Godzilla vs. Kong

This review may contain spoilers!

 

Godzilla vs. Kong pits our two titular leading titans against one another as they grapple for dominance as Alpha Titans, while the nefarious organisation Apex Cybernetics brings humanity once again into the crosshairs of these giant monstrous beasts. While watching this film I was impressed by this atmosphere of anticipation and wonder that was built up for several key scenes. The big mid-ocean fight sequence was such a heavily anticipated moment because of the unique terrain, and the Hong Kong battles were so easy to enjoy because the film busted out all the stops to make these colossal event moments feel significant. I also had a real sense of fascination with the beauty of exploring the 'Hollow Earth' environment, it was a moment of visual and world-building based payoff that really strongly came together. The cinematography used throughout was really dynamic and built to be big, there was a really talented eye for shooting effects behind the camera which make this an appealing feature to watch. The visual effects is probably the strongest quality of the film, Godzilla and Kong grappling and interacting with one another looks fascinating and the Hollow Earth creatures and environments are extremely well-generated.

 

Alexander Skarsgård, who played Nathan Lind, works pretty well as one of the scientific leading characters in this film; I enjoyed watching Skarsgård play a more morally grey hero possessing some cowardly tendencies and a capacity to ask hard questions no other role would want to undertake. Millie Bobby Brown, who played Madison Russell, is one of the strong returning performers who carries the corporate espionage storyline on her back; this young actress comes at her scenes with this intense curiosity and bravery that makes her the protagonist of her story arc. Rebecca Hall, who played Ilene Andrews, is one of my favourite performances in this feature; Hall's onscreen motherly bond with Hottle is brilliant and the amount of empathy she shows in her role marks her as one of the better leading roles. Demián Bichir, who played Walter Simmons, is probably the best human antagonist in one of these films since Samuel L. Jackson in Kong: Skull Island; I was really impressed with how Bichir navigated scenes with finesse and elegance to manipulate matters into his character's way of thinking.

However, the best performance came from Kaylee Hottle, who played Jia. This character is a soft, kind-hearted human connection to Kong, the compassionate link in this film between man and beast. Hottle is a deaf actress portraying the power of communication by being the first human role to form a language alongside one of our title characters, intertwining her with Kong in a major way. I love how she portrays this compassionate, caring young role who is so fearless in bonding with this massive beast. As a child actress Hottle achieves what so many older performers throughout the past Monsterverse films have failed to achieve; she has crafted a human character who has believably crafted a rich, meaningful and interesting relationship with an entirely CGI character. This is a masterful and genuinely heart-warming performance.

This film is a culmination and an event of every Monsterverse film we've had thus far and a special effects heavy spectacle everyone is abuzz about. But when I sat down to watch this movie and the first scene opens with Godzilla destroying this big corporate facility I was leagues from impressed. This should've been it, the big kick off to what was going to be two hours of the pinnacle of the Titans. Instead I watched as a crazy conspiracy theorist role mumbled through what I imagine was meant to be comic relief and began us down the road of what was going to be the glaring flaw of Godzilla vs. Kong: the plot is terrible to non-existent. The plot is basically broken down into two main storyline threads; one plot focusing on our aforementioned conspiracy theorist and his two young groupies looking into some shady corporate matters and humans trying to utilise Kong to work their way into the monster-infested 'Hollow Earth'. The issue with the corporate storyline is that the characters are very hard to believe in; this conspiracy theorist is such a strange amalgamation of comic relief and bizarre behaviour that he feels outlandish and the two younger roles feel sort of tacked onto him for little reason other than Millie Bobby Brown was in the last Godzilla. Everything about this plot just sets up a secret antagonist without ever doing anything actually interesting or worthy of taking up so much runtime. The central focus of the film is on lugging Kong from Skull Island to Antarctica, from Antarctica to Hollow Earth, from Hollow Earth to Hong Kong. It's just this long linear push that gives a lot of time to quibble through some very dull personal subplots all while we wait for the creatures to get shunted to the locations in which they're going to pummel one another. This is a film that went "let them fight" but wasn't interested in doing any of the work to make a film around those exquisite fights. More disappointing than that, the film drops a lot of characters and history from the past three films just to make this one; such a large host of new characters with little reference to the old makes this a rather empty sequel to watch. The score for the film was probably the most generic of the series yet, with a lot of fanfare but no strong theme for key moments; the soundtrack randomly kicking in for certain Kong moments was also quite the strange touch.

Brian Tyree Henry, who played Bernie Hayes, pops in at the top of this film like a big red warning sign of bad film to come; Henry's garbled delivery and nonstop chatter marked him as an annoying role and the way he pushed the conspiracy theorist element to the far side of weird and crazy made things quite over the top. Shun Oguri, who played Ren Serizawa, was the henchman antagonist to Bichir and really fell into the backdrop pretty fast; Oguri went into this film with little autonomy and came away looking like a glorified prop. Eiza González, who played Maya Simmons, has really picked more dud roles than good ones at this point; González lacks screen presence and she never leans powerfully into a role making her characters appear mild or featureless. Julian Dennison, who played Josh Valentine, is an embarrassing New Zealand export on our part; Dennison's every passing attempt at comic relief falls flat in each of his scenes making his inclusion in this film redundant. Kyle Chandler, who played Mark Russell, looks as confused to be in this film as I am that none of his other formers cast mates (excluding Brown) joined him; Chandler seems disinterested to be in this sequel and considering the underwhelming babysitting role they put him in, I can't blame him.

 

A special effects spectacle of a brawl, but the other hour and a half truly has nothing worth watching. I would give Godzilla vs. Kong a 5.5/10.