I went into Kong: Skull Island completely blind. I had no idea that this movie was in anyway connected to Legendary Pictures’ “Monsterverse”, or the recent Godzilla (2014), nor did I realize such a shared universe even existed before watching this movie. Kong: Skull Island is leaps and bounds ahead of the 2014 Godzilla movie. The film differentiates itself by having relatable characters, an A-List cast, and suitably epic monster battles while also having its titular Monster show up for more than ten minutes of the movie. While I was surprised at how much I liked Kong: Skull Island, the film is not without its flaws, namely a lack of character development and an overabundance of characters and subplots.

Image Via: Heroic Hollywood

For all the hubbub about this film being a horror movie by Guillermo del Toro this movie was a disappointment; not awful just disappointing. If you, as I did, go into this movie expecting a horror film then you will be sorely mistaken. The movie is a mystery romance thriller, with light horror elements interspersed. That in itself is fine, except that the trailer (below) is misleading. For instance, the trailer for The Grey turned out to be terribly misleading, but the film itself was fantastic. Sadly that is not the case here. Crimson Peak happens to be a gorgeous film with attractive, impeccably dressed actors, brilliant settings but unfortunately its undermined by its predictable plot and plodding pacing.