Godzilla vs. Kong

Review : 

Dylan – As far as MonsterVerse stories go, this one is pretty par for the course. There wasn’t anything groundbreaking, but there wasn’t anything so insultingly bad that we had to take away too many points. I thought it was ridiculously on the nose to have the conspiracy theory guy on his own podcast platform. For a guy like that to trust a mainstream company to publish his content without fear of being censored? I would have rather it been some shady reddit-lite forum instead or a twitter feed. And what’s with the fluoride in the tap water joke? That’s been used for decades and it wasn’t even that funny. Why not do a chemtrail joke instead? There are plenty of other modern conspiracy theories that are ridiculous enough to make fun of. Aside from the lackluster comedy, the story built upon some of the information shared in the previous installment, Godzilla : King of the Monsters. They frequently referenced that Godzilla was able to move incredibly fast via subterranean tunnels in the last movie and expanded that to say there is a hollow earth. The hollow earth theory is a neat idea and in this universe, it would be totally plausible to assume something else was down there. 

The overall sound of the movie was kind of a mixed bag for me. My at home viewing experience got in the way a little bit, because the out of the box HBO Max app on my Roku Tv was behaving oddly. After I paired some Bluetooth headphones via the Roku app on my phone, the sound leveled out and I could actually hear dialogue without having to crank the volume. After I got the volume sorted, I thought that the sound design of the movie was crisp and sharp at all the right moments. You can’t go wrong with a JunkieXL score and I think it fits in just fine. It wasn’t overly grandiose, which would have been a major problem.

Dane – The acting in this movie was comparable to something you’d see in a class for a school project. There’s no real emotional scenes that make you actually feel for the characters and hardly any development for them in the first place. Casting popular names like Millie Bobby Brown does not instantly grant the movie permission to slack off on other castings. You can have an all star actress’s name drive interest towards the movie, there’s nothing wrong with that. But what studios shouldn’t do is hinge all the success of the movie on just her performance. Set her up for success by giving her a supporting cast that can actually create some chemistry. The most emotional part of the movie was when Kong was literally about to die and Jia shed a single tear. One tear for the big man knowing that unless there was some sort of loophole sized defibrillator, he would have died. This whole sub plotline should have been axed, but Kaylee Hottle did a fine job with what she was given. 

For any twenty-first century blockbuster, it’s a safe bet to say there’s going to be pretty good camerawork, especially on something with as big a budget as this movie. There were plenty of nice CGI landscapes and vividly destructive scenes. The movie didn’t overly rely on darkness to hide CGI flaws until the major battle, but even then there was enough sunlight to make it less cowardly. As far as directing goes, there’s not much to say about it, overall just pretty standard and nothing really stands out. 

Dylan – Dumb movies have an odd effect on people. There are those that cry out as if they have been personally wronged at how bad it is (certain film twitter communities, letterboxd users, etc.) and there are those that will staunchly defend the movie to their dying breath. Usually, I land somewhere in the middle and say something like “just turn your brain off and enjoy it”, which seems to be the popular sentiment towards Godzilla vs. Kong. I don’t think it’s a BAD movie by any means, but it’s definitely not great. The whole idea is predicated on some heavy weight matchup between two of science fiction’s biggest creatures, which sounds like an awesome idea. However, in practice, the movie falls flat because there were too many people in the way. The movie is balanced out by the visuals and sound design. I definitely cast some blame on the at home experience, and would have likely scored it just a bit higher if I saw it in glorious IMAX like WB intended. Also, MONKE. 

If you like this, check out : 

• Shin Godzilla 
• Neon Genesis : Evangelion
• Pacific Rim
• Curious George 2: Follow that Monkey