Movie Review – Godzilla vs Kong

So after some delays due to COVID and other things we get the second big movie of 2021, and the big fight between the two titans of monster moviedom, Godzilla and King Kong. This one is the fourth film in a series that started off with 2014’s Godzilla, which made the mistake of trying to be a critic’s movie. While they succeeded on that front the rest of the world found it kinda boring. So after course correcting over the next two films would they revert back to that here or give us we want? Let’s see!

The Good

The fights between Godzilla and Kong were pretty damn great. That’s what the title of the movie and that’s what it was about so they needed to deliver on those and they did. To quote a wrestling term both guys got their heat back when they were handed what looked like a loss. While we didn’t get any shots like the ones of Rodan, Mothra, and Ghidorah from the previous film the visuals here were good, too. And to my admittedly lenient eye there wasn’t much if any dodgy CGI going on.

The deciding factor in all of these movies is whether or not there’s too much human stuff and not enough monster stuff. I know CGI costs can get real high real fast but we do not watch these films to see people talking for 10, 15 minutes at a time about the implications of this, that, or whatever. That’s what made the 2014 Godzilla film a critical success but a snoozefest with the rest of us. Now I understand that you have to have some human involvement but keep it to setting up the fights, ok? This is not the time to get a bunch of A list actors and actresses to ham it up onscreen.

So all that being said I am glad to report that they got it right. The humans were there to tell us what was going on more than anything. Yes there was a subplot with the Apex corporation trying to come up with their own way to fight Kong and Godzilla but thankfully it didn’t take up too much time or space. The makers of this film knew that we did not come to this looking for The Godfather. We want to see big monsters fighting, period.

The Bad

Not much really. I wish they’d brought back Bear McReary’s theme from Godzilla King of Monsters for this film. The final fight could have either last a little longer or been set up a little more thoroughly. But that’s all, really.

Final Verdict

4/6 (good) for overall quality, 4/4 for enjoyability for a total of 8/10. This was never going to be Oscar worthy cinema, but it was as good as your gonna get for a monster fight movie. If you’re into that then most definitely check this out