Photo courtesy of Decider
Was “Godzilla vs. Kong” a “good film?” Not really, but that question isn’t relevant to a movie like this. Monster movies like this aren’t supposed to be high art. They aren’t competing with classics like “The Godfather” and they aren’t trying to. What they are, and what they have always been, are fun, and this movie delivers.
“Godzilla vs. Kong” hinges on a few simple plot points. Something is making Godzilla angry, causing him to attack human cities; something is competing for the role of Alpha. The humans of Monarch, the organization that studies monsters like Godzilla and King Kong, believe that the threat to Godzilla’s reign is Kong, but that Godzilla’s behavior show he needs to be stopped. Another group of humans led by Madison Russel (Millie Bobby Brown) believes a corporation called Apex is somehow involved and that they are purposely making Godzilla attack people. Apex is creating a robot known as Mechagodzilla, an iconic monster that comes from the 1974 Godzilla movie “Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla.”
The two sides of the story intersect as Apex seeks to get Kong to travel to the center of the earth so they can follow and find a power source that can power their new human-made monster. On the way to the tunnel to the Hollow Earth in Antarctica, we see the first fight between the two iconic monsters, the first time they’ve exchanged blows since Japan’s “Kong vs. Godzilla” in 1962. The fight is an epic clash of titans featuring incredible visual effects and creative combat, though if you’re asking for realism, you aren’t going to like this movie – it features a million-ton lizard standing on a carrier ship as he receives a punch from a gorilla the size of a skyscraper.
The visual elements remain fantastic throughout the movie, with the hollow earth being an absolutely stunning creation that features some new monsters and unravels parts of the history of the Monsterverse, making the already large world of Godzilla so much larger. It reveals ancient rivalries between Godzilla’s species and Kong’s, which justify some of the fighting and make the ending so much more satisfying. Also, Kong gets a giant, badass axe.
From there the movie goes on to the final fight between Godzilla and Kong in the neon-lit Hong Kong before they are joined by a rampaging Mechagodzilla. The human-made Kaiju doesn’t look fantastic, having weird proportions that give it long legs and a strangely slight frame, but it works well when you see the robot start to move, beating Godzilla in terms of strength and speed and offering a real threat to the two legendary creatures, creating high stakes no matter who your favorite monster is.
“Godzilla vs. Kong” is a rip-roaring good time, feeling more like a sports game than a great movie. The human dialogue and plot advancement scenes are boring, like in every monster movie (save maybe Shin Godzilla), feeling like the boring push-the-ball-forward plays and huddling that football has to have just to move the game along. When the monsters get the spotlight and their fights take center stage, those are the moments that get you on your feet screaming “LET’S GO,” like you’re watching a wide receiver dive into the end zone. It’s not really much of a movie, but God is it an event worth seeing.
