I presumed Kong: Skull Island was a more-or-less-mindless monster movie but just yesterday, I found

I presumed Kong: Skull Island was a more-or-less-mindless monster movie but just yesterday, I found this playlist of US/UK/Vietnamese protest rock of the ‘60s/’70s marked as its soundtrack. Also, this gifset suggests that the banter indispensable to the genre includes zingy critiques of neocolonialism. Cool. Based on this evidence, I choose to imagine that the film unfolds like this (and look, if it’s NOT an anti-imperialist film with a f/f romance and Tom Hiddleston quoting Shakespeare, I’m not sure I want to know):Chambers Brothers - Time Has Come Today: Montage introducing our intrepid band, who have no place to stay. The Seismologist figures an uncharted island full of monsters can’t be harder than Harvard for a Black scientist circa ‘67. The blonde war photographer wants to stop photographing war; she has seen too much. The Biologist is THRILLED about the island full of undiscovered species (poor thing, little does she know.) And Tom Hiddleston, cast against type as the brawn rather than the brains of the expedition, is fleeing the traumas of a morally bankrupt war. Maybe here he can keep people from dying.Mặt Trời Đen: Further character-building and banter ensue. The Sinister Ambitions™ of John Goodman and Samuel L. Jackson (I am hazy on their roles in all this, honestly) are revealed. These Sinister Ambitions™ may even be in tension with each other, Goodman wanting to exhibit the megafauna and Jackson wanting to use them as a wrecking ball against a corrupt society maybe. Is the expedition foredoomed to be another colonialist venture or can our Intrepid Band pull a collective Jane Goodall and get it set aside for conservation and study? This thrilling drama of scientific integrity (stay with me here) continues with White Rabbit, which explores The Biologist’s divided sense of identity as an Asian-American scientist, now part of the Intrepid Band, between cultures, exhausted by standing up for her human and professional integrity, and hoping to find emotional solace and professional ammunition in Nature itself, in this part of this world that belonged to her parents, which is in many ways utterly strange to her. In this time, in this place, “logic and proportion / have fallen sloppy dead.” But she has Bechdel-Test-fulfilling solidarity with the War Photographer. Their banter is flirtatious. Long Cool Woman: For an illusory 15 minutes or so, all seems to be going well. The Biologist catalogues species. The War Photographer flirts with her. The Seismologist pines after The Biologist in vain, and tries in vain to interest Tom Hiddleston in these romantic entanglements (the latter is very busy observing strange tracks and spoor and traces, and also worrying about people dying.) Intimations of disaster are not lacking: Sinister Ambitions™ simmer in the background, and The Seismologist is puzzled by not finding unusual activity here. Surely, the reports he’s read suggested that there should be some cause for tremors of the earth, for catastrophic changes in the landscape. What could possibly cause such things, if not the earth itself???MONSTERS. Unnameable, unnamed things. “It’s not an earthquake!” cries The Seismologist as the earth shakes around them. The Biologist dives to save her samples. Motivated by the same white-hot clarity of purpose (doing science and not dying,) they run. Tom Hiddleston swears fluently in several languages. The War Photographer is bent on capturing the phenomenon of Kong on film. Tom Hiddleston, whose self-appointed mission is to have no one die, tells her how stupid this is while beating back the unnameable, unnamed things. When they’re both rescued by The Biologist and The Seismologist in the Jeep, the War Photographer catches her breath and tells Tom Hiddleston that she needs to take photographs, that people need to know, that sometimes recording violence is the only way of stopping it, the only way of even having a prayer of stopping it. Realizing how much she has revealed, she cuts herself off. “I know,” he says grimly. “You both could have gotten yourselves killed!” observes The Biologist indignantly. “And if you killed anything back there,” she adds for Hiddleston’s benefit, “I will murder you and say the gorilla did it.” “Right,” he says, without looking up from the first aid kit. C.C. Ryder: This upsetting experience has brought our Intrepid Band closer together. In exhausted but intimate near-silence they consume their modest rations. Parallel shots of the megafauna returning to their own nightly routines. “It – they – you aren’t badly hurt?” asks The Biologist of Tom Hiddleston in a small voice; he smiles wanly and shakes his head, accepting this for the semi-apology it is. Since The Seismologist cooked (and Hiddleston secured the camp/built the fire,) The Biologist and the War Photographer do the washing-up. All this proximity leads to making out, and once they’ve retired to a tent, The Seismologist glumly attempts to extract sympathy from Tom Hiddleston, but the latter seems remarkably