experience feels like a breath of fresh air after so many failed attempts at changing the formula. A return to basics was what the series needed, not a bloated story desperate for the player's attention. The spirit of exploration finally returns after a decade of being a side attraction to linear, narrative-focused action games; aside from the layout of Hyrule the world feels much different, especially after the player begins exploring the fissures into Lorule and charting out all the possibilities of their adventure.

Verdict

A Link Between Worlds is the perfect return to Zelda quality after years of the franchise hitting a prolonged slump. The world feels familiar, but enough has been changed that returning players will be surprised. Yuga is a fantastic villain and the plot serves just enough twists for the story to feel fresh, though it strays too close to familiar territory a few times. My only wish is that when the sequel inevitably comes around, it features a new world and a more intricate item rental system. Renting items feels more like an experiment for the developers than anything else, and for the most part it succeeds. None of that really matters though when, for the first time since The Wind Waker, the world is just dying to be explored. The tight and responsive gameplay adds to the terrific feeling of the game, and it serves up enough surprises to satisfy fans of A Link to the Past. For the first time in a decade, A Link Between Worlds made me instantly feel hopeful for the future of the series.

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