Kong: God of Skull Island

A fever dream version of a Hollywood blockbuster, with backstories and sub-plots stripped out so we can just watch celebrities get tossed around and CGI bit actors get maimed and eaten. A ton of fun that flies by and makes you realize how much leaner most monster movies can (and should) be. I notied the occasional awkward sound transition and watching a movie cut this way makes you realize the importance (or lack thereof -- maybe just presence of?) establishing "hero shots" -- seeing Brie Larson and Tom Hiddleston just as part of a scene without a close-up to let us know "this person is important" is kind of jarring but ultimately you kind of feel like King Kong as a result -- these are all just little faces, maybe not important, very likely waiting to get stepped on.

Empty headed blockbuster features performances by sponge brains or chunks of wood, has a plot that might-could been penned by your grumpy cat. Not to fear, hard working Maniac trims half the movie, resulting in pedal to the metal mayhem and a fair dose of nonsense.

Video - 1280 X 720p AVC. Almost every boring bit has been pitched into Kong's latrine, yet the jump shifts, dissolves, whatnot are all smooth and professional. As with most of Mr Maniac's work, the filesize is large and the video rendering excellent.

Audio - 160 kbps AC-3. 2 Channel stereo. No subs, ha ha. Dialogue mostly clear, and if you missed some line here of there, I can assure you, you ain't missed nothing. Explosions, screaming, howling, oh and Black Sabbath, too.

Narrative - Buckle up and hang tight! As far as being a coherent yarn, this is its own beast. Backstores are left out, the reasons for Goodman & Co presence is omitted, so the result is Kong, full throttle. What remains is an old B-film with no A-budget aspirations and pretensions. Loopholes, yeah, live with them.

Enjoyment - Wait, I'm still trying to catch my breath. This edit rockets, pounds, gallops with barely a lull. You want personal relationship drama, this ain't it. Some lost kid who needs rescuing? No way. Instead, this is Action Junction! Don't think about characters because they can't think. EVERYONE is either cardboard or caricature with an IQ lower than Alien 3 jailer, 85. The original is an ugly, stupid mess but Maniac makes it a wild guilty pleasure. If you can relate with your fellow primates (aside from in-laws), you will appreciate this.

This is a real pedal to the metal version of Kong Skull Island which barely stops for breath the whole runtime. There's no time set aside for any character development of the human cast but lets face it all we wanna see is Kong smash s**t up and thats what we get for a very brisk 65 minutes. I think these lightning paced edits work quite well for this type of film and you could certainly get through a few movies no problem on Movie Night with some of Maniac's economical edits. Some nice cuts in there too I particularly liked the intercutting of one of Kongs fights as John C Reilly relayed Kongs prowess to the island newcomers.