GODZILLA vs. KONG (2021)

Studio:      Warner Bros.
Director:    Adam Wingard
Writer:      Eric Pearson, Max Borenstein
Producer:  Thomas Tull, Jon Jashni, Brian Rogers, Mary Parent, Alex Garcia, Eric McLeod
Stars:     Alexander Skarsgard, Millie Bobby Brown, Rebecca Hall, Brian Tyree Henry, Shun Oguri, Eiza Gonzalez, Julian Dennison, Lance Reddick, Kyle Chandler, Demian Bichir

Review Score:

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Summary:

Godzilla and King Kong clash after a corporate conspiracy connected to their origins brings the two titans together.

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Synopsis:     Show/Hide Spoilers

At Apex Cybernetics in Pensacola, Florida, assistant engineer Bernie Hayes, who anonymously hosts a conspiracy theory podcast about titans, searches for evidence of a secret project. Bernie finds unidentified technology as well as a manifest documenting a suspiciously massive shipment to Hong Kong.

After being dormant for three years, Godzilla suddenly attacks Pensacola. Apex Cybernetics is evacuated as Godzilla lays waste to the facility.

In the attack’s aftermath, Madison Russell tells her father Mark, a Monarch director, that another titan must have provoked Godzilla. Mark tells his daughter to stop believing Bernie’s podcast theories. Mark instead reinforces the popular belief that Godzilla inexplicably turned against humanity.

Apex CEO Walter Simmons and his CTO Ren Serizawa visit disgraced professor Dr. Nathan Lind at the Denham University of Theoretical Science in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Walter shows Nathan magnetic imaging from a satellite that proves Nathan’s previously discredited theory of a ‘Hollow Earth’ at the planet’s core, which was where the titans were presumably born. Having identified an energy signature similar to Godzilla’s, Walter claims Apex can create a weapon to compete with Godzilla if Nathan helps them harness the power source. Nathan worries about entering the core because of an unsuccessful mission that killed his brother. Nathan agrees to lead the expedition after Walter assures him that Apex invented a craft capable of sustaining the gravitational inversion.

Nathan visits his former colleague Dr. Ilene Andrews on Skull Island. There, Ilene monitors Kong, but worries he is becoming uncontrollable after being confined to a biodome for years. Meanwhile, Ilene’s adopted daughter Jia, a deaf orphan from the island, maintains an unusual bond with Kong that includes teaching him to communicate through sign language.

Nathan tells Ilene they need Kong to guide them to Hollow Earth and protect them along the way. Although Ilene worries Godzilla will come for Kong if he leaves his habitat, and Jia worries about removing Kong from his home, Ilene hesitantly agrees. Along with a military escort, Walter sends his daughter Maya to monitor the mission to reach the entry point in Antarctica.

With help from her friend Josh Valentine and a convenience store clerk, Madison identifies and tracks down Bernie. After discovering she is Mark Russell’s daughter, Bernie shows Madison what he found at Apex. Convinced Apex caused Godzilla’s return, Madison and Bernie plot to investigate the facility together.

Godzilla comes for Kong while he is being transported across the Tasman Sea. Godzilla destroys multiple military planes and ships. Godzilla and Kong battle aboard an aircraft carrier and underwater. With Godzilla winning, Nathan convinces an admiral to cut all power to their ships in order to play dead. Thinking the threat defeated, Godzilla retreats.

Madison, Bernie, and Josh infiltrate the ruined Apex facility in Florida. In a sub-basement they find captive skullcrawler creatures as well as an underground infrastructure. The three of them board a hyper-speed transport shuttle to Hong Kong.

To avoid Godzilla’s detection, Nathan has Kong carried the rest of the way to Antarctica suspended from military choppers. When Kong refuses to enter the Hollow Earth portal, Nathan convinces Ilene to have Jia influence Kong. Jia tells Kong he may be able to find others like him in the core, since that is where his family came from, and that it could become his new home.

With the remaining soldiers and scientists piloting Apex crafts, Kong leads the expedition through a rough ride to Hollow Earth. When they arrive, they find a lush prehistoric ecosystem. Kong fights two massive flying creatures.

Madison, Bernie, and Josh arrive at Apex’s underground facility in Hong Kong. The three of them spy Walter activating Mechagodzilla, a robotic recreation of Godzilla that Ren controls through a psionic interface connected to one of Ghidorah’s skulls. Mechagodzilla fires an energy beam that destroys a creature during an experiment, but the mech only reaches 40% of its power capacity. Walter and Ren discuss how they need the energy source from Hollow Earth. Madison realizes Godzilla attacked the Florida facility because he knew Apex was trying to replace him. At the same time, Mark and Monarch discover Godzilla moving toward Hong Kong for another rampage.

