Ken Watanabe, as Dr. Serizawa, gone too soon in Godzilla: King of Monsters, so I’ll say it for him – ‘Let them fight’. There’s got to be a lot of people out there who have been anticipating a Hollywood remake of this crossover for, I don’t know, 50 years; now we get to find out, what would it be like if King Kong fought Godzilla? There’d be a lot of bashing and crashing I reckon. I have a Godzilla action figure, and a Kong action figure in storage; maybe I could just smash them together, and save some time and money.
But of course, I should start by outlining the plot, because there’s going to be a plot! Conspiracy theorist Bernie Hayes (Brian Tyree Henry) knows there’s something shady going on at a corporation called Apex Cybernetics, and Godzilla does too; he resurfaces, and destroys their Florida headquarters, but it accidentally appears as if Earth’s greatest power-broker has gone rogue. Meanwhile, Kong researcher Dr. Ilene Andrews (Rebecca Hall) and her Skull Island sidekick, Jia (Kaylee Hottie), have an opportunity to return Kong back to his original home underground, combining Dr. Nathan Lind’s (Alexander Skarsgard) research on Hollow Earth theory (that these titans we’ve seen all come from the Earth’s hollow core) and the necessary transportation of Kong. As Godzilla and Kong cross paths, the two, well, the two fight (duh!). Godzilla enthusiast from way back, Madison Russell (Millie Bobby Brown) and her new friend Josh Valentine (Julian Dennison), team up with the conspiracy theorist to discover why Apex want Godzilla to look bad, whilst Dr. Andrews, Dr. Lind, and a militant crew journey to the centre of the Earth. Adam Wingard is at the helm of this wacky adventure.
It doesn’t take long to realise, Kong has no business in this fight – the atomic dragon has a strong tail, thick skin and claws that are going to fuck him up. I feel sorry for Kong; to make this story possible Kong must be a refugee, with all the people who revered him on Skull Island virtually wiped out. Spoilers, but, the big ape almost dies three times – Godzilla’s got him covered twice and even a pair of big flying bug critters of hollow Earth want to suffocate him to death. That’s not to mention the humans that constantly drug him and take him where they want. Eventually, when Kong’s silent partner Jia tells Kong that Godzilla is not the enemy, I bet Kong was like ‘oh man, I wish you’d told me that half a day ago. This has not been my day.’ Or maybe Kong and Godzilla’s ancient rivalry is too strong, and Kong is more thinking, ‘don’t tell me my business, little girl!’ Either way, as the results come in, I’m just looking forward to playing a new form of rock-paper-scissors where Godzilla beats Kong, Apex’s Mechagodzilla beats Godzilla and Kong beats Mechagodzilla – yeah, this movie balances out its two main heroes equally, so they remain valiant; were you expecting anything else?
As for the plot, I did not care for much of what Millie Bobby Brown’s character was doing – infiltrating an evil organisation with barely a security guard in sight. I think they were trying to recreate the fantastical danger of the Death Star rescue in Star Wars but inadvertently recreated Disney Star Wars. If I’d seen The Goonies, which I have not, I may remark that they’re going for some cool childlike adventure like that, which falls flat – maybe it’ll work for kids and I’m too old, I’ve just considered. But positively, by default, the children’s convenient escapade elevates the A-plot, making our time with Kong better spent. I got on board with hollow Earth and thought it looked great; mysterious, much like the Skull Island depiction in Peter Jackson’s King Kong of 2005. There’s a giant door, that someone has built, okay, and at the discovery of this Lord Zedd style palace, Kong puts his hand on the door and I thought, ‘if this opens up automatically, I’m out’, and I’m chucking this whole movie in the bin. There’s a limit to how far you can push a plausible deniability that you aren’t watching something silly, even in Godzilla vs. Kong. But c’mon, if you want reason at the forefront of your titanic monster clash, then even I must question your priorities. Even when the final battle was complete, I caught myself thinking, ‘wait, why were they fighting again?’ But who cares?! The answer is that they have an ancient rivalry; they are alpha predators, and the world isn’t big enough for the two of them, inside and out. Yeah basically, this is the biggest example of toxic masculinity that has ever existed.
I hope you like your camera on a swivel, as if it was attached to the front end of a rollercoaster, because that’s what you’re going to get when our two giants get fighting. I always say I prefer seeing action take place in-camera, but I’m taken aback by how much I enjoyed the variety provided by this eccentric technique to nab nearly every angle at once. I imagine it would have been harder to animate from so many different vantage points, or maybe easier, as there’s less time to notice any mistakes or incomplete work. But I think it ultimately helps develop the spectacle, and scope, with some, not all, shots giving you the perspective that you’re watching from below, and struggling to glimpse just how big these monsters are. We’ve had a few city-destroying and CGI monster-mashes in recent years, and the one that comes to mind most readily following Godzilla vs. Kong is the T-Rex going toe-to-toe with the Indominus-Rex in Jurassic World – at least there’s no tag-teaming raptors nodding at each other in approval as the part ways here. The actual ‘Godzilla vs. Kong’ is the main crutch of the movie (as it should be, unlike Batman vs. Superman: Dawn of Justice where the ‘versus’ part is only like ten minutes); it’s energetically fast-paced and appropriately enormous. I think the team behind this movie have done a great job.
3.5
P.S. I just read while researching this movie that Shun Oguri, the bloke who plays the guy channelling his brain power into Mechagodzilla is Ren Serizawa, and meant to be Ken Watanabe’s character’s son; oh no, no, no, no, no. The Serizawas were supposed to bring balance to the titans, not destroy them! Dr. Serizawa would be spinning in his grave, as the apple has fallen far from the tree ☹. Wait, what did I say about not caring about the plot again?
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