At first glance, the
latest “King Kong” installment, Kong: Skull
Island can certainly look like another medium rare Sci-Fi adventure relying
on excessive action scenes to distract us from the fact there’s hardly any
storyline. Much to my surprise and pleasure, the film delivers much more than
that. Utilizing quality extreme close ups of Kong and Lieutenant Colonel
Packard, portrayed by Samuel L. Jackson, we get a firsthand glimpse at the
central conflict of the film. “Man is King!!” shouts Lieutenant Colonel Packard
in an attempt to establish his belief of dominance over the ruler of the
island.
Allow us to explore that statement and the underlying
theme. First off, what exactly is man the king of…especially in a place that is
clearly someone else’s territory? I guess Jackson’s character is referencing
the fact that humans are at the top of the food chain and are here to take what
they want from whomever they want when they want it. Perhaps this explains why
you can walk into numerous homes and restaurants and see stuffed deer, bulls,
and other animals killed for reasons other than the need to provide
nourishment. Early on in the film, we can somewhat identify with his desire to
take down the massive gorilla on account of how Kong takes out several of
Packard’s men and destroys all of their helicopters.
However, thanks to a brilliant character arc for a CGI
character with ZERO speaking roles, we find out the real reason Kong took down
the incoming army. That reason being protection of his home. We discover Kong protects the native people from large,
vicious, reptilian like creatures known as skullcrawlers. The presence of the
army would have possibly awakened the largest skullcrawler, one of several
responsible for the death of Kong’s ancestors. With this enlightenment, not
only are we able to understand why Kong took out the intruders, but we can even
empathize with him.
Despite being informed of Kong’s reasoning, Packard
insists on vengeance or perhaps dominance and vows to kill Kong. His
stubbornness leads to more deaths at the hands of one of the skullcrawlers
while the crew is on the verge of getting to the North end of the island to
escape to safety. The most interesting part about Packard’s desire to kill Kong
is how he ignores the fact that he and his men did indeed intrude onto someone
else’s territory. In America, we call that trespassing which is indeed a crime.
Also in America, we are rather gung ho about the “right to bear arms” and
defend ourselves. Yet, for some reason, Packard refuses to apply that knowledge
to the current situation.
In the final showdown, Packard is able to lure Kong into
a trap and is on the verge of killing him with a detonation device before he is
stopped by the rest of the members of the crew. The larger skullcrawler
awakens, and Packard prepares to set off the detonation before Kong kills him
and does battle with the reptile. After a vicious round of combat, Kong emerges
victorious and even rescues a crew member from drowning. This is a great way to
close the film because we see two important things. One is we get to see nature
remain intact as it was meant to be. Two, we get to see our protagonist exhibit
real emotional attachments we likely didn’t think he had when he first appears
on screen. Overall, Kong scores as a
quality illustration for allowing the natural order of the world to run its
course. Contrary to popular belief, man is not
king. Man is simply one of many species that must learn to coexist with all
the others.