Kong enters a temple in Hollow Earth. Inside, Kong retrieves an ancestral ax fashioned with a Godzilla dorsal fin for a blade. Kong sits on a throne in the temple’s main chamber.

Kong uses the ax to draw radioactive energy from Earth’s core. The charge reveals an intricate Godzilla carving in the stone floor. From Hong Kong, Godzilla responds by firing his atomic breath downward toward Hollow Earth.

Maya extracts an energy sample and transmits its data to Hong Kong where Walter and Ren recreate the power signature. When Ilene tries to stop her, Maya has soldiers hold the scientists at gunpoint. The disruption triggers a cave-in that worsens when Godzilla’s beam reaches the core. Flying creatures attack the humans. Kong crushes Maya’s ship when she tries to escape.

Kong makes his way toward Hong Kong through the tunnel Godzilla created. Nathan, Ilene, and Jia follow Kong in their ship. In Hong Kong, Kong battles Godzilla again. Kong uses the ax to block Godzilla’s breath. Once the breath recharges the ax, Kong uses it to knock Godzilla to the ground.

Godzilla recovers to resume his fight with Kong. Godzilla nearly crushes Kong, but walks away instead. Kong collapses.

Apex security captures Madison, Bernie, and Josh and brings them to Walter for a confrontation. Walter and Ren reactivate Mechagodzilla using the recreated energy signature. However, the neural interface overloads, killing Ren and giving Mechagodzilla a mind of its own. Mechagodzilla kills Walter while Madison, Bernie, and Josh look for a way to shut it down.

Mechagodzilla goes above ground to rampage through Hong Kong. Godzilla begins fighting Mechagodzilla.

Jia recognizes Kong’s heart is failing. Nathan uses a power core retrieved from Hollow Earth to rejuvenate Kong’s heart. Jia tells Kong that Mechagodzilla is the real enemy, not Godzilla. Kong joins Godzilla in battling Mechagodzilla.

As Mechagodzilla is about to defeat Kong, Josh uses Bernie’s whiskey to fry Apex’s computer system. With Mechagodzilla going haywire, Godzilla fires atomic breath to charge Kong’s ax. Kong uses the ax to destroy Mechagodzilla and tears off its head.

All of the humans recover and reunite on the ground. After Kong drops his ax, Godzilla returns to the sea. Monarch moves Kong to a new habitat and monitoring station in Hollow Earth.

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Review:

Earlier in the week leading up to “Godzilla vs. Kong’s” release, the popular discourse among those who’d seen it early had to do with the film’s human characters. Whether someone liked or disliked the movie, the consensus seemed to be that the humans were paper-thin nobodies and their arcs could be considered inconsequential at best or interminably boring at worst.

That didn’t matter much to supporters who said, “Who cares? We want to see big behemoths battle, not fathers fretting over daughters or unnamed admirals looking at radar screens.” The opposite end argued, “Since we spend three times as many minutes on the ground with people than we do watching colossal creatures clash, shouldn’t more effort be put into making that side of the story as engaging as the CGI-soaked fights?” This got me thinking about roller coaster relationships with Godzilla and how self-set expectations shape our capacity to be satisfied.

The traditional Toho films evolved so unusually, they’re delineated by three separate eras. During the Showa period, early Godzilla movies carried Atomic Age commentary born from post-Hiroshima perspectives, yet transformed into kooky camp that included Godzilla’s googly-eyed son Minilla and Mothra’s miniature fairy twins. By the Heisei era, Godzilla built over kiddie cartoon appeal to be more comic book-y in nature, swinging back toward outer space monsters with some social subtext about pollution and corporate corruption. The Millennium series then threw continuity out the window and went harder on futuristic sci-fi. After 29 installments across 50 years, 2004’s “Godzilla: Final Wars” looked nearly nothing like the 1954 film that started it all.

The point is, Godzilla has stomped over every type of terrain imaginable. The conclusion I came to is that there is no “one” way to take every Godzilla movie unilaterally, although there usually is “one” way to take each Godzilla movie individually.

