I'm not a rabid "monsterverse" fan. I do love the original GOJIRA & KING KONG films and have various thoughts of "OK" to "fun" in regards to every one since. After a year of pandemic living, with minimal tentpole film releases, it feels like GODZILLA vs KONG is just the kind of movie the world needs (and initial theater box office success seems to back that assertion up). Apple TV+ gifted us the legit sweet goodnatured "Ted Lasso" late summer 2020, SOUL & Disney Pixar delivered the beautiful reminder of what it's truly like to be alive on Christmas 2020, and now GODZILLA vs KONG has given us the crazy monster battle royale fun.
And holy cow is this movie bonkers.
We have an established world where the entire population has accepted that occasionally the Titans will indeed battle each other and the expense of cities: a world w/"Titan Shelters" built for large city populations to hunker down and wait out giant monster fights. This is a world with a secret research base in the hollow center of earth, as well as a research base where Kong is seemingly living happily for the most part (and communicating with a deaf little girl via sign language). This monsterverse is one with some of the most insane science that is actually a thing: where a conspiracy theorist might actually be right-on-the-money but most folks might wave him off because...you know...Godzilla and Kong are out there doing their thing and occasionally fighting other giant monsters that threaten us. We have a 'magic axe,' and a moment where one of the Titans needs to be defibrillated!
Seriously: bonkers in the best of ways!!
The filmmakers wisely establish fairly early on that neither side is the 'bad guy' in this world. We've known through two previous movies that Godzilla is a protector of humanity against the other Titans/giant monsters that threaten us, and here we learn that essentially Godzilla is mostly just upset with humanity for letting a giant corporation secretly develop threatening technology (the corporation believes they're developing a contraption that will be the dominant 'thing' vs the Titans, including Godzilla; Godzilla, in its wise giant-lizard wisdom, knows this is merely a threat to Godzilla and humanity itself). It's a kind of fun, broad commentary against corporations but don't think this film spends too much time delving into socio-commentary. The film has just enough "plot" developments to move the plot along to what the audience wants to see: giant monster battles.
And in that regard, GODZILLA vs KONG delivers. I had decided that my opinion on this film would likely be determined by this simple tenet: if the film is 70 minutes of plot set-up w/the final 40ish minutes the the 'big fight,' I'd likely be bored; if the 'big fight' happened within the first hour, I'd likely be happy. Luckily, the film is structured to skew closer to our two headliners 'meeting' before the 60 min mark (around the 40 minute mark, actually), with a fun action set piece at sea: mostly in daylight, no less! We quickly learn right off the bat how to two Titans face up against each other, and the fight is not a short affair: while it feels kind of like a 'tease' to the grand finale, it's substantial and very entertaining on its own.
After the initial match-up, we delve into the 'hollow earth' mumbo jumbo where Kong finds his magic axe we've seen him wield in all the trailers (it literally has its own pseudo charging station in the hollowed center of the earth: seriously). Kong fights some more monsters, there is a weird gravitate component that makes the environment a little ethereal and fascinating, and then things quickly escalate to the Final Battle: though not without an amazing shot of Kong seeming sitting on a thrown - a shot that reminded me so much of the King Conan shot at the end of CONAN THE BARBARIAN I literally lol'ed in excitement.
I hate to spoil the impetus of the film, even though there were hints & glimpses in the trailers, and the marketing/merchandising have given the 'game' away a bit. I'll just stress again that Godzilla is indeed revealed to not be the bad guy of the story and ends up teaming up with Kong to once again save the city. I will say there is a great shot that feels like a call-back/homage to the 2014 GODZILLA film that made me smirk like a nerd when
Sorry but you are not allowed to view spoiler contents.
And this film is FULL of moments like that: moments that fans of this type of film will cheer for out loud, clap and/or laugh with glee, and just generally have a good time. The film takes itself just serious enough to not delve into self-parody or meta humor, while absolutely delivering what it knows the audience wants to see. The movie has what Pulitzer Prize winning film critic Roger Ebert would've maybe deemed a "high mumbo jumbo quotient" at times, but everything works for the fun of the story. The humans are around to mostly further the plot and/or fall into peril and need rescuing by (mostly) Kong or Godzilla. The fight sequences are well-shot, with the true 'villain' of the film, a big corporate CEO, being perfectly near-comic book levels of silly villain (though, honestly, a sort of grey ethos of "maybe his methods aren't great, but he kind of has a point here"). The film feels just as much a sequel to the more playful, fun tone of SKULL ISLAND than it does the darker (in look, not so much tone) two GODZILLA films, though there are obvious correlations and references to the GODZILLA movies as well.
The truly fascinating thing for me, though, is how close this film feels like it could be a bridge to the PACIFIC RIM universe. There were some scenes/concepts in this film that feel 'thiiiis close' to PACIFIC RIM that if WB announced the next film in the series would be a cross-over to the PAC RIM series, I don't think many would be too surprised: I would be ecstatic, to be honest! I don't think that's meant to be (unless filmmakers have been fibbing about bridging the two franchises, which is possible), but I can't help but wonder where they go from here with either franchise. I can't help but wonder what a "MonsterVerse Avengers" type movie would look like with Godzilla, Kong, Gipsy Danger, Cherno Alpha, etc. facing off against a slew of creatures from 'The Breach.'
This is the fun movie you think it'll be, and you already know if you'll like this based on how excited you are to see it: people who take films a little too serious will likely roll their eyes at most of this film, while the rest of us will likely have different levels of "it was fun/I liked it!" I'm in the camp where I knew exactly what I wanted/hoped for out of this movie, and it delivered: no more, no less. I think if I lived in a cooler town I would make this my first movie theater experience in more than 12 months, as I truly believe this would be a BLAST with the right theater crowd!
GODZILLA vs KONG is on HBO Max for a month or so, as well as in theaters.