Movies

Kong: Skull Island Trailer Delivers Glorious Giant Monster Action

By  · Published on November 17th, 2016

“Is that a monkey?”

Some monsters are introduced and go on to see entire film franchises built around them – big ones like Godzilla, small ones like Dracula – while others never quite make that transition. King Kong is one of the unlucky ones. The big hairy ape has seen a more than a few movies bearing his name, but they’ve been reboots and offshoots as opposed to parts of a growing world.

That changes next year with Kong: Skull Island. Director Jordan Vogt-Roberts’ film is a reintroduction for Kong that avoids the traditional origin – and subsequent trip to New York City – and instead stays focused on his existence on his home island. It’s a standalone adventure, but it’s already been established as a setup for a big-screen face-off between Kong and Godzilla in 2020.

But let’s not get ahead of ourselves.

We’re here to take a look at the new trailer and poster for next year’s big monster movie. Happily, both are fantastic.

Well this just looks massively entertaining.

It’s clearly more interested in action, laughs, and spectacle than anything resembling real drama, but with a cast that includes Tom Hiddleston, Samuel L. Jackson, John Goodman, John C. Reilly, Toby Kebbell, and Brie Larson (as a mute woman apparently?) that’s far from a negative.

Reilly’s all about the comedy here, but the action looks to be a fun mix of military hardware and a variety of monstrous threats. Clearly the studio felt no need to keep anything back and instead just packed this first full trailer with plenty of shots highlighting Kong and his fellow creatures. This is not a complaint by the way. This looks awesome.

The script has four names attached – Dan Gilroy (Nightcrawler), Max Borenstein (Godzilla), John Gatins (Summer Catch), and Derek Connolly (Jurassic World). Curiously, Connelly is also attached to the upcoming Pacific Rim sequel…

We’ll find out in a few months if this foursome have delivered something more than just an empty-headed romp, but even if it lacks smarts it can still be a hugely entertaining winner. Judging by this trailer – and inspired by this kick-ass poster – I’m thinking we’ll all be smiling come March.

Kong: Skull Island opens March 10th, 2017.

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Rob Hunter has been writing for Film School Rejects since before you were born, which is weird seeing as he's so damn young. He's our Chief Film Critic and Associate Editor and lists 'Broadcast News' as his favorite film of all time. Feel free to say hi if you see him on Twitter @FakeRobHunter.