Rhetoric Techniques In The Film Kong: Skull Island
Though I squirmed more than I care to admit because CRAWLY THINGS... a part of me has to admit that I did kinda, sorta like the devil-could-care bombast of Kong: Skull Island. In some ways, it's a classic old cinematic monster movie, all gussied up for a 2017 audience. In other ways, this thing is just bonkers - a bizarre, strange-tasting goulash of 1970's war cinema with obtuse and empty rhetoric, campy acting, odd moments of humor, rather jarring violence, and actors sputtering off in all different directions.
In short, Kong: Skull Island is an absolute mess and I think it likes it that way. Director Jordan Vogt-Roberts' second feature, following his 2013 indie dramedy The Kings of Summer, feels like the kind of movie one would make if someone …show more content…
A number of people are tossed into the expedition. There's James Conrad (Tom Hiddleston), a "tracker" who was former MI6 and now works as something of a "finder of things." Wartime photographer Mason Weaver (Brie Larson) stumbles into the fray and brings along her trusty black-and-white, point-and-click camera. There's the female biologist who begins to fall for the geologist (Jing Tian), and a ragtag mix of military pilots and soldiers who receive no real screen time to create any kind of character. They are recognizable actors saying cliched lines, dodging beasties, carrying weapons and trying to not become fertilizer for the Skull Island ecosystem.
Skull Island is a nasty, awful, horrible place. Largely because it has spiders taller than trees, ants that make a horrible whistling sound, and...just...let's talk about something else.
Oh right...there's also Kong. And because Vogt-Roberts does what you and I might do when told you have $190 million to make a monster movie, he turns the ape 100 FEET TALL! And he rules the island, keeping the brutal Skull Crawler raptor/lizard monster-things at bay and other grotesque beasts away which lurk in forests, around cliffs, and even in the water.
That octopus y'all. I
In short, Kong: Skull Island is an absolute mess and I think it likes it that way. Director Jordan Vogt-Roberts' second feature, following his 2013 indie dramedy The Kings of Summer, feels like the kind of movie one would make if someone …show more content…
A number of people are tossed into the expedition. There's James Conrad (Tom Hiddleston), a "tracker" who was former MI6 and now works as something of a "finder of things." Wartime photographer Mason Weaver (Brie Larson) stumbles into the fray and brings along her trusty black-and-white, point-and-click camera. There's the female biologist who begins to fall for the geologist (Jing Tian), and a ragtag mix of military pilots and soldiers who receive no real screen time to create any kind of character. They are recognizable actors saying cliched lines, dodging beasties, carrying weapons and trying to not become fertilizer for the Skull Island ecosystem.
Skull Island is a nasty, awful, horrible place. Largely because it has spiders taller than trees, ants that make a horrible whistling sound, and...just...let's talk about something else.
Oh right...there's also Kong. And because Vogt-Roberts does what you and I might do when told you have $190 million to make a monster movie, he turns the ape 100 FEET TALL! And he rules the island, keeping the brutal Skull Crawler raptor/lizard monster-things at bay and other grotesque beasts away which lurk in forests, around cliffs, and even in the water.
That octopus y'all. I