OT: Alien Covenant clip

The surprise is that “Skull Island” isn’t just 10 times as good as “Jurassic World”; it’s a rousing and smartly crafted primordial-beastie spectacular. The entire film takes place on Kong’s jungle island home (he doesn’t scale any skyscrapers — in New York or Dubai), and you could say that it’s more action-based and less ambitious than either of the “King Kong” remakes: the snarky, overblown, justly reviled 1976 knockoff or Peter Jackson’s good but still not good enough 2005 retread.

Yet in its jungle-stranded B-movie way, “Kong: Skull Island” may come closer in spirit to the wide-eyed amazement of the original than either of those remakes. That’s because it’s more casually willing to be its own thing. The 1933 version of “King Kong” is still definitive — the most awe-inspiring and emotionally transporting giant-monster movie ever made. Part of the problem with both remakes is that they were straining to live up to what could never be equaled. “Skull Island” is more modest, but by staying on Skull Island and updating the place, it takes you somewhere you haven’t been. The movie updates Kong, too — he’s a true savage and nobody’s sweetheart, and though he’s been brought to life by motion capture, it takes a while before his outsize “humanity” kicks in. But when it does, it feels earned, and you’re grateful to the movie for not milking it.