Skull Island Review

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.”

Rounding out the crew is Mike (Darren Barnet), who has no real defining traits beyond being Charlie’s buddy, and feral teen Annie (Mae Whitman), who spent a decade living on a different monster-infested island. She survived with the help of her loyal companion, an enormous,  spiky canine-like creature named Dog, a riff on Jonny Quest’s Bandit that changes a largely useless animal companion into the heroes’ most valuable asset. As Annie repeatedly explains the beast is not a pet, and Charlie’s awkward attempts to work with a giant creature who is largely indifferent to his survival delivers some of the show’s funnier moments.

Annie is by far the most entertaining character on the show, delivering deadpan and often ominous dialogue about the group’s circumstances. A fierce combatant with little knowledge of the world at large, she’s another echo of Avatar within Skull Island – in this case The Legend of Korra’s introduction to its titular protagonist. It’s admirable that Skull Island seems to have taken inspiration from one of the greatest works of action animation, but it lacks the character development that made Avatar’s big fights and quiet moments feel so meaningful

Annie’s a big improvement from Mike, who experiences a traumatic loss early in the show and seems to totally ignore it so he can just quickly get back to bantering with Charlie about girls. There’s no later cathartic event to indicate this was a shock response – the show just doesn’t really care about Mike.

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.

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.