To expand upon my quick thoughts in the video, Godzilla vs Kong is a sequel to both Godzilla: King of the Monsters and Kong: Skull Island and the fourth film in Legendary’s MonsterVerse. The story is set five years after Godzilla: King of the Monsters and follows a group of Monarch scientists trying to avoid a colossal clash between Godzilla and Kong by finding the latter a new home within the Hollow Earth. At the same time, Madison Russell and her friend Josh Valentine team up with a conspiracy podcaster named Bernie to figure out what Apex Cybernetics is building that is provoking the normally peaceful Godzilla. All of this culminates in a battle to see which alpha will reign among the other Titans. The film stars Alexander Skarsgård, Millie Bobby Brown, Rebecca Hall, Brian Tyree Henry, Shun Oguri, Eiza González, Julian Dennison, Kyle Chandler, and Demián Bichir.
To start the realism of the first three films in this franchise is completely thrown out the window. In some ways, it feels like a soft reboot of the series. Almost everything that happens is taken with a “leap of faith.” In the first films, Godzilla’s gigantic mass was shown by the fact that whenever he made landfall he was accompanied by a giant tidal wave. With Kong being now roughly the same size as Godzilla it doesn’t make any sense how he can be carried by boat or a few helicopters. The military is shown attacking Godzilla with normal weapons when in the last film only the prototype weapon called the “Oxygen Destroyer” was shown to have any effect on the titan. All of the other titans have seemingly disappeared or possibly gone back into hibernation. The Hollow Earth has now been changed from a series of large tunnels under the Earth’s surface to a huge subterranean landscape that can only be reached by what looks like a wormhole. The film has many more inconsistencies that that could take up the rest of this review if I were to continue.
The human element of the film is fine and only exists to get the titans to fight each other. Madison (Millie Bobby Brown) and her father Mark (Kyle Chandler) are not necessary characters and only exist to add star power and tie into the previous Godzilla film. Their roles could have easily gone to any actor. Which would have been better as the previous films have gone with different human characters to offer a different perspective to a world with giant fighting monsters.
On the bright side, the film looks gorgeous. The detail put into designing Kong, Godzilla and Mechagodzilla are wonderful. Whenever Godzilla roars you can see the gills on his neck moving. The same goes for the fur all over Kong. The landscape of the Hollow Earth is beautiful. It’s vast and wide and straight out of your wildest fantasy. It would have been great if the entire film had taken place here instead of in the cities on the surface. The score by Junkie XL is also very enjoyable. Each character has a theme so that you know when they are about to appear on the screen. Every fight feels exciting and bombastic as if the viewer were watching a wrestling match.
If you only care about watching monsters fight then this is the perfect film for you. I give Godzilla vs Kong a Solid 6.5/10. I feel like this franchise may be done after this point. I’m sure they can find a way to continue but it may be a bit difficult to find a reason for another solo Kong and/or Godzilla film.