GODZILLA VS. KONG (2021) Review
Warner Bros. and Legendary Entertainment have spent the past seven years building to this moment, partnering with Toho to bring Godzilla back to American theaters for his own solo movie in 2014 and then following that film up with the return of King Kong in 2017’s Kong: Skull Island. The plan was to eventually have the giant movie monsters fight on the big screen, with 2019’s sequel Godzilla: King of the Monsters further setting the stage for this year’s Godzilla vs. Kong — a remake, one could say, of the 1962 film King Kong vs. Godzilla.
The aforementioned movies have positioned both Godzilla and King Kong as the “good guys,” so to speak, with both monsters ultimately saving us lowly humans from the threats posed by, well, other giant monsters. It was up to writers Eric Pearson, Max Borenstein, Terry Rossio, Michael Dougherty and Zach Shields to figure out how to get the two fighting for Adam Wingard’s Godzilla vs. Kong, and their story goes a little something like this. Godzilla, who has been a benevolent protector of Earth since the events of King of the Monsters, suddenly attacks a facility, an apparent heel turn ripped from the pages of the professional wrestling playbook. Nobody is sure why Godzilla has turned on humanity, but one thing is immediately clear: the King of the Monsters needs to be stopped.
And that’s where Godzilla vs. Kong gets admirably weird, with the humans at the center of the film deciding that the only way to stop Godzilla is by traveling deep into the “Hollow Earth,” the mysterious place at the center of the Earth where Godzilla, Kong, and all of their “Titan” brethren originally came from. It’s a place where no humans have ever been able to travel before, once believed to be the stuff of conspiracy theory-fueled fiction. And it’s the home to a source of incredible power that will bring Godzilla down. As for Kong, well, he’s chosen as the one who will help the humans find their way into the Hollow Earth. A convoluted set-up? Without a doubt.
In addition to the Hollow Earth lore-building, Godzilla vs. Kong also informs us that the titular monsters are actually ancient rivals, their ancestors fighting it out in an epic war that took place some time ago. Naturally, this means that Godzilla and Kong will be at each other’s throats the second they come face-to-face, which is of course what happens shortly after Kong is taken off Skull Island and brought into Godzilla-infested waters. So what we have here is a very angry Godzilla and a long-standing feud between the Godzillas and the Kongs, the perfect recipe for the all-out monster war that the title of this film sold us on. And while Godzilla vs. Kong does indeed deliver on the WrestleMania-style spectacle, the film unfortunately struggles to properly set the stage for its ancient rivalry reborn.
It’s a common complaint about the MonsterVerse movies that their storylines and human characters are hardly as enjoyable to watch as their monster fights, and Godzilla vs. Kong most definitely suffers from the very same problems. The film is in such a rush to get all the pieces in place that it spends very little time showcasing just how dangerous Godzilla has become, with the monster unleashing one isolated attack before we’re suddenly having conversations about the Hollow Earth and the need to unlock mysterious power sources to somehow go about taking him out of the equation — these ideas are relayed with the casual calm of two characters discussing a trip to Target to buy analgesics, the film asking you to be on board with wildly out-there concepts without really bothering to make much sense of them. Similarly, the long-standing rivalry between Godzilla and Kong is never shown but rather quickly relayed via dialogue that you could easily miss entirely, robbing the film of any real sense of the history the two monsters share. This is an epic rivalry, we’re told, but since we’re never shown how epic it is, their eventual encounters don’t carry that weight with them. By the time they have their first fight out in the open seas, they might as well be two monsters with no past whatsoever.
As for the human characters, well, at this point it should probably come as no surprise that they’re so under-developed and uninteresting that you won’t remember any of their names by the time the credits roll across the screen. Not even the names of the characters you’ve already spent a good deal of time with in the previous movies, like Millie Bobby Brown’s from King of the Monsters. Brown hardly feels like she needs to be in this movie at all, and that’s mostly the case for every single human we meet along the way. Alexander Skarsgård, Brian Tyree Henry, Rebecca Hall, Julian Dennison, Eiza González and Demián Bichir round out the cast, great actors who don’t have much to do beyond stand around and offer up quips that range from flat jokes to unnecessary observations about the events playing out in front of us. And while one could argue that a movie titled Godzilla vs. Kong need not have interesting human characters in it, a fair point to make, the reality is that they hog a good deal of the runtime and almost always suck the energy out of the room. It’s a problem that has plagued most of these movies, and it sure isn’t remedied here.
