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Jun 23, 2023 · Skull Island is an animated adventure series and sequel to the 2017 movie Kong: Skull Island, but prequel to Godzilla vs. Kong. The series is produced by Legendary Television, with Brad Graeber, Jen Chambers, Brian Duffield, Jacob Robinson, and Thomas Tull listed as the executive producers. Brian Duffield is also the writer of the series.
- Senior Writer
- 2024
- 2 min
Apr 21, 2024 · Still, the success of Skull Island is difficult to ignore. Critics gave the show an 82% score on the Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer, and the audience score is 77% positive with an average score of 4.1 out of 5. With critical and audience praise, the show can still recover and secure confirmation, should Netflix see that Godzilla x Kong 's release ...
Apr 20, 2024 · The show must explore what happened to Skull Island and its changes. ... there would be no one better to use for that exploration than James ... The Netflix series avoids a mistake made by the ...
- King Kong meets Jonny Quest in a Netflix series without any original ideas.
- Who is your favorite MonsterVerse Titan?
- MonsterVerse: Every Major Monster
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- Skull Island Review
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By Samantha Nelson
Updated: Jun 23, 2023 3:20 pm
Posted: Jun 23, 2023 3:11 pm
Skull Island, Netflix’s animated sequel to Kong: Skull Island, tries to expand on the film’s pulp roots by splicing in elements of Hanna-Barbera’s classic kiddie-adventure franchise Jonny Quest, with decidedly underwhelming results. Characters weren’t the film’s strong suit, and even with more time for development, the series’ band of castaways still lack personality. That makes it hard to care about their fates as they face threats recycled from John Goodman and Brie Larson’s 2017 encounter with a Titan (to use the vernacular of Legendary Pictures and Warner Bros.’ MonsterVerse).
Skull Island follows Charlie (Nicolas Cantu), a dull teenage-boy archetype eager to go to college so he won’t have to keep tagging along with his dad, Cap (Benjamin Bratt), on his fruitless cryptid-hunting excursions. Cantu’s performance recalls Jack DeSena’s as Sokka in Avatar: The Last Airbender, but the writing isn’t good enough to make Charlie funny, beyond the one-note schtick of a guy exasperated by all the weird stuff going on around him.
Cap, meanwhile, has the exact same motivation as Goodman’s character in Kong: Skull Island, with both dedicating their lives to finding answers after encountering an unknown creature – but Bratt’s flat delivery is no match for Goodman’s easy charm. He does, however, do a good job with the show’s thin exposition, explaining the Hollow Earth theory that drives 2021’s Godzilla vs. Kong – the most recent MonsterVerse feature – as “no lava, only monsters.”
When a map purchased from a GI who survived Kong: Skull Island leads Cap and his crew to Kong’s home turf, they’re attacked by a giant squid and left stranded along with a heavily-armed expedition led by Irene (Betty Gilpin), an ultra-wealthy botanist with a deeply personal agenda. The GLOW and Mrs. Davis star brings some depth to Irene, particularly when she’s matter-of-factly menacing, but the character is sunk by poor dialogue and a lack of a compelling sparring partner in Bratt.
Creature design is the show’s strongest suit, but most of the ideas are taken straight from Kong: Skull Island. There’s a skullcrawler, another tree that turns out to be covered with small monsters, and a bamboo spider in place of the giant stick bug. Even the giant squid-like creature that serves as the show’s main antagonist is a repeat of Kong’s calamari snack in the film. The beasts are well animated, and the battles feature some entertaining surprises like Charlie’s failed attempts at fighting with a sword.
Creature design is the show’s strongest suit.
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Kong receives a worthy adversary in the form of a sea monster, a massive jerk and a dirty fighter who at one hilarious point initiates a brawl by throwing a whale onto the island. Kong is also done well, particularly in a flashback episode that depicts his relationship with the people of Skull Island and the limits of his role as their protector. He’s the last of his kind, and the episode builds on this concept by showing his loneliness and the ways he’s attempted to fill the void.
Skull Island spends too much time trying and failing to make its human characters compelling – at the expense of its creatures. And while expendable characters dying violently in the maws of giant monsters fits in perfectly with the film’s Vietnam-movie tropes, it clashes fiercely with the show’s Saturday-morning cartoon vibe. It’s a disappointing addition to the MonsterVerse with too much padding getting in the way of the big fight everyone actually wants to see.
Skull Island tries to fuse Kong: Skull Island with Jonny Quest, but dull performances, weak writing, and retreads of fights from the film blunt the pulpy action. It just doesn’t feel worth spending eight episodes with thin characters to get to the inevitable conclusion.
Review scoring
mediocre
King Kong meets Jonny Quest in Netflix’s Skull Island, an animated MonsterVerse series without any original ideas
Samantha Nelson
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Jun 22, 2023 · 02:28. The MonsterVerse’s first venture into television through Netflix ’s Skull Island comes with a crew of original characters and a bold exploration of the namesake peninsula, which is home ...
- 2 min
Skull Island: Created by Brian Duffield. With Nicolas Cantu, Mae Whitman, Darren Barnet, Benjamin Bratt. A group of shipwrecked characters attempt to escape from an island inhabited by horrifying monsters, including the giant primate who rules the island: Kong.
Jun 22, 2023 · Skull Island Season 1 Review and Plot Summary. Ironically, Skull Island has a similar vibe to Camp Cretaceous. While the promotional material hints at a more serious adaptation, in reality, this animated series nestles itself in the family genre. The story has a real sense of togetherness, with a group of survivors battling the dangers of Skull ...
