Godzilla Vs. Kong (2021) review

 Look you all knew this was going to happen. From the moment this movie was announced everyone knew that I was gonna have thoughts and boy to I have thoughts. Perhaps the only thing surprising about this is the complexity of said thoughts they are sure as hell more complex than the movie was. But enough waffling if you clicked on this it's cause you wanna know what I thought of Godzilla vs. Kong so lets not waste time. 

    First off yall know the drill. I'm a big Godzilla fan seen and loved most of the movies, been following Legendary's Monsterverse since it started back in 2014 and Kong: Skull Island and Godzilla: King of the Monsters are two of my absolutely favorite movies. So expect some bias in that respect also there will be spoilers cause who cares about the stories in these movies. As for Godzilla vs. Kong? Well it's no King of the Monsters. To quote my prior review: "[Godzilla: King of the Monsters is] not an easy film to write a review about... I mean what do you talk about? It looked really cool when Godzilla ripped King Ghidorah's head off? I mean yeah it's a true statement but that's not like it communicates the film's qualities." Well by contrast Godzilla vs Kong IS an easy film to write a review about: "it looked really cool when the big monkey and the big lizard hit each other really hard." Thats it. Pack it in. We're done here. If you wanna see that, see the movie. Thank you and good night.

    Perhaps I should end the review there, I mean thats what I came to see wasn't it? That's the movie that was advertised to me that's the movie I expected to see and thats what I saw. Is it really worthwhile to say anything more? It was really well done. Godzilla vs. Kong's action spectacle FAR outstrips any other example of its genre and yes that includes Godzilla: King of the Monsters. It also had so many moments of fan service with shots, and concepts quoted from movies throughout Godzilla, and Kong's respective filmographies, and I nearly cried as I watched MechaGodzilla activate. The fanservice wasn't quite as thick as that of King of the Monsters's was but it was in full satisfying force. Just about the only thing that was lacking was the plot, it's largely nonsensical, even by Kaiju film standards, and offers little to no engagement besides giving narrative context to the monster fights. So on the surface of it this seems exactly like a slightly improved version of Godzilla: King of the Monsters right? No. Somthing is still missing. Take a look at this frame from King of the Monsters:

    In the context of King of the Monsters this shot captures what an Earth ruled by King Ghidorah would look like and humanity's place in it. It establishes stakes and themes. King Ghidorah is a tyrant of chaos in the film. His three heads bicker with each other, he is followed constantly by a chaotic storm that is unbalancing a natural state. Not only that but humans clearly have no place in Ghidorah's world he doesn't care about us and he is even greater than our so called deities. "Ghidorah is your God now" this seems to say. The most a cool shot from Godzilla vs. Kong seems to say is: these monsters are the coolest thing ever and watching them fight is even cooler. Which isn't to say that it isn't cool as hell, it is cool as hell and I enjoyed the experiance very much, but Godzilla doesn't mean anything, Kong doesn't mean anything. They're just another set of characters beating each other up. Theme is what's missing here. The movie tries to say something about balance and order with MechaGodzilla threatening the natural state, but not very hard and that theme doesn't support the action setpieces like Godzilla: King of the Monsters's themes. As a result the action, as incredible and exciting as it is, feels perfunctory.

    Overall, I don't want to say Godzilla vs. Kong was a dud or a bad movie, but it feels just as hollow as the Earth it takes place on. It's a lot of fun and I enjoyed it for what it was, but I can't help but feel a little let down by its lack of ambition. It could have aimed for the mythic gravitas that made King of the Monsters so impressive, but instead it decided it wanted to just be a really fun wrestling match between two iconic monsters... I guess that's fine.