The extras are solid and deserve high marks not only for the modest but interesting making-of featurettes but also for the director’s commentary track, an endangered species in recent years. Occasional bits of harshness did intrude, particularly where loud action effects compete with a music track that mixes conventional underscoring and pop music, but it was rare. (The Dolby Atmos track only plays if manually selected.) The sound was consistently excellent, with powerful bass and active surrounds, not only in the action scenes but in quieter moments as well, adding to the tension and constant threat of instant death from something nasty hiding in the bush-or part of the bush. I listened in 5.1-channel DTS-HD Master Audio. (A Blu-ray 3D edition is sold separately, converted from 2D but quite enjoyable.) The widescreen format is also used intelligently throughout, both in quieter scenes and in the film’s jaw-dropping action set pieces. Bright HDR highlights pop consistently, and the island’s jungle and mountain locations (much of the film was shot in Vietnam) are consistently striking. While most of the film takes place in daylight, several dark scenes critical to the story, particularly Packard’s final confrontation with Kong, are clearly rendered. And there are only the slightest swipes toward a beauty-and-the-beast subplot.Īnd the UHD Blu-ray gets it all. Only Yankee Stadium would have been big enough for such an event.

If you’re waiting for our heroes to capture Kong and transport him back to New York for a public showing, they never do. Together they fight their way to the rescue point, their journey slowed not only by an increasingly angry Kong (and even scarier beasties) but also by a now-Ahab-like Colonel Packard, obsessed with revenge for the deaths of his men.

On their way to join their scattered forces back together, they encounter natives, together with a slightly loony Army Air Corps pilot stranded on the island since his plane crashed there in World War II. Colonel Preston Packard, the head of the military contingent, and Bill Randa, the civilian in charge of the expedition. A few important characters manage to survive, led by Lt. In a flash, choppers are scattered in pieces across the island, along with most of their occupants.

Big enough to easily challenge the helicopters and crews. Big enough to squish all previous versions of the character under his big toe. If they’d brushed up on their old movies, they wouldn’t have been gobsmacked, and soon simply smacked, when they spot and engage with a really big ape. survey and mapping expedition, supported by an Army helicopter unit recently released from the wind-down of the Vietnam War, heads toward the previously unexplored Skull Island.

King kong sound effects