I have to give credit to HBO Max. After months and months of crisis for big studios, they’ve kindly decided to foster orphan blockbusters like Zack Snyder’s Justice League. The latest addition to their streaming family is Adam Wingard’s Godzilla vs. Kong.
Despite its title, the producers of the film have confirmed that it will not be a remake of the 1962 Japanese film (King Kong vs. Godzilla). Instead, Godzilla vs. Kong will follow the continuity of Legendary Pictures’ Monsterverse series comprised of Godzilla (2014), Kong: Skull Island (2017), and Godzilla: King of Monsters.
Godzilla vs. Kong follows Dr. Nathan Lind (Alexander Skarsgård) and his team of professionals as they try to transfer Kong to an underground power source. Meanwhile, Madison Russell (Millie Bobby Brown) enlists the help of a conspiracy podcast host (Brian Tyree Henry) and a nerdy friend (Julian Dennison) to help investigate the Apex corporation after their facilities are attacked by Godzilla.
Being a kaiju (big monster) film, Godzilla vs. Kong’s greatest strength is its visuals. Unlike the last two American Godzilla films, Godzilla isn’t obscured by the night or by rain. Much of the action takes place during the daytime, and it’s refreshing to see this expensive CGI in all its glory.
The scenes with Kong are also well done. Despite looking silly in some scenes, Kong is expressive and daunting throughout the film. The decision to have Kong communicate with sign language gave the monster a needed human element.
While the scenes pitting the two monsters against each other are great, there is a certain apocalyptic feel that’s missing. Compared to earlier King Kong and Godzilla films, the sets don’t seem to have as much thought put into them.
In contrast to King Kong’s theater rampage in the Peter Jackson films or Godzilla chasing people through a river in Shin Godzilla, the monsters in Godzilla vs. Kong barely interact with the sets. Buildings come tumbling down like sandcastles, and fighter jets go down like nothing. While this certainly gives us a greater sense of scale, the sub-par set design felt distracting.
In terms of story, Godzilla vs. Kong is a bit of a mess. For most of the runtime, the film feels like two different movies: one about the humans transferring Kong and the other about the humans tracking Godzilla. While the Kong plot is fairly entertaining, the Godzilla subplot is awful.
There’s a tongue-in-cheek tone to these parts of the script that make it seem as if the writers know how stupid it is. Millie Bobby Brown, Josh, and the conspiracy theorist are constantly spouting out goofy lines, and their adventure serves little more purpose than to set up the film’s true antagonist.
In one scene, Josh (a seemingly smart, nerdy type) dumps whiskey on a computer after failing to hack into it, and this moronic strategy actually works. I can almost imagine the writers doing the same to their own first draft after failing to come up with something clever.
The performances are a mixed bag. Child actor Kaylee Hottle is good as Jia, a deaf young girl who teaches Kong sign language. Skarsgård is also good as the scientist heading the transport of Kong, but everyone else is fairly mediocre.
Millie Bobby Brown is decent as Madison Russell. However, it’s getting a bit tiresome to see her and the rest of the Stranger Things kids cast into the same precocious teen roles over and over again.
Overall, Godzilla vs. Kong delivers exactly on what it promises. It’s a monster fighting monster spectacle, and fans of the genre are likely to enjoy it. While the poor script was rather distracting for me, it probably won’t bother more casual viewers.
While the film has proven to be more successful than what was originally predicted, I don’t see much of a point in continuing the Monsterverse series. Godzilla vs. Kong is a decent monster film and fairly good place to end off.