One more chapter in Legendary Entertainment's big, loud, computer-generated monster movie blowout, finally pitting cinema's two best-known behemoths in a rematch of their 1962 rubber suit showdown. The long and short of it is, Godzilla vs. Kong is exactly what you think it is, but also not quite what the three preceding installments might have led you to hope for. Those films contained several unique, essential pieces of a great monster movie, but couldn’t quite bring them all together in the same place. This effort may have scattered them to the ends of the Earth.
While Godzilla '14 suffered from too much dusty orange, brown and grey, sacrificing spectacle for aura, that also gave it a unique air of mystery and a personal, street-level point of view. The big guy was a force of nature, neither good nor evil, often experienced as little more than a distant rumble through the clouds and clutter of so many toppled skyscrapers. Skull Island and King of the Monsters moved in pop-friendlier directions, granting a better view of the action, while also leaning on pure entertainment value and top-notch creative direction. This new model represents a continuation of that slide into crowd-pleasing razzle dazzle, delivering nearly two hours of curious neon lights, spit-flinging alpha roars, window-shattering concussions and flashy pin-up moments, but it's increasingly limited in most other respects.
We get the fight, all right, and kudos for having the resolve to actually depict a winner after two rounds, but the big visuals aren't half as epic as the full-blown elemental fury seen in KotM, nor as ferociously intense as Kong's last solo flick. Both headliners move with a surprising lack of magnitude, swinging ten-story haymakers that land like stiff jabs, not earthquakes. We see so much casual collateral damage that forty-floor buildings become a mere inconvenience, minor hazards that spray black soot as they're toppled over. They might as well be made of cardboard, just like the old days.
The nonsensical story elements fare no better. Not that this is a particular strength for previous chapters, or even for a vast majority of similar films. Godzilla vs. Kong is a bad example of storytelling amidst a genre that's renowned for bad storytelling. It's stuffed with cryptic lore, clichéd character archetypes, bone-headed decisions, mindless pseudo-science, telegraphed plot developments... a full bucket of hogwash that made me feel like a moron for paying attention. Kong's ancestral homeland is the worst such offense, a landscape so fundamentally stupid and conceptually flawed that I couldn't stop shaking my head, puzzling over its many gaping, mind-numbing inconsistencies. Godzilla is painted as villain right from the start, which takes all the fun out of picking sides and rooting for your favorite among friends.
Listen, I'm not trying to be hard-to-please here. I don't need any sort of spiritual or philosophical revelation in the midst of my giant ape vs. lizard skirmishes, but I also expect a little bit more respect than this. I'll suspend my disbelief as long as you don't insult my intelligence. And, despite the visceral thrills of those fleeting headline bouts, this fails the litmus test.
Review by drqshadowBlockedParent2021-04-06T12:41:50Z
One more chapter in Legendary Entertainment's big, loud, computer-generated monster movie blowout, finally pitting cinema's two best-known behemoths in a rematch of their 1962 rubber suit showdown. The long and short of it is, Godzilla vs. Kong is exactly what you think it is, but also not quite what the three preceding installments might have led you to hope for. Those films contained several unique, essential pieces of a great monster movie, but couldn’t quite bring them all together in the same place. This effort may have scattered them to the ends of the Earth.
While Godzilla '14 suffered from too much dusty orange, brown and grey, sacrificing spectacle for aura, that also gave it a unique air of mystery and a personal, street-level point of view. The big guy was a force of nature, neither good nor evil, often experienced as little more than a distant rumble through the clouds and clutter of so many toppled skyscrapers. Skull Island and King of the Monsters moved in pop-friendlier directions, granting a better view of the action, while also leaning on pure entertainment value and top-notch creative direction. This new model represents a continuation of that slide into crowd-pleasing razzle dazzle, delivering nearly two hours of curious neon lights, spit-flinging alpha roars, window-shattering concussions and flashy pin-up moments, but it's increasingly limited in most other respects.
We get the fight, all right, and kudos for having the resolve to actually depict a winner after two rounds, but the big visuals aren't half as epic as the full-blown elemental fury seen in KotM, nor as ferociously intense as Kong's last solo flick. Both headliners move with a surprising lack of magnitude, swinging ten-story haymakers that land like stiff jabs, not earthquakes. We see so much casual collateral damage that forty-floor buildings become a mere inconvenience, minor hazards that spray black soot as they're toppled over. They might as well be made of cardboard, just like the old days.
The nonsensical story elements fare no better. Not that this is a particular strength for previous chapters, or even for a vast majority of similar films. Godzilla vs. Kong is a bad example of storytelling amidst a genre that's renowned for bad storytelling. It's stuffed with cryptic lore, clichéd character archetypes, bone-headed decisions, mindless pseudo-science, telegraphed plot developments... a full bucket of hogwash that made me feel like a moron for paying attention. Kong's ancestral homeland is the worst such offense, a landscape so fundamentally stupid and conceptually flawed that I couldn't stop shaking my head, puzzling over its many gaping, mind-numbing inconsistencies. Godzilla is painted as villain right from the start, which takes all the fun out of picking sides and rooting for your favorite among friends.
Listen, I'm not trying to be hard-to-please here. I don't need any sort of spiritual or philosophical revelation in the midst of my giant ape vs. lizard skirmishes, but I also expect a little bit more respect than this. I'll suspend my disbelief as long as you don't insult my intelligence. And, despite the visceral thrills of those fleeting headline bouts, this fails the litmus test.