Kong: Skull Island

Kong: Skull Island is a reboot of the King Kong franchise and serves as the second installment of Legendary's MonsterVerse that started with 2014s Godzilla. Taking place in the 1970s, near the end of the Vietnam War and about forty years before the events of the 2014 Godzilla, the film sees a small  band of US soldiers and scientists exploring Skull Island only to be attacked by King Kong and must now try to survive in an island filled with creatures of various sizes that could kill them. The film is a fun example of a b-movie esque monster film where most of the screen is filled with monsters fighting each other and the human survivors just trying to survive. Skull Island does a great job in being its own film while also making great references to what the MonsterVerse has done before and what will do in the future. Kong in this version is way bigger than other iterations, being as big as a mountain, but also being seen less as a dumb monster breaking everything and more of protector of Skull Island with a purpose. While some of the human characters are at times forgettable, bland, and even stereotypical, the performances of actors like Samuel L, Jackson, Brie Larson, John Goodman, and Tom Hiddleston were great with John C. Reilly giving the movie most of its humor. One of the biggest changes this movie makes to the Kong mythology is the creatures throughout the island are more fantastical rather than ordinary dinosaurs which is a great change of pace so as to connect more to the type of creatures you saw throughout the Godzilla films. Something that's very grating is how short the scenes are between the big monster fights and thus can feel tiring. Over all: 85%
2017 top list so far:
1. Logan
2. The Lego Batman Movie
3. Kong: Skull Island
4. Split