Godzilla vs. Kong Review!

 Alright! Today I'm reviewing what may well become the biggest blockbuster since Frozen II, the finale of the MonsterVerse, and the "Versus" movie we all wanted to see. Screw Civil War and Batman v Superman, Godzilla vs. Kong is where it's at. 

Here we have a movie where plot and logic are on the backburner, where the sheer spectacle of seeing a giant lizard and giant monkey takes the forefront. And, for the most part, Godzilla vs. Kong absolutely delivers. I watched the movie, stuff happened, and they fought. It was everything I wanted and everything I expected, and that includes the bad stuff. 

Minor spoilers from here on out, but to call them spoilers is a bit much. Just watching the trailers would probably tell you everything you need to know. 

Most of the bad stuff can be boiled down to two things: the plot and the humans. Sure, maybe it's unreasonable to expect Ben-Hur levels of characterization, but these past two MonsterVerse movies haven't even tried. They've had some of the most generic characters ever put to screen. This does beg the question:  What was so terribly wrong with Aaron Taylor-Johnson's character? Why didn't they bring him back? 

But, aside from boring and downright stupid characters, this movie didn't burden me with them. Sure, every time they tried to move the plot forward I wished I could skip to the monkey vs. lizard fight, but they weren't actively intrusive. I noted in my King of the Monsters review that: 

"...during the final fight, the camera kept panning over to the humans. Every time they did that, I really felt like taking the camera and pointing it back on the monsters, like, 'I don't care about the humans. Give me the monster fight the movie has been hyping up for the past two hours.'"

This movie does not have this problem. During the climactic fight scenes, the camera only cuts back to the humans once or twice, it doesn't rely on shocked human faces to tell us that the monsters are fighting and who's winning. Here, we just see it in all its glorious glory. 

Yeah, these guys were all terrible.

And, yeah, the humans were absolutely terrible. Millie Bobby Brown, Brian Tyree Henry, and Julain Dennison take part in a terrible sideplot with no little purpose other than to set up Mechagodzilla. Their timing is impeccable for plot-related reasons, their journey surprisingly easy, and their brain cells rapidly decreasing. These were some of the dumbest characters I've ever seen.

My other complaint with the film was the plot. Like, at some point in the production, I felt like they went, "Scew it, the lizard's gonna fight the monkey." The plot is recycled nonsense and a half remake of Journey to the Center of the Earth. Compared to the grounded 2014 Godzilla and the semi-grounded King of the Monsters, this film takes Earth's technology and fast forwards a century or so. Holograms and hovercrafts are on full display here. 

And the Earth is hollow and filled with monsters, because why not. It's Godzilla vs. Kong, don't overthink things. 

I was seeing it, but was I feeling it?

Something I wasn't too keen on was that I felt like the "grit" was lost in this one. Godzilla and its sequel had characters die and some brutal action, and Kong: Skull Island was surprisingly violent. Godzilla vs. Kong is an hour and forty-five minutes sans credits, and most of that runtime is spent in a pretty lightweight, fairly inconsequential way. 

In case you're curious, Godzilla and Kong first fight at approximately 40 minutes in the movie,  which lasts for six minutes. Then it detours into Journey, and then at the hour twenty-two mark, they fight for ten minutes, take a break for five, and then fight Mechagodzilla for the next 8. It's short. 

The plot is basic and recycled. The action is seemingly lacking yet thoroughly satisfying and destructive. The characters are... definitely characters. And I do dislike how little Godzilla there was in the movie. For the titular character, he's barely in it. It was always going to be a Kong movie, but I wouldn't have minded a bit more 'Zilla. 

The lizard-monkey balance was off.

What I do applaud this movie for is how fun it is. Like, it's so stupid it's kind of hilarious. The movie had some good laughs, but things I laughed the hardest at were when the plot was ridiculous - A hollow earth and Mechagodzilla. It's laughable but somehow endearing. 

Like, I walked into this knowing that it would follow the Batman v Superman guideline of "The characters meet twice, in the finale one has the upper hand, almost kills the other, but then they team up to fight the mutual threat." It even had a "Martha!" moment where Kong is pinned and Godzilla has his foot on him! They roar at each other and stop fighting! 

But regardless of parallels between the two movies, I have to give the edge to Godzilla vs. Kong. For one, it's barely two hours. Batman v Superman: Ultimate Edition is three hours long. For two, GvK doesn't try to hide the fact that its plot is stupid via over-serious characters. For three, while Batman v Superman's final fight left many feeling disappointed, Godzilla vs. Kong will certainly satisfy any and all mass-scale destruction one might want.

Scratch that. Godzilla vs. Kong literally is mass-scale destruction. So many people die in this movie, so many buildings knocked over, it's insane! Like, this is, after Man of Steel, the worst movie I've ever seen in regards to caring about the loss of human life. So many people die... 

Something I'm going to blast the movie for is how bland it is. When the titans aren't fighting, nothing is happening. When I think of this movie, I'm not going to think of how it was a slow-burn or fun Vietnam movie. I'm going to think about how cool the 10 minutes were Godzilla and Kong fought, and nothing else. 

Hey, at least it's a solid "one and done" deal. You buy exactly what you're expecting, a stupid movie with action scenes that make you feel all childish inside, with the stupidest grin on your face. 

Overall, I give Godzilla vs. Kong a 7/10. "Godzilla vs. Kong is exactly what you'd expect - unabashedly stupid, but in the best way possible." 

This was a good place to end the MonsterVerse.