Godzilla vs Kong
DC Fans have the Snyderverse, Marvel fans have the Multiverse, and I have recently learned that if you love King Kong and Godzilla, there is a Monsterverse. The latest addition to the Monsterverse is Godzilla vs Kong, the epic showdown between two big… things. Ok, so if we are being honest, I have never watched anything Godzilla or King Kong related. I know nothing about the Monsterverse and after watching the movie I think I am more confused than before. However, hundreds of thousands of people all across the world love these movies. As of today, Godzilla vs Kong has earned almost 200 million dollars worldwide. There has got to be something more to this Godzilla and King Kong thing--something special, something other than just two big guys destroying coastal cities. I went into this movie determined to uncover the secret of Monsterverse.
My first hope was the story, that maybe the plot or situation would be engaging or there would be cool plot twists, but truly the story was a hot mess. It just didn’t make sense, and even now as I sit and try to summarize it I find I can’t because there was no overall story arc. Like a Marvel movie, this movie is set in a cinematic universe with a continuing story. Watching Godzilla vs Kong is kind of like jumping into the MCU during Endgame and hoping it all makes sense, except that Marvel tries to make each movie a stand-alone film that makes some sense without the other movies. Godzilla vs Kong explains nothing, as if they expect you to have either watched the other movies or, I guess, not care about what you don’t know. An example is Millie Bobby-Brown’s character, Madison, whose name I did not know until I looked it up on IMDB. At the end of the film, I knew nothing about her, why she cares, or why she is even involved with the story at all. After some research, I learned she is a character in Godzilla: King of Monsters, but I didn’t see that movie and I was confused. This is only one example out of two hours of references and pseudoscience that I guess I was supposed to know before I watched the movie.
There was also a major lack of motivation. I didn’t understand what Godzilla and King Kong have against each other or really why either character did anything. I know that they are supposed to battle--that was implied in the title--but what is their actual motivation? I thought it was just an eternal grudge match but **Spoiler** they don’t kill each other in the end even though Godzilla had Kong pinned and could have ended him. Godzilla goes off into the ocean in a moment that bears a striking resemblance to Free Willie, leaving me sitting there wondering what the point of the battle was. Just to see which was stronger? It was obviously Godzilla even after you gave Kong a magic ax. Yeah, that happened.
But it wasn’t just the Monsters who lacked clear motivation. I didn’t understand why the human characters do things either. There is a female scientist (Whose name is never said in the movie. *Googles name*) named Ilene, who works with Kong for unknown reasons. She doesn’t want him to get hurt, kind of, and throughout the movie follows Kong and advocates for him. But for the life of me, I don’t understand why or what she ultimately wants. Even the motives of the evil villain who builds the robot are unclear and only vaguely evil because as we all know, wanting to have a weapon to defend humanity when Godzilla pops out of the ocean is, of course, diabolical.
On top of a lack of motivation and a weird lack of a desire to introduce their characters, some things just straight up made no sense like how Godzilla even knew what was happening. One of the plot lines involves an evil science company making a robot Godzilla to protect humans from the real Godzilla. This leads the real Godzilla to attack the company out of anger… I think. But who told Godzilla about Robot Gozilla? How did he know where to attack? There is no explanation of how Godzilla gets his intel. Apparently, being big means you know everything.
So, the story was a letdown and the characters were bland and personality-less, there as walking plot devices and nothing more. On my quest to find out how this movie made millions I looked at the action. There are some crazy fights in this movie and most end with Kong pulling off the head of the looser and eating it, which was very gross. It has to be said that the visual effects team who worked on this film did a fantastic job creating several epic Kaijo (huge monster) battles, however despite that fact, King Kong’s size is constantly changing. He is sometimes simply huge, at other times gargantuan, depending on what the scene needs. It is distracting and seems like sloppy filmmaking. At the end of the day, I do like a good fight scene but I don’t really enjoy watching the city of Hong Kong get decimated and presumably thousands of people die, but the artists who worked on it made it very visually appealing.
After watching Godzilla vs Kong, I still don’t get it. It was categorically a bad movie that made no sense and emotionally did nothing for a first-time viewer. But here is the thing, on some level I kind of get the appeal. I am a nerd. I love Star Trek, Dr. Who, Star Wars, most things DC and Marvel, and the list goes on from there. Let me tell you, there are plenty of categorically bad TV shows and movies that are part of those franchises. Have I watched them? Yes. Did I enjoy them? Yes. Do I care that they make no sense to the outside world? No. To me, seeing the Doctor battle the Darleks or Captain Kirk face-off with Kahn is epic and super satisfying as a fan, and I suspect that it is the same for the lovers of the Monsterverse. Godzilla has been around since 1954 and is both an icon and a legend, and who would win the battle between King Kong and Godzilla has been a question long debated. Seeing that play out on screen in epic contests for honor and glory is what fans wanted and in Godzilla vs Kong, it’s what they got, even if it left the rest of us confused.
Content overview
Language: There are exclamations of D**m, SH**, and people say Oh My G*D
Sexual Content: None
Violence: There are gore and guts galore. Most of the blood is green if that makes it better. But watching Kong suck out the guts of his victims is just gross. The man who is controlling Robot Godzilla’s brain is fried.
Other Objectionable Content: There is an intense conspiracy theorist who does things like a shower in bleach and refuses to drink tap water, none of this problematic behavior is ever addressed. Most of Madison’s behavior is rebellious, dangerous, and reckless without any consequences.
