'Kong: Skull Island' review roundup: This monster mash is a total smash

Kong is king again.

Critics are hot on Kong: Skull Island, which is currently drawing an 82% on Rotten Tomatoes ahead of its wide release this weekend. The monster movie reboot goes into the heart of the jungle with a star-studded cast (including Tom Hiddleston and Brie Larson), and, according to reviews, returns with a rip-roaring adventure reminiscent of Apocalypse Now and Jurassic Park.

Find out exactly what the critics had to say about it below.

The Hollywood Reporter's Todd McCarthy praised Kong's execution of a familiar formula:

Mix King Kong with The Lost World, spike it with a bracing dash of Apocalypse Now and you've got Kong: Skull Island, in which Warner Bros. finally gets the effects-driven fantasy adventure formula right again after numerous misfires. This highly entertaining return of one of the cinema's most enduring giant beasts moves like crazy — the film feels more like 90 minutes than two hours — and achieves an ideal balance between wild action, throwaway humor, genre refreshment and, perhaps most impressively, a nonchalant awareness of its own modest importance in the bigger scheme of things; unlike most modern franchise blockbusters, it doesn't try to pummel you into submission.

Uproxx's Mike Ryan had "way too much fun" with Kong: Skull Island:

My biggest complaint about Kong: Skull Island is that it isn’t even more ridiculous. Just when you start to think it’s going there, it pulls in the reins for whatever reason. Even though this is a movie in which Tom Hiddleston fights monsters with a samurai sword and Brie Larson’s character is momentarily inside a dragon-looking thing’s esophagus, it still wants to make a statement about the atrocities of war. Which, look, is noble, but also feels a little out of place in a movie with a gas masked, sword-waving, slow motion Tom Hiddleston.

The New Yorker's Anthony Lane was a little more mixed with his praise:

As Packard’s helicopters near their target, punch through a “perpetual storm system” that girdles the island, and discover a paradise of unravished greenery, the movie lays out its credentials. There’s a tracker named Conrad (Tom Hiddleston) on board, who possesses “unique expertise in uncharted jungle terrain,” and, soon enough, we even encounter a Marlow (John C. Reilly). Plus, for good measure, a blaze of burning napalm. Got it? I’m frankly amazed that nobody brings along a bulldog named Kurtz. In short, what this movie yearns to be is a pop-culture “Apocalypse Now,” with the human foe removed, the political parable toned down, and the gonzo elements jacked up. The excellent news is that, for a while, that goal is met.

ScreenCrush's Matt Singer thought Kong was a good time, if not much more than that:

If Jackson’s Kong aspired to poetry, Kong: Skull Island wants to be the downmarket dime-novel version of the same story. And as dime-novel versions of this story go, it’s not terrible. This is a creature feature, plain and simple — and, at least on a visceral level, a satisfying one.

And The Guardian's Peter Bradshaw was the rare critic to pan Kong, awarding it just one star out of five:

This fantastically muddled and exasperatingly dull quasi-update of the King Kong story looks like a zestless mashup of Jurassic Park, Apocalypse Now and a few exotic visual borrowings from Miss Saigon. It gets nowhere near the elemental power of the original King Kong or indeed Peter Jackson’s game remake; it’s something Ed Wood Jr might have made with a trillion dollars to do what he liked with but minus the fun.

Kong: Skull Island lands in theaters March 10.