Kong: Skull Island is a lighthearted comedy about a group of mismatched friends who go on vacation to the tropical island paradise of Skull Island, to hang out and pal around with their friend Kong. When the Creedence Clearwater Revival playing from the helicopters proves to be a little too loud to Kong’s liking, a hilarious misunderstanding leads to Kong savagely killing about a dozen U.S servicemen. Hijinks!

If that opening plot-summary confused you, then I’ve done my job in conveying the conflicting tones in this movie. In all seriousness, this is a tough movie to review. It doesn’t quite know exactly what it wants to be. The simplest way to describe this movie would be 300 meets Mighty Joe Young. Even the trailers were confusing upon initial viewing, a by-the-numbers Monster Movie one minute, the next minute we’re laughing at John C. Reilly saying something silly. As it turns out, the actual film doesn’t prove to be much different. Part comedy, part Vietnam War flick, part King Kong, part Land of the Lost (which starred Will Ferrell, I’m starting to see a pattern here), part Avatar; Kong changes tones so often during the course of it’s 2-hour runtime that you’d think it was directed by 10 different people.

Traditionally, movies set up their premise by introducing us to the characters, giving us somewhat of an explanation for their motivations and cluing us in on what to expect from these characters. Kong: Skull Island wastes no time with that. There’s no real development to our characters, they just kind of…show up. There’s no explanation for why Kong exists, or why this tiny island with a limited ecosystem is home to hundreds of species of towering creatures outside of a rudimentary mention of a “perpetual storm” that envelops Skull Island. Thousands of years of being hidden from the world, hundreds of downed ships and planes surrounding it, and 15 minutes in, our heroes simply fly right through the storm with little trouble (apparently all you need is a gruff Samuel L. Jackson type to recall the story of Icarus while you fly through).

John Goodman plays…some guy, who heads a SETI-like organization called Monarch which believes that there are monsters on Skull Island, and pursues their discovery. He pesters a congressman, receives his blessing, and is provided with a fleet of soldiers who were juuuust on their way out the door in Vietnam. Naturally, everyone is super bummed out about this except for Samuel L. Jackson, who just loves killin’ (Krombopulous Michael, anyone?). Naturally, the group needs a Tracker, so two of them pursue the brow-furrowing expertise of Tom Hiddleston (Mr. Swift himself), whom they discover in a bar in Saigon. His introductory scene comes in the form of a classic Billiards Bet In A Bar Gone Wrong So They Attack Him But He’s Super Badass And Kicks Their Asses With A Pool Stick sequence that immediately ends as soon as John Goodman needs to talk to him. Apparently, former S.A.S soldiers have nothing better to do than beat the piss out of disenfranchised locals after hustling them in pool. John C. Reilly plays a World War 2 pilot who crash-landed on Skull Island 20-some odd years ago and has been living there ever since. Brie Larson tags along because she’s a photographer, and there are several other characters with about one sentence of introduction who are just…there. Look, it’s a movie about a 100 foot tall gorilla, everything else is about as interesting as a stranger trying to make small-talk with you at the urinal: it’s awkward, unnecessary, and you can hardly be bothered to pretend to give a shit.

Once in the vicinity of Skull Island, they immediately start dropping bombs, because this is a movie, and it wouldn’t feel right unless the Big Dumb Army Guys were needlessly destroying everything for no reason (apparently Hollywood thinks being in the service is basically just followin’ orders, bustin’ balls, constantly failing to listen to the Pencil-dicked scientists, and not takin’ no shit from nobody, including a giant monkey). This leads us to our first encounter with Kong, the main action scene on display in the trailers. This sequence is certainly the most fun to be had in the movie, as Kong destroys helicopters in inventive ways, and everyone is dumb enough to shoot at him because in movies, ARMY=just shoot at shit if you don’t understand what’s happening. Our protagonists are of course among the survivors, and from there the plot just kind of becomes a mess. There’s a society of humans living on the island who never speak and worship Kong (untouched for thousands of years?), there’s a subplot about one soldier who ended up on his own and needs rescuing, there’s an exit strategy that becomes conflicted when of course one half of the survivors want to do one thing and the others just want to promptly GTFO.

Kong’s main issues lie with it’s trying to have-it-all approach. It feels as though Director Jordan Vogt-Roberts had simply watched 20 or 30 of his favorite films leading up to this, and jotted down in a notebook “BIG EXPLOSION!! BOOM BOOM!” followed by something like “dramatic music, tender moments!“, followed by “snarky dialogue, LOTS OF CCR!”. Tonally, this film doesn’t know what the fuck it wants to be. Is it Step Brothers meets Pacific Rim, or Godzilla and Tropic Thunder? Who knows? All we know for sure is this movie had to be made to set up for the Monster Throwdown movie that’s coming. You can almost hear the exact moment the screenwriters threw down their pens and said “There’s your fuckin’ movie! Let’s get outta here and do some coke!”

It’s worth noting that Kong isn’t without it’s share of entertaining moments. John C. Reilly’s character in particlar is certainly the most likable, on account of how out-of-touch he is with the world, his seclusion, desperation for human contact, and penchant for delivering funny lines when you’re not expecting it (“You’re a great group of guys to die with! Haha, we’re gonna die! Heh, should’ve never come here!”). As for the big action set pieces, they vary from entertaining, to downright laughable. There’s a sequence in this movie where Tom Hiddleston’s character is thrown a katana, slips on a gas-mask, and proceeds in slow-motion-to-fast-motion-to-slow-motion to kill a handful of bird-monsters while surrounded by toxic gases (do the SAS learn how to swordfight as part of their training?). About 10 seconds later, whilst still standing in a cloud of deadly nerve gas, he removes his gas mask dramatically and furrows his brow (I told you that would come in handy!), completely unfazed by it’s presence.

At the end of the day, this movie accomplishes what it set out to do: be a big, dumb, monster movie to create the opportunity for a crossover or a sequel. The characters are mostly pointless, and since we’re never provided any reason to care, it’s tough to remain emotionally invested in the outcome of all the action sequences and carnage. As much as I dislike pretentious movies that focus too much on dialogue or character-building, we still need to be rooting for our heroes, not just shrugging off their deaths our outright bursting into laughter. When the only hero in this movie is a primate the size of the Sears Tower who can’t speak, you’re left with little else to do other than wait for the next big fight to happen, and when those fights just look like a bunch of actors running around in front of a green screen, it can be tough to care. I was also very disappointed that there wasn’t a scene in which Kong throws a 20 foot pile of gorilla shit.

You should see this movie if: You liked Platoon, Godzilla, Tropic Thunder, Pacific Rim, Step Brothers, Avatar, Mighty Joe Young, and Tarzan, but wished someone would play them all at once and was constantly blaring CCR.

You shouldn’t see this movie if: Questions like “How could a 20-story tall gorilla not immediately kill something half it’s size? A 150 pound chimp would fuck me up, you’re telling me this little Lizard piece of shit can go toe-to-toe with 300,000 tons of pure muscle?! Come on!” gnaw at you while watching movies, or you’re an annoying killjoy (welcome to the club).