GODZILLA VS. KONG REVIEW

 

GODZILLA VS. KONG REVIEW

 

Like so many life-long monster movie fans, I have been waiting to see a rematch between King Kong and Godzilla since I was a kid. It’s the epitome of giant monster movie clashes. The King of the Monsters versus the Eighth Wonder of the World. The most iconic Japanese kaiju versus the most iconic American kaiju. The East versus the West. Lizard versus monkey. And now, finally, it’s here, but did it deliver?

I can say, without a doubt, it was worth the wait.

I can also pretty safely say Godzilla vs. Kong is my new favourite out of the three MonsterVerse Godzilla films, even though this is really a more Kong-focused film. Don’t misconstrue what I’m about to say as a complaint—if anything it’s a cursory desire at most—but I’m really surprised that for a third time in a row, Godzilla was playing second fiddle to yet another monster. In Godzilla 2014, everyone complained he wasn’t in it enough and it focused too much on the MUTOs despite being titled Godzilla. A fair complaint. Then, Godzilla: King of the Monsters had all kinds of other monsters, but Godzilla was still often in the background comparatively. In both movies he had a key role despite lack of screen time, but now in Godzilla vs. Kong, even though his name comes first in the title (unlike the original from 1962, called King Kong vs. Godzilla), this is Kong’s movie, and Godzilla, while obviously very important to the plot once again, barely gets any scenes just to himself. Again, I’m not complaining, and I’ll explain why.

For a movie called Godzilla vs. Kong, it isn’t as overindulgent in some of the ways you might expect. I would have loved to see Godzilla get a more extensive scene of him arriving to Pensacola and attacking and destroying the place, but enough was shown to be satisfying, and then we’re on to the next scene. At first when I saw the runtime was under two hours, I thought I might be disappointed, given this is the shortest MonsterVerse entry so far, but I was pleasantly surprised to find the pacing was terrific, there was no messing around, we get right down to business with the monsters right out of the gate, and it kept up a steady escalation of events and action that just drew me in and took me along for the ride. And what a wild ride it is!

There’s not too much I want to say plot-wise in order to avoid spoiling two very big details that really surprised me, but here’s the story: Kong is chilling on Skull Island, being researched by some scientists. Godzilla shows up in Pensacola and attacks. Everyone is rattled because they thought Godzilla was a protector of earth. Well, not anymore, now he’s enemy number one, but there’s a reason. The folks at the Apex Cybernetics facility are up to something, so Madison (Millie Bobbie Brown, returning from King of the Monsters) and her friend Josh (Julian Dennison) team up with a titan conspiracy podcast host (Brian Tyree Henry) to figure out what their secret project is. Meanwhile, Kong has his own mission courtesy of the secret government organization Monarch to find a mysterious power source in an equally mysterious location, which ends up bringing the two monsters together in a battle to decide who the true alpha is.   

Godzilla vs. Kong delivers on its title, and might be one of the most satisfying “versus” movies to date. We get the fight without any cutaways, without pulling any punches, and without holding back. And, we get a winner (I won’t say who). Even though there’s still more to this movie than just the fight, the main reason to tune in is for the title bout, and it didn’t disappoint. The opening title sequence is consistent with all previous MonsterVerse films, and even ends with a wrestling-style bracket, the perfect way to lead into the adventure.

One of the reasons the Marvel Cinematic Universe has been so successful is because the filmmakers are responsive to the fans while still sticking to their intended stories. The MonsterVerse has seemingly followed suit, because Godzilla vs. Kong was built up with three previous films, but complaints from the fans about those films have been heard, and corrected. In Godzilla 2014, the monster battles were cut short until the last one, and they always took place at night. In King of the Monsters, there were more battles, though they were still relatively brief, and always happened at night or in stormy weather. While I didn’t love Kong: Skull Island, I did enjoy the daytime monster fights, which all looked great. Godzilla vs. Kong takes place mainly in daylight, the fights are all shown in full, the camera work is spectacular, and even though the final big confrontation between the title monsters is at night, it’s in a well-lit city with more neon than even Pacific Rim.

