Kong: Skull Island is a good film, but not a great film. And I’m not judging the film as a drama either, but as a monster flick. The problem lies in Colonel Pritchard’s motivation to kill King Kong. His line of action is important because it holds the main subplot of the film. Screw that up and you screw up the rest of the story. Therefore, Kong: Skull Island overall, came across as being a well-put-together but not a well-conceived movie.
A subplot is a line of action that supports the main plot of the film. It doesn’t have to be directly related to it, but will eventually coincide with it later on. Each character in the Kong: Skull Island have their own motivation which compels a line of action. But it’s Colonel Pritchard’s (Samuel L. Jackson) motivation that creates an entire line of action in opposition to the one including Jason Conrad (Tom Hiddleston), Mason Weaver (Brie Larson) and Hank Marlow ( John C. Reilly). They want to get off the island by reaching a rendezvous point while Pritchard wants to risk missing it so that they can kill Kong.
So what’s with the Colonel? Early in the film, we learn that Colonel Pritchard’s is about to be taken off duty, but clearly doesn’t want to go home. He’s lost a lot of men and it weighs heavily on him. He looks at his medal and mutters, “All this, and for what?” So when he gets the call to go on one last mission, he’s happy to oblige. It doesn’t even occur to him that his soldiers desperately want to go back home. The year is 1973. It’s Vietnam. We’ve just spent several screen minutes delving into Pritchard’s soul and apparently that’s supposed to be enough to understand his obsession for killing King Kong later on in the film.
Specifically, Pritchard and his crew are assigned to provide military escort for Bill Randa (John Goodman) and two other researchers looking to prove that monsters exist. What better place than to do it at Skull Island, a place where “God didn’t finish creation. Where myth and science meet”? Even better, research shows that the ecosystem there is like none other in the world and could hold riches and cures like never seen before on the planet. Even even better, the Russian’s are going to find about Skull Island soon enough which means that Randa gets the funding and military escort he wants.
The mission is set into motion. Helicopters fly in and set off seismic bombs to map out the sub terrain of the island. This summons King Kong to destroy Prichard’s bombing crew before, unbeknownst to them, the vibrations release a subterranean creature capable of destroying the entire world including King Kong. Apparently, Kong protects everyone from this creature and that’s why he’s king of the place.
This set up, including Pritchard’s tiny monologue early on, leads to an undying obsession to kill King Kong. Pritchard sees his crew get destroyed, feels the rage and won’t let go until Kong is destroyed too. He’s even willing to risk getting stranded on the island to get this done. How stupid.
When Pritchard tells his men that he’s going to kill Kong, one of them tells a story about how he got the gun he’s carrying and how it amounted to the guy he stole it from not seeing the enemy until he was looking for him. I guess that means that vying for Kong’s death is a crock of shit. So, no one truly believes that killing Kong is a good idea except for Pritchard.
But in a film world where giant monsters exist, does it matter why the Colonel wants to kill one of them? I mean, how can you look for realism in a film like this? Well, any story requires a certain degree of plausibility. It is a literary work, so, yes, you’ve got to justify motivation. I don’t think Colonel’s Pritchard’s is justifiable.
First, King Kong is one big, motherfucking dinosaur from the past. Pritchard must have seen this. It’s hard to blame a dinosaur for killing your men. Isn’t it? Please don’t tell me that Kong just looks like a giant, furry man that he can relate to either. That’s just dumb. And I just don’t think the Vietnam could have affected Pritchard’s judgment so much that he goes all crazy and wants to kill a ginormous gorilla. He wasn’t a traumatized commander, just a disillusioned one. Nor do I think that King Kong’s massacre pushed him over the edge either. There just isn’t enough to convince me that Pritchard would go nuts and want to kill King Kong for what the giant beast did to his men.
At the risk of overanalyzing a b-plot foible, I have to say that, like it or not, Colonel Pritchard’s motivation to kill King Kong is simply bad form. It takes more than a few minutes of screen time to set up the right characterization to justify killing the big beast. This situation isn’t even close to Ahab and Moby Dick either. The motivation just doesn’t work and it’s hard not to notice. In fact, it’s a let down. We would have dismissed this plot device in the 80s, but in 2017, we’re not okay with this anymore. And you don’t need more money, just a slight change in dialogue to fix it.
Just to be clear, without Pritchard’s obsession, the Kong plot falls apart. It’s not even as interesting. We need some conflict and I really think it’s cool to see a guy lose it and think it’s his mission to kill a HUGE gorilla from the past. It’s funky. It’s wild. It’s crazy. I’d keep it in. But it’s got to be done right because it has such a huge impact on the film.
It’s pretty simple actually because you don’t have to justify him going insane during Vietnam. I don’t mean batshit-crazy insane, just really-bad-judgment insane. I mean, if you met King Kong, you’d be a little nuts too. Truth be told, everyone on the expedition should be antsy, but that’s too much energy for the film. So, they subdue it enough to normalize it.
So the fix could be this: The line “All this, and for what?” could easily be replaced with “We’re not going down so easy.” I know it doesn’t sound like much, but it shows he’s defiant, not disillusioned. I mean, he’s being sent home and he’s fighting the end of the war as the enemy. Vietnam is unfinished business. The death of those men didn’t amount to much for him either. He’s got to go crazy from that. He’s got to be a man whose not fit for command. But it’s not the death of his men that should throw him off the edge, it’s the Vietnam war itself.
Hence, when Pritchard goes to Skull Island and watches his men get destroyed by King Kong, it causes him to freak out. There’s no eye contact necessary between man and beast, unless you’re inviting the usual feminist criticism. No, this guy has got to go crazy with not wanting to go home because he lost the war as well as just going nuts after having seen his men die. But he’s got to be crazy, not mad. That’s important.
If they indeed showed this in the film, then so be it. But it didn’t show up in my radar. I would have been better with the crazed commander not fit to be giving orders anymore.
Kong: Skull Island is a good movie, beautifully directed with stunning photography. The helicopter sequence at the start is the most memorable part of the film and one of the best military disaster sequences I’ve seen in a long time. If you like monster movies, you’ll like this one, but the plot is really nothing special. Just a safe story for some big bucks at the box office. Hence, the story needed some work, some quick fixes will give it a little more depth. Colonel Pritchard’s motivation problem, however, was the chief among them. – M
