Weekly Kaiju Movie Thread #37 (01/20)

[MekaGojira3k]

[klen7]

[MekaGojira3k]

Son of Kong is the winner.

POOR HALF HUMAN :/

[Alpha OTS]

[MekaGojira3k]

Guess it's official.

[MouthForWar]

Dr. Stewart denies possibility!

[Alpha OTS]

I'm watching Godzilla 2000 now, and I *really* want to watch Gamera vs Barugon, which I will get to, but for some reason I *had* to watch Son of Kong first. I think its a mix of me not really remembering it, Ray Harryhausen routinely slamming it in his movie extras I've watched lately, and some chatter here about it.


"You'll never catch a monkey that way."
"Did you ever catch a monkey?"
"Did *I* ever catch.... Lady, you'd be suprised."

It starts out promising enough as a true sequel with Carl Denham dealing with the multiple lawsuit repercussions of bringing Kong to America, and being pretty much ruined in the process. So he fleas with the ship captain, who is in a similar bind, before a grand jury can indict him. Both actors reprising their roles from King Kong, which I'm sure was a selling point when this was released.


Petersen's Famous International Show featuring the Musical Monkeys! But make sure you stay to see the Sagacious Seals!

It's about 40 minutes in until the main cast arrives at Skull Island, and three minutes later until we see any monsters, namely the son of Kong himself. I actually didn't mind the length until the payoff here because the core cast is pleasant to watch and has some fun dialogue. The monkey show really did make me laugh.



The problem though is once they arrive at Skull Island, everything starts falling apart, almost literally. It starts out promising enough when the triceratops shows up. This is the only scene where it really feels like they've returned to *that* Skull Island that we remember, but it's pretty much over before it begins.

"Boy, look at him scrap! Just like his Old Man! "

So we get a pretty cool triceratops, and I'm expecting some type of jurassic battle to occur when son of Kong actually fights, but what do we get? A giant bear and a small blind wing-clipped dragon thing. Both of these battles are kind of underwhelming because they just spontaneously happen and have *absolutely* no connection to the story. The stop motion's ok, but my biggest gripe is that these creatures don't feel like they belong on Skull Island especially after seeing that great triceratops. The only other creature worth mentioning is a sea serpent which dispenses with the only unscrupulous member of the marooned cast.

But the *biggest* dissappointment is how quickly everything happens on Skull Island. They look for treasure and they immediately find treasure. An earthquake/typhoon/hurricane/whatever happens instantly thereafter and before you know it, Skull Island has been destroyed.

I enjoyed this well enough, but I can fully understand any scorn this movie receives. Skull Island deserved more respect. I can understand the Harryhausen criticisms, but I think the lack of quality stop motion bothered me more than the overly human qualities son of Kong displayed. Plus son of Kong's facial expressions pretty much follow with the tone of the movie up to that point.

[Reaper G]

[jellydonut25]

[king_ghidorah]

[MouthForWar]

I actually really like this movie, even if its a rushed kiddie flick.

But yeah, that's quite an ending. I like it in a weird way just because its a total "WTF"- I have a similar fascination with the ending of the Mole People.

[MekaGojira3k]

[MekaGojira3k]

I was going to take a bunch of screenshots, but meh this movie doesn't deserve em'.


This film is kind of bleah. I feel like if there were more Skull Island I'd like it a great deal more. I like the more comic tone, but the whole thing never does anything to make me love the movie.

I still like it better than the 76' film and King Kong Lives.