There is a ton of content for fans to enjoy here. If you thought Kong should have had a bigger role in Kong: Skull Island, this time he has it. If you like Godzilla as a villain more than a hero, that’s what you’ll get. If you like seeing Godzilla use his atomic breath, you’ll be more than satisfied. He only used it once in Godzilla 2014, used it a lot more in King of the Monsters, but here? I swear half of all the shots of Big G have him with his spikes and eyes lit up and atomic breath constantly blasting out. Godzilla 2014 was serious and lacked much humour. King of the Monsters had some funny lines but was mostly corny jokes. Godzilla vs. Kong has some genuinely funny moments, funny lines, and a way more consistent sense of humour. That isn’t to say it doesn’t also make you fist pump, tense up, or get emotional over some giant cgi monsters. I’m not crying, you’re crying!  

The human characters get a pass from me. Are they great? Absolutely not. The mad scientist human villains are cliché and uninteresting, the hero scientists are alright but don’t stand out at all, and Millie Bobbie Brown/Julian Dennison are pretty fun, but don’t do that much. There are two separate groups of human characters doing different things and they never interact until the very end and it doesn’t even matter, but I kind of liked the switching back and forth, it kept things moving along. Of course, I have to talk about the characters that make this movie worth watching in the first place, Godzilla and Kong. I didn’t think the visual effects could get much better, but they did. Both monsters look incredible, both convey so much emotion and have such personality, and it was a joy to see them on screen so much.   

I’m just going to wrap up the review right here. Godzilla vs. Kong is awesome. It has pretty much everything monster movie fans could have hoped for. I for one was extremely satisfied; I had hoped it would be good, but I didn’t expect it to be as wild and thrilling as it turned out to be. Sure, there were still a few things that bugged me, but in the end, it’s everything I had hoped for as a kid, plus a little more. I highly recommend it to anyone looking for an epic monster movie. 

I have to do a spoilers section, because there’s just too much more I have to comment on, so if you have already seen it, or aren’t worried about knowing what happens, read ahead, but if you haven’t seen Godzilla vs. Kong and don't want to know more details, stop right here. Alright, spoiler time:

So, yeah, you probably already know, but Mechagodzilla is in this. I still can’t believe they actually went all out and put Mechagodzilla in the middle of the Godzilla and Kong pairing, but I loved it. Never before has Mechagodzilla fought King Kong, so from a fan perspective that was something new and amazing to see. Mechagodzilla being made by humans also fit with the running theme throughout these movies of humans messing with nature and the monsters needing to restore balance. I don’t love the redesign, but it does work as a visual counterbalance to this version of Godzilla, and he more than delivers when he engages in combat. Having it connected to Ghidorah’s brain was a nice adjustment to the lore, but including Dr. Serizawa’s son as the one who controls it felt a little contrived, like they just had to include a familial connection to the one Japanese character from the previous films to appease the roots of Godzilla, and it also felt strange given Mechagodzilla is supposed to kill Godzilla, while Dr. Serizawa loved Godzilla and didn’t want to see him hurt. At least Serizawa’s son died trying to defeat the monster his dad gave his life to save one movie earlier.

As surprising as it was to see the mechanical titan of terror, what was also surprising was the lack of other monsters from the previous movie. Rodan, Behemoth, and all the rest of those titans who bowed down to Godzilla at the end of King of the Monsters are nowhere to be seen. While it seemed a little odd story-wise to completely disregard them, I didn’t really end up missing them that much, because just having Godzilla and Kong (and Mechagodzilla) was more than enough. It didn’t feel like the others were completely forgotten, it just didn’t work to have them in this story, and actually, I’m okay with that. I do hope we get to see them all back for a Destroy All Monsters style team-up one day, though.

And as for the plot, I’m glad I skipped the trailers, because I had no idea we were going to see so much of the hollow earth, but was it ever cool! King Kong has always been rooted in a world of fantasy with Skull Island being a refuge for prehistoric monsters, but Kong has never been on this outlandish of a journey ever before. Seeing him fighting weird new creatures amid floating rocks like he was on Pandora from Avatar and sitting on a gigantic throne and picking up an ancient axe made from one of Godzilla’s spikes that powers up the whole temple were things I never knew I wanted to see but am so glad I did. Speaking of the throne, we can officially call him KING Kong now instead of just Kong, right? One last thing: Godzilla using his atomic breath to burn a hole into the center of the earth was one of the biggest power moves the scaly guy has ever pulled.

Well, so much for this review being much shorter than previous reviews! But at least there were a lot of positives here worth talking about. This is the first brand-new blockbuster movie I’ve seen in way too long, and even though I missed the theater-going experience, it sure made for one hell of a home theater experience. If you have a big TV and surround sound at home, Godzilla vs. Kong is definitely worth the rental, and even if you don’t, I still recommend it.