The good news with Godzilla vs. Kong, however, is that it’s smartly a Kong-heavy affair, with King Kong emerging as a fully-fleshed out character who’s strong enough to carry the whole thing on his back. It’s great to see how much Kong is made the focal point of the movie, his journey to earning the “King” moniker echoing Godzilla’s in the previous film, and the visual effects that bring this fully-grown version of him to life are absolutely incredible. Kong is imbued with a level of emotion that makes him surprisingly human, with the film playing into the level of humanity that’s always been present in the character and even taking it to a whole new level by having him actually speak this time around. Through Kaylee Hottle’s character Jia, a deaf young girl with a connection to Kong who is easily the best new human addition to the movie, Kong is able to pick up sign language, allowing him to communicate and convey emotions more than ever before. Make no mistake, Kong is the main character of this movie, and the clear “good guy” in the fight with his once-benevolent adversary. He’s even escorted onto the screen with classic tunes from Bobby Vinton and Elvis Presley, unexpected choices that help to further endear us to the mighty ape.
Heavily spoiled by the marketing, there are two main fights in Godzilla vs. Kong, the first taking place in the water during the day and the second taking place against the gorgeous backdrop of a neon-lit Hong Kong at night. The former suffers from some of the visual clarity problems that are often inherent to these visual effects-heavy movies, with splashing water and exploding boats and helicopters obscuring some of the action. But this first battle sequence is also home to one of the coolest moments in the entire movie, a wide shot of Godzilla and Kong punching the shit out of each other atop an aircraft carrier. It’s the sort of moment that’s worth the price of admission alone, and I only wish I had been able to experience it in a packed theater with an audience that would surely be howling with delight.
The real show-stopper set piece, however, is the nighttime battle in Hong Kong. It’s the sequence in the movie that feels most true to Wingard’s style, executed with all the glee and enthusiasm of a child playing with the coolest monster toys ever made. The destructive fight, which sees Godzilla and Kong flinging a massive battle axe around while absolutely demolishing everything in their path, surely results in the deaths of countless innocent civilians, but that’s not something the film is interested in exploring. Rather, Wingard and the team relish the opportunity to play with the giant-sized toys at their disposal, and it’s one of the coolest, most visually-pleasing monster fights you’re likely to ever see. It’s a kaiju smackdown with a surprising cyberpunk aesthetic, the bright pops of color lighting up the night sky in truly glorious fashion. The last 25 minutes of the movie, for the most part, are a straight up monster brawl with little distraction, and the final round of the fight introduces a new element and brings out the sun to make sure you’re able to clearly see every awesome moment. It’s a treat, to say the very least.
The trip to the Hollow Earth also makes for a standout sequence, allowing Wingard and the team to explore a whole new location that had only been briefly hinted at in MonsterVerse films prior. It’s undoubtedly the film’s most bizarre concept, ushering us into an upside-down world where all sorts of different monsters roam free. The potential that lies within the Hollow Earth is vast and endless, allowing for future MonsterVerse movies to play around with other monster characters. The locale’s proper introduction here represents Godzilla vs. Kong’s biggest contribution to this shared universe, so here’s hoping we’ll be heading back there soon.
All in all, Godzilla vs. Kong is pretty much precisely the movie we’ve been conditioned to expect from the MonsterVerse. The human characters aren’t very good and the storytelling isn’t very strong, but the monster fights are awesome enough to make up for those glaring shortcomings. It’s a film that’s simultaneously disappointing and thoroughly enjoyable, never quite living up to its potential but delivering a good time all the same. It’s hard not to wish that WB and Legendary had figured out a way to make better all-around movies with these MonsterVerse titles — my personal favorite remains Skull Island, which succeeds in the monster and human departments— but it’s also hard to complain about movies that continue to deliver such entertaining (not to mention awe-inspiring) monster fights. Visual effects may not have the same charm as actors in rubber suits, but there’s no denying that these monsters have never looked as impressive as they do now.
It doesn’t always hit high notes, but when it does, Godzilla vs. Kong sure is entertaining. And at the end of the day, what more does it really need to be?
