Godzilla vs Kong (2021) - Review

I am a Godzilla fan and have been ever since I was a small child. I’m not the most avid fan by some standards because I haven’t seen every Godzilla film ever made. Not to mention, I didn’t like Shin Godzilla from 2016 as much as everyone else did. I also haven’t seen a Godzilla movie in theaters since the 2014 American reboot. Nonetheless, I have at least been trying to keep up with some capacity when it comes to the new American Godzilla film series. The 2014 film was a mediocre entry in the pantheon of Godzilla films, but I enjoyed King of the Monsters from a couple of years ago for being a more visually pleasing, stupid, fun movie. So, with the new Kong (based on the Skull Island film’s version of the famous ape) set up to be his rival in Godzilla vs Kong, I was hopeful the film would be just as dumb and fun, in addition to being a worthy remake of the last time the monsters fought in the 1960s.

Pros

Pretty movie with lots of color
Enjoyed some of the not-so-subtle theming and references
Action is fun to watch
Pacing is not bad for a Godzilla film

Cons

The side-plot with Millie Bobby Brown was mostly irrelevant
No Charles Dance or his sassiness
None of the characters were memorable, including the Wes Craven lookalike for a villain
Long movie
Suspension of disbelief is becoming much more important with each entry in the franchise
Plot is needlessly drawn out

Plot & Thoughts

There is something of a plot to Godzilla vs Kong, but I honestly wonder if it’s worth repeating. If you are interested in this film, I doubt it’s for the deep storyline or the intriguing characters that do not exist—you want to see big monkey smash face of giant lizard. Well, that does happen multiple times throughout the film, so in comparison to the original in which the two creatures fought, this is already a vast improvement in that regard. However, I suppose I should discuss some plot points to at least point out the things that were not so great.

Picking up somewhat shortly after the events of King of the Monsters, Godzilla is still out and about in the world, looking for other kaiju to devour. The terrorist group responsible for a lot of the chaos in KotM that was run by Charles Dance seems to have disappeared for the time being. Instead, the plot focuses on Kong, the scientist studying him (Rebecca Hall), and her deaf/mute surrogate daughter (Kaylee Hottle) who communicates with Kong through sign language. Kong is on Skull Island, as he’s been since the Kong: Skull Island film from a few years ago, however, the head of the tech company Apex (Demián Bichir) wants to extradite Kong in the hopes that Kong could lead him and his agents/researchers to an ancient underground environment within the earth. His reasons are not malicious on the surface but are easily seen through by everyone who has a brain or is not a character in the movie. Unfortunately for him and everyone involved in this mission, Godzilla kind of wants to kill Kong.

In addition to all of that nonsense, Madison Russell (Millie Bobby Brown) from the previous film is going Q-Anon by listening to conspiracy theory podcasts about the Titans. She and her friend-zoned buddy (Julian Dennison) meet up with one such podcaster (Bryan Tyree Henry) and very quickly get in over their heads in the conspiracy theory about Apex’s intentions that actually manages to be somewhat accurate. Other than being the characters who expose the obvious evilness of Apex and its CEO to the audience, their involvement in the plot is mostly unnecessary.

It felt like the writers had no idea how to include the character of Madison Russell in the film because a majority of the movie was going to focus on Kong instead. Since the sassy Charles Dance is absent here, I don’t see why they couldn’t have left Madison out too, and just come up with another method of disclosing the fact that Apex is bad. If you cut out her character’s plot in this movie, the events that transpire almost don’t change, and you get a shorter movie. Even if such a big cut to the plot were to be made, that wouldn’t change the fact that there is a lot going on in this plot that no one really cares about. Since the monsters fight somewhat regularly and the action scenes are fun to watch, the pacing makes up for the needlessly long and over-complicated plot.

What it comes down to is how much you just want to see Godzilla and Kong duke it out and if that is enough to entertain you. The other characters in the film are all extremely forgettable and uninteresting, as is the plot. However, Godzilla vs Kong is a very pretty film with lots of colors and good-looking special effects. I appreciate the various nods to the previous films with the not-so-subtle use of color and music to go with the themes of the monsters. For instance, there’s a fair amount of rock music that plays when Kong is the focus of the movie, along with the way that Kong: Skull Island was full of classic rock songs.

TL;DR (Conclusion)

Godzilla vs Kong is dumb. It’s not as dynamically colorful as King of the Monsters or as quirky as Kong: Skull Island. However, we have come a long way from the 2014 Godzilla and certainly much further since the 1998 travesty in making decent Godzilla movies for fans like me who revel in the opportunity to watch stupid kaiju action movies. If you never had an interest in either giant monster franchise, or if you consider yourself too much of an intellectual to enjoy the mindless fun of kaiju movies like this, you probably aren’t going to enjoy this movie. If you find your tastes align with mine, however, you should still find enough here to keep you entertained despite the lame characters and plot points that don’t make sense.

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