When Peter Jackson, flush with post-Lord of the Rings clout, finally got to birth his pet project in 2005 with his King Kong remake, the result was a trifecta of well-deserved technical Oscars … and 187 punishing, interminable minutes of a mess, suggesting a director’s self-indulgence left unchecked. Now, the big ape returns — Kong, that is — in Kong: Skull Island, in which the unlikely guiding hand of The Kings of Summer director Jordan Vogt-Roberts shows Jackson how to monkey around properly. Vogt-Roberts’ film nails the effects and virtually everything else, at roughly two-thirds of the running time and $17 million less (unadjusted for inflation). Less is more, and infinitely more satisfying.

In 1973, satellite photos reveal an uncharted land mass encircled within a perpetual storm in the Pacific Ocean. Crackpot scientist Bill Randa (John Goodman, 10 Cloverfield Lane) pulls the necessary political strings to finagle a full military escort onto this so-called “Skull Island” for a fact-finding mission. Randa suspects what no one else does: There be monsters. Upon their unannounced arrival, the escorting U.S. Army troops, headed by Lt. Col. Packard (Samuel L. Jackson, Avengers: Age of Ultron), find this out the hard way: having their helicopters swatted from the sky — and, for most, to death below — by Kong’s prodigious paws. And Kong is hardly the only king-sized creature that calls this hellish locale home; Randa, Packard and the few survivors will encounter a spider, an octopus, lizards and more — all equally elephantine. It’s as if the entire isle has been stricken with Jurassic fever.

This action-fantasy seems to have taken more cues from that dino-mite franchise rather than any Kong entry before it. Bright and breakneck-paced, the film alternates between pulse-pounding and rib-tickling, barely letting up on one or the other in a winning bid to constantly entertain. If one ignores the final monster-vs.-monster battle, the movie also consistently surprises, admirably eschewing golden opportunities to milk the nostalgic teats of the 1933 original.

The movie’s weakest links are two of its top-billed visitors: ostensible leads Tom Hiddleston (Crimson Peak) and Brie Larson (Trainwreck) as, respectively, a hired-hand mercenary and an acclaimed war photographer. Barely registering, their characters have no character, which is strange considering Skull Island’s own Robinson Crusoe/Col. Kurtz (The Lobster’s John C. Reilly, stealing every damn scene) has personality oozing from every pore. —Rod Lott

My theory on the jaw-droppingly incompetent and almost literally unwatchable Beware! The Blob? Glad you asked, and it’s a simple one: Director Larry Hagman had to be off-his-ass drunk during the entirety of its making. In support, I offer this quartet of irrefutable points:
• Then between starring on the TV series I Dream of Jeannie and Dallas, Hagman never had directed a feature film before. (And never did again, and our world is all the better for it.)
• Several characters are portrayed as not only drinking adult beverages, but drinking too many of them. Overconsumption: It’s a theme.
• One of those characters is Hagman himself, who rather believably cameos (alongside an uncredited Burgess Meredith of Burnt Offerings) as an inebriated hobo.
• And in real life, Hagman was a notorious alcoholic who owned more than one liver. So, yeah, there’s that.

Whereas 1958’s The Blob creeps and leaps and glides and slides, Beware! The Blob just bores and snores and flails and pales, what with scenes of action dropped between interminable stretches of improvised dialogue. It is difficult to discern how seriously we are supposed to take its deafness of tone. This is not a sequel so much as an alternate personality, assuming the original Blob were schizophrenic.

Viewers of that sci-fi classic (and Steve McQueen launchpad) may recall it concluding with “THE END?” as the mighty U.S. military air-drops the killer mass of gelatin in the Arctic, where frozen-tundra temperatures keep it paralyzed and, in turn, from doing harm. Well, Beware! answers that question mark with an exclamation of disbelief as technician Chester (Godfrey Cambridge, Cotton Comes to Harlem) returns from work at the North Pole with a container of “specimen.” Too busy enjoying the tent inexplicably pitched in his living room and pouring many beers into a super-sized vase, Chester does not notice the blob immediately defrosting. It consumes a cute kitty before turning to much meatier humans, starting with poor, ignorant Chester and his poor, innocent wife (Marlene Clark, Ganja & Hess).

Other appetizers and entrees include a cop trying to bust two pot-smoking hippies (one of whom is Cindy Williams, a year before her breakout role in American Graffiti), a barber (Catskills comedian Shelley Berman, being not funny), a bowling alley worker (Fred Smoot, The Nine Lives of Fritz the Cat) and many a bowler (whose entertainment venue is linked all-too-conveniently to an ice rink). Despite all this mucilaginous mayhem, the film’s milquetoasted good guy (Robert Walker Jr., Easy Rider) and good girl (Fade to Black’s Gwynne Gilford, aka Chris Pine’s mom) have a tough time convincing the authorities to do something about it.

Can’t say I blame the sheriff (Richard Webb, Hillbillys in a Haunted House) for being that way; hell, after two pained viewings, I can’t even remember whether prominent cast members Carol Lynley (The Beasts Are on the Streets) and Dick Van Patten (Spaceballs) survive! However, I do remember that the latter portrays a scoutmaster with an unhealthy love for the mustard plant. I also remember that, wearing a fez in the bathtub, a Turkish man played by pro wrassler Tiger Joe Marsh manages to escape the blob’s oozing fury, but does have to run naked down the street to do so. As with Beware! The Blob as a whole, you can’t unsee it, so it’s best not to look at all. —Rod Lott

Get it at Amazon.