Godzilla vs Kong

The original King Kong vs Godzilla movie released in 1962 was the third in the original Godzilla franchise, and was credited for bringing the Godzilla name back into the limelight after several years away. The movie has the campy kaiju feel of the time that was also slightly associated with the name which left a lot of people having fond memories of it despite it not being anything that dramatic or grand. Both Godzilla and Kong have had a long track record of appearing in movies before and after this, yet this was the first movie to put them together to see which one would win in a fight. Years later, with the franchises renewed with a new Kong and a new Godzilla underneath Warner Brothers, another duel was going to be inevitable when it was revealed that they were doing a shared universe. Come 2021 and the final climatic battle between these two behemoths seems to have been strong enough to get people back into the cinemas to watch them battle it out. After Godzilla seems to attack an APEX Cybernetics base (a large company associated with their world), people start to fear that they will need protection against him, which coaxes them to use Kong, who has been monitored in an enclosed location by separate company, Monarch. Thinking that they need to travel to the hollow earth where Kong originally came from in order for him to gain the power to topple the other titan, former Monarch scientist, Nathan Lind (played by Alexander Skarsgård) plans to take a team down there, along with Kong, a young deaf girl named Jia (played by Kaylee Hottie) who Kong has a connection with, and her adoptive mother and Kong expert, Ilene Andrews (played by Rebecca Hall). As that is going on, Madison Russell (played again by Millie Bobbie Brown) decides to work with pod-caster and conspiracy theorist, Bernie (played by Brian Tyree Henry) and her friend, Josh (played by Julian Dennison) to sneak into the APEX facility to see what they are truly hiding as they suspect foul play from the CEO of Apex, Walter Simmons (played by Demián Bichir), while the team travel to hollow earth, which could be stopped when Godzilla comes to face off against Kong. For a basic action movie, this is perfectly acceptable and give you exactly what you’re expecting and nothing else. While it’s hard to ignore the obvious problems with this movie like its pathetic story and characters, along with its very shallow presentation and practically zero rewatch-ability factor outside of the main attraction, said combat is memorable enough to not make this film a complete waste of time.

The synopsis for this film should give a pretty clear idea exactly how this movie operates, as this plot is pathetically basic and not trying in the least to have any meaningful, depth, intrigue, or any sense of worth behind it. Versus movies have had a bit of a comeback in recent years, and some of them have tried to put in an actual narrative between the fighting so that people have more of a reason to care. This movie is absolutely not along the lines of something like Captain America: Civil War, but more along the lines of the older ones like Freddy vs Jason or Alien vs Predator, films that did try to weave some form of a plot around these battles but knew the only thing people cared about was these titular roles battling it out. Those movies had some cool fight scenes with familiar characters, but at the end of the day, they also feature terrible stories with annoying characters that only take time away from what people are actually looking for. This movie clearly doesn’t care about making an actual story because nobody is coming to watch that, they want to see these two familiar characters fight, and when they do, it is pretty cool and fun to watch. The movie is able to capture that goofily epic feeling that you want out of a movie like this, and thankfully unlike those other examples of cross-over movies, while the story written by Terry Rossio, Michael Dougherty and Zach Shields is extremely forgettable, it’s not really that painful or annoying to sit through (outside of the pod-caster side plot which is pretty pointless and features some pretty irritating characters), it’s really just a tool that separates the battles, which is not a bad thing as it would get tiring if it was nonstop all the way. While Godzilla and Kong films are known for their commentary and social allegories, this franchise knows it’s not going to waste its time on being smart in GODZILLA VS KONG. Director Adam Wingard was previously known for making low-budget horror movies like VHS, You’re Next, and the 2016 Blair Witch, and he does find a nice balance for this movie to operate on in terms of tone as previously the franchise was usually swaying between too stupid or too serious. While this movie lacks substance, its tone feels correct which can also be said for the script written by Eric Pearson and Max Borenstein, which is again pitiful from an investment level and never features anything effective from a serious or comedic standpoint, but at least rolls with the insanity of the premise and allows it to be bombastic and over-the-top.

