A Review of “Godzilla vs. Kong (2021)”

 

The movie that the entire Monsterverse was building up towards has come out. The premise is “Kong and his protectors undertake a perilous journey to find his true home. Along for the ride is Jia, an orphaned girl who has a unique and powerful bond with the mighty beast. However, they soon find themselves in the path of an enraged Godzilla as he cuts a swath of destruction across the globe. The initial confrontation between the two titans – instigated by unseen forces – is only the beginning of the mystery that lies deep within the core of the planet”. So does it live up to the massive hype or fails to deliver?

Firstly, the fight scenes between the two titular characters are amazing. The director, Adam Windgard succeeds in giving an epic brawl between the two and showing their distinct fighting styles. Godzilla has this brutal, animalistic and force of nature style that just demolishes everything compared to Kong’s more cunning and agile is just a sight to behold. The fight scenes are some of the best in the series so far, without a doubt. What’s even better is that there are fights that are actually in the daytime! The two previous Godzilla movies mostly had fights that were at nighttime in the rain with minimal light. Here there are daytime fights where every action is completely visible. While there are still some fights at night, the lighting is significantly better so even the nighttime fights are improved. Additionally, there is a clear winner between the two which is quite surprising.

The CGI is also still incredibly impressive with the two titular characters looking better than ever. The score by Junkie XL is also great as it makes the action scenes feel more exciting. Although, his work here isn’t as great as say Mad Max Fury Road or Zack Snyder’s Justice League but it still does a fairly good job. There are also some visually great shots by cinematographer Ben Seresin that illustrates the grand nature of Godzilla and Kong. Although, none of the shots is as gorgeous as in Godzilla: King of the Monsters but it still works for the movie.

One problem I did have with Godzilla: King of the Monsters was that the focus was too much on the human characters. Godzilla vs Kong rectifies this to an extent by having Kong’s journey be the focus with the humans along for the ride. Another thing that was fixed is the runtime. It is under 2 hours, so I never got overly bored at points like in the previous Monsterverse movie. The pacing is just right and by the end, I felt satisfied. There is also a great relationship shown throughout between Jia (Kaylee Hottle), a young and mute orphan, who has a special bond with Kong. It’s actually quite heart-warming to watch and gives Kong some more depth and personality. Ironically, Jia is the best human character so far in the series and she can’t talk.

However, the same can’t be said about the other human characters. Dr Nathan Lind (Alexander Skarsgård) is just the typical reluctant hero character and nothing more than that. Dr Ilene Andrews (Rebecca Hall) is just a Kong exposition lady. Bernie Haye (Brian Tyree Henry) is comic relief 1 and Josh Valentine (Julian Dennison) is comic relief 2. Madison Russell (Millie Bobby Brown) and Dr Mark Russell (Kyle Chandler) return from Godzilla: King of the Monsters without any improvement in their characters with Mark’s character arc from that movie being tossed out of the window here. Walter Simmons (Demián Bichir) is a typical evil CEO and Maia Simmons (Eiza González) is just evil henchmen.

There is also a giant waste of a potentially interesting character in Ren Serizawa (Shun Ogori) who is the son of the “Let them fight” guy from the previous Godzilla movies. While the “Let them fight” guy love the Titans and wanted to coexist with them, Ren is working on the opposite side that is trying to wipe them out. Why is he trying to wipe the monsters? Why did he not follow in his father’s footstep? What was his relationship with his father? How did he feel about his father’s death? The movie does not elaborate whatsoever on his character even though there is potentially an interesting idea here. Instead, he is only used to be name-dropped so that some people can go “oh he has the same name as let them fight guy” and fulfil one plot point.

Overall, Godzilla vs Kong delivers on a thrilling brawl between the titular characters. It is still unfortunate that none of the Monsterverse movies can provide compelling human characters where the stones are there. However, the director clearly understands the audience and what they desire. He doesn’t insert an abundance of human drama or overly complicated plot threads. He gives the audience exactly what they want and that is a big lizard fighting a big monkey, and it is phenomenal.