‘Skull Island’ Review: A Kaiju Gift for All

Legendary Pictures has cracked the code on the next medium for expanding their Godzilla and King Kong-centric monster-verse: animation. Out of nowhere like a gift wrapped in silk and dropped from the sky by Mothra herself, Skull Island arrived on Netflix. With a Western anime aesthetic and a partnership with Powerhouse Animation, this cartoon pulls no punches and looks good doing it. Super self-aware, clever, and more witty than any animated action series needs to be, Skull Island delivers a nice Summer binge. Another One Skull Island picks up on the momentum of the cultural success of the Godzilla and Kong movies (five under Legendary Pictures, so far). If you’ve seen the movie Skull Island, that’s exactly where this takes place, thirty years in the future with an older Kong than in the movie; but younger than in Godzilla vs. Kong. The monster-verse is monster-verse-ing for real.

Hail to the Kong. (Powerhouse Animation, JP, Legendary Television 2023)

We come to Skull Island for two things: more monster verse lore and Kaiju fights! The fights do not disappoint! They aren’t as frequent early on, but once they get kicking, they go for it. The team on Skull Island indeed took their time with the scale and scope of the conflicts. They feel as visceral as the film versions, which can be difficult to capture in an episodic animated series – but they pull it off. Adding to the Kong mythos is wild after being around since 1933, but Skull Island manages to do it without making a hea…