>>421 2nd part of my review:

So, Tom. I got the sense that the bar scene towards the start was added because otherwise, there was no clear reason for Conrad to be part of the expedition. There was nothing for the character to track, and no jungle survival skills shown that any of the other military characters couldn’t have shown too. But it really felt like many of Tom’s scenes were cut. He’s set up at the start to be a major character (including one Titantic-like shot on the ship to the island), but with what’s left, he’s at most a foil to SLJ and John C. Reilly’s characters.

And there must have been more of a relationship with Brie’s character originally. (When she’s coming to after an accident, he tells her “it’s me!” as if that were significant. A real jungle survivalist should have checked for vital signs and started doing CPR instead!)

Tom is OK in what was left of his character, but only OK. He looks great, of course, but has little more to do than stand and pose with his rifle, or walk or run with his rifle. The gas-mask samuri bit is pointless except as a cool visual – he’s not really protecting anyone or driving off the flying creatures. And he just doesn’t come off as alpha male enough to provide real conflict with either Sam Jackson or John Reilly’s characters. (I strongly suspect the reason the character is a Brit is that Tom couldn’t project the kind of overtly macho toughness that you’d see in an American Special Forces vet, for example.)

If it’s any consolation, Brie’s character is also pretty pointless except for the obligatory scenes with Kong. Pity, because much more also could have been done with her and the character’s POV as a questioning photographer. (I think some of the critics had to extrapolate pretty hard to find the themes they claimed to find in this.)

The best scene for Tom and Brie turned out to be the post-credits one. Tom got to show a little range, and one exchange was actually clever.

I’d say that at this point, unless a theater near you is still showing it in Imax or at least 3-D, don’t bother going unless you really, really like monster movies. (I saw it in regular 2-D and Kong and the monsters just weren’t all that impressive.) I probably will rent the DVD from my library just to see the deleted scenes, and to see if any of the extra features explain why JVR or the studio decided what they did. They certainly didn’t end up with a “kind of movie we loved as kids” like Raiders or Star Wars, which is what they apparently sold to Tom.