The good news, you get to make a movie featuring a meeting and conflict between Godzilla and Kong, two of pop culture’s greatest all-time characters. The bad news is you get to make a movie featuring two of pop culture’s all-time greatest characters. Considering everything you know about film critics and genre fans, what a completely terrifying project to have landed in your lap. Knowing no matter how great a film you create, you know no matter what, you’re going to take plenty of disagreeable comments no matter the result, and knowing full well the only way to make a movie that will rise to the occasion is to make it inside holodeck three from STTNG. I suspect that’s what was going through the minds of everyone connected to this film. Turning out anything resembling a turd on this occasion would be unforgivable, and heads would likely literally roll, and it could be a career-ending blunder for many. Furthermore, I suspect they decided not to create a great movie but a competent one. Instead of swinging for the stars, the film’s creators tried to make sure that did not strike out.
Godzilla vs. Kong is what has become a typical action/thriller these days. Like many recent actioners, a great deal of what’s on the screen is not live-action but animation. We have reached the point in our relationship with today’s excellent quality. We take it for granted. This film is cast from the same mold as half a dozen recent movies of the sort that regularly get spewed out by the plethora of competing streaming services. Not that this is a bad movie, as long as you don’t expect too much, it’s a pretty enjoyable film. Although it falls short of great, Godzilla vs. Kong gets slightly elevated by its two main characters and their struggle.
Not familiar with this title? Godzilla vs. Kong is a 2021 American monster film directed by Adam Wingard. A sequel to Godzilla: King of the Monsters (2019) and Kong: Skull Island (2017) is the fourth film in Legendary’s MonsterVerse. It is also the 36th film in the Godzilla franchise, the 12th film in the King Kong franchise, and the fourth Godzilla film produced by a Hollywood studio. The film stars Alexander Skarsgård, Millie Bobby Brown, Rebecca Hall, Brian Tyree Henry, Shun Oguri, Eiza González, Julian Dennison, Lance Reddick, Kyle Chandler, and Demián Bichir. In the film, Kong clashes with Godzilla as humans lure the ape into a Hollow Earth to retrieve a power source for a weapon to stop Godzilla’s mysterious rampages.
There is no question the fights between these two pop culture icons are the best part of this film and what everyone came to see. The visuals in this film are remarkable and impressive, but since this film could not be composed entirely of a wall-to-wall battle between these two, there has to be a story to provide context and motivation and all that. Plus, humans are involved here, too, so you have to explain their roles in this; Godzilla vs. Kong spends a lot of time explaining itself. This is possibly the most blatantly contrived storyline ever, overloaded with plot points that must have made sense to somebody. From the moment the exposition-stuffed credits begin to roll, this film seems to be seeking plausibility for its contrived premise and validity for its equally contrived narrative. I really do not understand this, this meeting is something genre fans have wanted for a long time, and we are not going to get too fussy regarding the plot that brings these two titans together too closely but rather enjoys the moment.
The film does do an excellent job introducing its two leads. The film builds up to their inevitable meeting in the same manner promoters hype an upcoming heavyweight match. The film milks the situation for all it can and has the two engage in a couple of preliminary matches before the main event.
Kong is first and portrayed as a super-powerful proto-anthropoid with an attitude and some intelligence. At the same time, Godzilla gets introduced secondly and gets portrayed as an unstoppable juggernaut of destruction and a force of nature.
Although I have been a fan of the King of Monsters since childhood, the film actually got me engaged enough to root for Kong. Who am I kidding? By its subject matter and really no matter how it turned out, this film was destined to be an instant classic