cheered by this expression of human warmth and vulnerability. He says as much, and – giddy with adrenaline and loss of blood – gets carried away enough to quote Merchant of Venice, about love meaning to give and hazard all we have. The Seismologist remains glum.Brother: John C. Reilly materializes as a kind of Ben Gunn figure (apparently.) Through him, the Intrepid-but-Beleaguered Band learns that the island is inhabited. The Biologist is angry but unsurprised: when has such a detail ever mattered to a scientific expedition headed by a white man? The War Photographer is sputtering with indignation but also intent on documenting village life (consent being forthcoming.) The Seismologist gets down to working out enough gestural communication to figure out how these people cope with having megafauna that create earthquake-like conditions on a regular basis. Hiddleston gets more information from Ben Gunn. When Goodman and Jackson turn up with their crew (likewise seeking to refuel etc.,) Hiddleston proceeds to come down on them like the wroth of God for having Sinister Ambitions™ and callously endangering the people who live here… “And you signed a contract,” reminds John Goodman smugly, at which point Hiddleston decks him. This, although viscerally satisfying, leads to:Bad Moon Rising: Irreconcilable rupture between Goodman/Jackson and our Intrepid Band. The latter, grimly resolved, are now on the run from both the disturbed megafauna and the men of Sinister Ambitions™. Sequence in which our Intrepid Band and the Villagers Who Don’t Deserve Any Of This fight off monsters. Meanwhile, the Sinister Men make off with the Jeep (they having lost their own through hubris, of course.) It’s all kicking off. Kong is enraged. Other things are enraged. The village is safe (for now, again) but Tom Hiddleston’s goal of having no one die is hardly assured. The Biologist is practically weeping with desperation: the Sinister Men can’t be allowed to destroy these things, this place. The War Photographer attempts to comfort her by pointing out that she has all her samples, and she (WP) has taken photographs, so they can document and raise awareness… “And what if it isn’t enough?” wails the Biologist. This is unanswerable, of course, or too readily so. “There is another possibility,” says Tom Hiddleston. The Biologist cheers up. The Seismologist looks wary. The War Photographer is busy stroking The Biologist’s hair. Hiddleston unfolds his plan, which consists of getting the Men of Sinister Ambitions™ stranded on the island, to be killed by megafauna or weather or justly angry villagers, whichever agent of comeuppance arrives first. But this involves delaying their own departure to disable equipment. “Man,” says the Seismologist, “I thought your job was to get us out of danger.” Seeing Hiddleston’s face, he relents, observing cryptically: “He that diggeth a pit.” The War Photographer is recklessly committed to this plan on principle, and has lots of good trompe l’oeil ideas. The Biologist offers expert counsel on utilizing (and not damaging) specific habitats. The Seismologist, resigned to being the sensible one on this trip, volunteers to drive the Jeep (once they recapture it.)Run Through The Jungle: Triumphant final plan sequence! The Biologist directs megafauna using… scent traces (I’m not a scientist don’t look at me.) The War Photographer decoys the Men of Sinister Ambitions™. The full extent of Hiddleston’s rather terrifying wartime skill-set is revealed in wresting back the equipment from the Sinister Ambitions™ crew, while the Seismologist acts as sentry/ally/driver, sequentially. “Don’t worry,” says Hiddleston rather breathlessly when it’s all over, “I didn’t kill any of them.” “Man,” says the Seismologist, driving at speed, “you are insane.” “Quite possibly,” agrees Hiddleston. The War Photographer and Biologist are equally triumphant. The famous Fay Wray shot is reenacted here as alliance rather than exploitation. In Kong’s hand, they survey the kingdom that is rightfully his, lush and green, strange and wondrous, and now preserved. The War Photographer and Biologist kiss. From far, far below, the Seismologist honks the horn of the Jeep.We’ll Meet Again: Our Intrepid Band presents their carefully crafted narrative to the world. They’re very good at disarming the suspicions of authorities through an elaborate performance of naïveté on anything unrelated to their respective specialties. Uneasy in the unnatural comforts of a Hong Kong hotel, they end up crammed cozily into one room, sharing the large bottle of whisky that Hiddleston has acquired. The War Photographer and The Biologist pass out in each other’s arms. “Back to Harvard, then?” asks Hiddleston. “Guess so,” says the Seismologist. After a few moments, he adds: “Though I sometimes wonder if I wouldn’t be more use on the streets than in a lecture hall.” Hiddleston digests this. “Well,” he says, “if you ever need a bodyguard… let me know?” The Seismologist toasts him, and pours out another measure of whisky. -- source link
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