For instance, I wasn’t thrilled with “Shin Godzilla” (review here), yet many moviegoers were bowled over by its bold allegory for government negligence. Speaking specifically of issues with a Godzilla film’s human characters, my eyelids doubled in weight every time the scene shifted to a conference room or monitoring station where scientists and elected officials pondered Godzilla’s threat while the main attraction stood still in the center of the city. Suited diplomats gave speeches. Researchers presented folders filled with files. Was I watching a creature feature or CNN coverage of the U.S. House of Representatives voting on a routine agricultural bill?

In light of the COVID-19 pandemic, I’d probably be more receptive to “Shin Godzilla” now. What was intended at the time to be a biting indictment of Japan’s questionable hurricane response might now read as frighteningly relatable criticism of how poorly America’s executive administration handled a comparable crisis. Back in 2016 though, I wanted Godzilla being Godzilla, not politicians being politicians. My headspace wasn’t correctly conditioned for the film “Shin Godzilla” was, and that’s on me, not the movie. Hold that thought while we boomerang back to “Godzilla vs. Kong.”

I’m not entirely sure why “Godzilla vs. Kong’s” humans are perceived as problematically pedestrian. To be crystal clear, there are fully forgettable inclusions who may as well be ghosts given how little weight they have, particularly anyone seen as a sidekick of sorts. I perked up when TV vet Chris Chalk turned up in the prologue, except he’s never relevant again after the title text. No way did producers cast Lance Reddick to deliver one disposable line in a criminally paltry two camera setups. From Demian Bichir’s daughter Eiza Gonzalez to Millie Bobby Brown’s buddy Julian Dennison, a few folks with top billing could easily be combined into other characters too.

Coins to crullers, I’d wager what undoubtedly happened is a savvy editor said, “You know what? We really don’t need all of this.” That person was right. “Godzilla vs. Kong” doesn’t need any more humans than it already has and it doesn’t need the ones that do exist to do much more.

Stereotypes are in full effect, including Bichir’s whiskey-sipping corporate creep, Rebecca Hall’s Jane Goodall-inspired ape whisperer, and Kyle Chandler’s, well, he definitely doesn’t do much of anything. But whenever one of the humans does do something, it’s not to follow their own agenda of looking for a lost loved one or advancing an independent interest. Everything anyone does sets the stage for monster mayhem. It’s true that they’re slaves to serving up exposition. But that’s so Godzilla and Kong don’t have to, and can just beat on each other instead. Everyone fills the function they’re written for, no more and no less, and the film ends up with less fluff as a result.

Unlike other massive monster movies, where dust storms and frantic cameras cover FX seams by blurring action into indiscernible images, “Godzilla vs. Kong” showcases what fans most want to see. When the titular titans start a slugfest atop an aircraft carrier, the camera remains in a static wide shot so audiences actually see the full scope of Kong’s fist smashing into Godzilla’s face. Kong climbs buildings. Godzilla topples them. Kong hacks at Godzilla with a radioactive ax made from one of G’s dorsal fins. I wouldn’t give “Godzilla vs. Kong” a “dumb fun” label. It’s not mindless at all. It’s merely made for a mix of midnight movie and afternoon matinee havoc that’s as epically entertaining as summertime blockbusters get.

The script certainly coughs up a couple of hairballs with regards to characterization, but an all-star cast of familiar favorites coughs up casual charisma to compensate. To anyone digging too deep with criticism about believability, I’d remind them to swing a light that sees “Godzilla vs. Kong” as a soda and Sour Patch Kids spectacular, not a coffee and scones discussion piece.

“Godzilla vs. Kong” telegraphs its flippantly fantastical tone at the outset, when a chipper Bobby Vinton needle drop plays while Kong wakes from a slumber, scratches his ass, and yawns on his way to a Skull Island shower like any Average Joe. Only a certain amount of seriousness applies to a movie where a massive ape plays Steel Cage Match against a giant radioactive reptile. The filmmakers recognize this, even if not all viewers do.

Remember that thought I asked you to hold on to? The way to take “Godzilla vs. Kong” is as a modernized riff on classic mutant monster movies made for date night at the drive-in. The film’s far-fetched sci-fi featuring hyper-speed tunnel trains connecting Pensacola to Hong Kong, or gravitational inversion crafts capable of warping to the Earth’s core, isn’t remotely realistic. Neither was any of the claptrap concocted by military men combating oversized insects in the 1950s. “Godzilla vs. Kong” is only as complicated as it needs to be to give two of cinema’s greatest goliaths an eye-candy arena they can turn into Thunderdome.

Review Score: 75

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