Coming off the heels of two Godzilla films and one Kong movie, Godzilla vs. Kong sees our titular monsters finally face off in a battle of epic proportions that will (apparently) threaten the very balance of the world. Following a conspiracy theory nut, a couple characters from the other Godzilla films and a whole bunch of other nonsense about a Hollow Earth Theory, crazy advanced sci-fi technology that humans have somehow developed (a head scratcher considering this is set only a few years after the last Godzilla film) and a measured amount of nonsensical narrative plot threads throughout, a synopsis for this one isn’t really super necessary considering no one came to see a bunch of tiny humans do anything other than run for their lives as a giant lizard and oversized ape beat each other into submission over their heads.
That being said, there’s some kind of loose plotting going on here about how Godzilla is upset about something, Kong wants to just go home and sleep in his own bed, and the humans think they have the power to do anything of substance to help or hinder the two once skyscrapers start falling and things start to go boom, but that’s about as far as it goes.
Now, first things first: I love me some giant monsters socking one another in the mouth for my amusement. It’s just awesome to see, more so up on the big screen (or, rather, my tv because I watched this on HBO max) and it’s something that was deserving of seeing in a theatre but that’s not something I was willing to do for this one. However, it’s well worth the wait after the original rebooted Godzilla film hit theaters way back in 2014. Between the full scale city-wide slugfests to the more inventive ones that play a bit with the set pieces the subpar script inexplicably brings our characters to, this is the movie the filmmakers promised – for better or worse.
Personally, I was more of a fan of Kong: Skull Island over either Godzilla films (despite being a bigger Godzilla fan mind you), so while Godzilla vs. Kong takes a little bit of something from each movie that came before, the results outside of the hype action scenes are middling at best. The human characters are played more for laughs than anything truly important, the battles are as fun as one would expect and the new and super odd sci-fi angle works on a trashy B-movie level, so when seeing this film know that the seriousness of the first Godzilla movie, the wild action of Kong’s flick and the overstuffed and illogical storytelling of the second Godzilla film all make a return with varying levels of success.
But as mentioned three or four times already, no one came here for the story; we came to see carnage, and the filmmakers undoubtedly delivered on that front. From the bone crunching force of each punch thrown to the fun set pieces and explosive action ranging from a sea battle to a city-wide brawl to a finale that introduces a new baddie for Godzilla and Kong to beat on, this film lives and dies by its fights, and I’m happy to say that they are exactly what I hoped for and expected. Everything else surrounding them might not be up to snuff, but the script does its job on the basest of levels possible, a feat that I guess I appreciate when it comes down to it.
Don’t get me wrong, I liked Godzilla vs. Kong for the big budget popcorn flick that it is, but the scripts for these movies are slowly getting worse and worse as they go, all in the name of justifying some sort of pieced together narrative that leads to the wild battles everyone came to see in the first place. And while the action is stellar as hell, but everything else around it makes almost no sense and is clearly just filler for the main event. So my takeaway from this one is pretty simple: it’s fine. We need to get some kind of a Royal Rumble movie going with the rest of the enormous kaiju walking around this universe ASAP!!!
Godzilla Vs. Kong is in theatres and streaming on HBO Max now.