The characters are treated exactly the same, being forgettable nameless individuals who only exist to either say inspirational or exposition stuff, or to be killed aimlessly in the fight scenes, there’s nothing to chew on for any of these roles. It’s not like any of these monsters movie (especially within this American batch) have been incredibly thrilling or engaging to watch (at least the ones that were left alive), but the other films at least try to put human characters in the lead and give them something to do whereas here, it could be argued that the director and writer forgot about them entirely and just threw in randomly-generated dialogue that relates to this plot for any of these people to say regardless of whether it makes sense or not, they mean that little. With that said, everybody seems to act it fine for what their given and probably the only human characters that leave any impact at all are Kaylee Hottie as the child with a connection to Kong and Rebecca Hall as her adoptive mother. Both at least have a believable mother daughter relationship, Rebecca Hall does a nice job going from a caring mother to a scientist, and the little girl’s connection with Kong and teaching him to sign to communicate is a nice touch. Everybody else is either incredibly annoying or useless. While most of the people with Kong like Alexander Skarsgård, Shun Oguri, and Eiza González are passably forgettable, the podcasting characters in the side-story are really annoying, pointless and feel like the real ones wasting time with some really stupid unfunny comedy. Millie Bobby Brown, Julian Dennison, and Brian Tyree Henry are good actors in other stuff, but they are really obnoxious here. Stuff done with Kong and Godzilla is at least not as predictable as you’d expect and while there’s nothing ground-breaking in terms of development or anything, anytime it shows them together, it’s at least cool to see them fight. Kong is positioned to be more of the sympathetic figure in this battle whilst Godzilla is more of the threat, and arguably Kong has more growth and change than any other person in this movie (although that’s not saying much), so it at least got that right.

People when they come into this movie know what they want to see, which is Kong fighting Godzilla and when they do, it is pretty cool, and the action is presented in a way that actually allows the audience to fully become engrossed within the moment without having to care about anything else. It’s like even the movie supports this because everything else is so mindless and useless; the effects aren’t phenomenal, but for what it’s doing, they are both expressive and move really nicely considering their sizes, the fights are shot very effectively by cinematographer Ben Seresin so that the moves can be seen easily (it’s not filled with sloppy quick edits), the hits and impacts have really weight to them so it really does feel like a true brawl which is absolutely needed for something like this, the couple fights they have are sprinkled throughout so it isn’t just held back until the end thankfully, and the fights have a nice fast pace to them, so they don’t get boring. It’s a movie where you are actively encouraged to not care about people during periods where these two fight, as both of their fights would feature thousands upon thousands of dead people, yet the movie really doesn’t care about that. The movie thankfully picks nice bright locations for these two to fight in (one in the ocean, and another great one in the neon-lit city of Hong Kong) and this gives each fight a unique presence and unique aspects to both of them fighting in these locations. These will definitely be the moments that people will re-watch online over and over again as they really are the highlights of the film, as they should be.

In a film created for a cinematic universe where the main focus is Godzilla vs Kong, what else would you really expect? If anyone is truly going into this expecting something deep, challenging, and complex, it’s absolutely not for you at all. But if you want to go into it just to see two kaiju monsters punch and claw at each other, you’ll get it and you’ll have a good time. The fight is definitely fun and cool to watch, but you can also just watch those scenes online and get the exact same results, just without a completely pointless story and characters attached to it. It’s hard to say which is worse in making a versus movie; trying to make a real movie with real characters and failing horribly at it, or not even trying with those elements, therefore making its purpose as an actual movie also just as pointless. This isn’t a movie you really need to see in the cinemas unless you just really want to see them fight on the big screen, but even so, the story and characters won’t be awful to sit through, they are just going to waste time. It depends how tolerate you are, but either way, this is a fun experience that will make you want to see who will come out on top. Check it out and see who the real king of the monsters is.