(CCR Original Content) Godzilla Vs. Kong Review [Spoiler Free Review and Spoiler Section below picture] (7/10)
Godzilla Vs. Kong is a 2021 monster movie directed by Adam Winguard, with screenplay written by Eric Pearson and Max Borenstein and story by Terry Rosio, Michael Dougherty and Zach Shields. The film was produced by Thomas Tull, Jon Jashni, Brian Rogers, Mary Parent, Alex Garcia and Eric McLeod and Legendary Pictures and distributed by Warner Bros. Pictures and Toho. The movie stars Alexander Skarsgard, Millie Bobby Brown, Rebecca Hall, Brian Tyree Henry, Eiza Gonzalez, Kyle Chandler and Demian Bichir.
Dr. Ilene Andrews (Rebecca Hall) is the lead anthropological linguist for Monarch in charge of monitoring Kong on Skull Island five years after the defeat of King Ghidorah by Godzilla. The giant dome habitat that Kong is kept in is no longer adequate but is the only thing keeping him hidden from Godzilla who would attack because of him being a possible Alpha Titan. Kong however continually attacks the artificial skyline but he seems to find solace in a young orphan girl named Jia (Kaylee Hottle), who is a deaf Iwi native who forms a special bond with Kong, and is Ilene's adopted daughter. Meanwhile Apex Cybernetics' CEO Walter Simmons (Demian Bichir) recruits Nathan Lind (Alexander Skarsgard), a hollow earth theorist, to guide a search for a power source into the hollow earth in order for them to create a weapon capable of defeating Godzilla. Nathan theorizes that hollow earth is the birthplace of the Titans and that one of them could help guide them there and so they meet with Ilene who reluctantly agrees to let Kong guide them at the risk of provoking Godzilla.
I thought this movie was really good and it was a lot of fun. They fight more than once in the movie and there is a clear winner. I'm definitely glad I went to go check it out in theaters and get that authentic "full movie theater experience" and enjoy it the way that a movie with giant monsters should be seen. The movie started off really interesting right away with us seeing Kong in his natural environment on Skull Island, almost like time stood still for him since we last saw him in Kong: Skull Island. Though he did look older in appearance. Right away you realize things are very different as we see that Kong is being monitored by hidden surveillance cameras in the forest and he seems to have found himself a little friend in the young deaf girl who greets him. That's when we're thrown for a twist as Kong throws a tree that he ripped out of the ground at the sky and it shatters. We discover that Kong is inside a giant dome on Skull Island meant to hide him from Godzilla. We're then shown a montage of different graphics such as news articles and secret Monarch files of information on both Godzilla and Kong. It shows us that Godzilla and Kong have both defeated multiple Titans and are seemingly destined to fight each other as seen in the ancient cave paintings in Godzilla: King of the Monsters. I feel like this movie definitely had it's good parts and bad parts and while it was a ton of fun it also had quite a few flaws. I really liked the action sequences and monster fight scenes. The monsters seemed to move a lot better than in some of the other movies, especially Godzilla when compared to the first Godzilla (2014) movie. The parts where they fought were some of the best parts of the film. I feel like the human part of the movie wasn't so much glossed over but didn't really have anything that was very impactful. Nothing like the death of Ford's mother or Father in Godzilla (2014) or the soldiers in Kong: Skull Island or even scientist Ishiro Serizawa in Godzilla: King of the Monsters. In fact I feel that Millie Bobby Brown's character Madison Russell and her father, Dr. Mark Russell and the whole B-plot fell kind of flat or felt kind of unnecessary to the movie. There were also some major plot holes and things that didn't make sense to me that really brought the score down from it being a great movie but I'll go over that in the spoiler section. For me this movie was still really enjoyable and worth watching in theaters. It really delivered in what you wanted for a giant monster movie so if you're thinking about getting it on HBOMax, I got to say I give this movie my "must see seal of approval" and I give it a 7/10.
Look Below This Picture For Spoiler Section Or Click On Picture For Our YouTube Review
Spoiler Section Review:
This movie was really good and delivered the goods when it comes to Godzilla fighting Kong and they fight more than once in the movie and there is a definite winner. It seemed to me like the fight scenes and action sequences have gotten even better throughout the 4 movies of Legendary's Monsterverse. There were some major plot holes and some things that could have been different or better to make it/take it from a really good movie to a great one but it seems like they took what they learned from making the other movies and decided to play it safe. They did what they do good and did it better and decided to give the audience more of what they want and less of what they didn't. So let's start off with how the movie begins with Kong in this giant dome on Skull Island with a digital skyline that's artificial. That was a pretty cool little twist and decent explanation as to how they are hiding his signal/frequency from Godzilla finding him and fighting or killing him. I feel like this wasn't thought out that well or at least could have been done better or differently to make more sense. I know the last time we saw Kong was in Kong: Skull Island which took place in 1973, so it has been 48 years and I guess that is plenty of time to build a giant dome but just kind of put into question the whole idea of how it would work to me. Like did they build it first and then move him or somehow build it around him while he was there? To me it was something that didn't make sense or needed a better explanation but not as much as the whole scene in where they are transporting him by ship and didn't show how they tranquilized him or got him on the ship or how they got those giant handcuffs and chains on him. I like how they showed Kong have that relationship with the little girl Jai and thought that she was probably the best human character in the whole movie. I really liked her performance and thought she brought a lot of heart to the film which is probably hard to do since she was playing a deaf person and didn't talk the whole movie but was able to communicate with sign language. There was a intro montage video showing a bunch of news articles and what looked like top secret files from Monarch that showed events that happened in the previous movies, like Godzilla defeating the MUTO's from the first film (Godzilla 2014) and King Ghidorah (Godzilla: King of the Monsters 2019) and also Kong defeating the Skullcrawlers (Kong: Skull Island 2017). There were also quite a few other squares of defeated Titans they showed crossed off. They didn't say or explain who these other creatures were but to me it kind of implied that Godzilla might have fought and possibly killed some of the other Titans that appeared at the end of Godzilla: King of the Monsters. I know this is mainly speculation because it only said defeated and not killed but I wish they would have explained it more or actually shown Godzilla fighting and defeating some of theses other monsters and feel they really missed an opportunity to build on what they had setup in the last movie. So then Godzilla attacks Apex Cybernetics in Pensacola, Florida causing the death of multiple people and making the government and others question if Godzilla is no longer their savior. We're introduced to Bernie Hayes, an employee of Apex Cybernetics who runs a podcast where he speaks about Titan conspiracy theories and is actively trying to uncover sinister activities at the Pensacola facility when Godzilla attacks. He is able to find some secret documents and later locate a secret section of the facility and sees for himself some kind of technology that isn't anything that is supposed to be there. It brings in Madison Russel, (Milly Bobby Brown's character from the last movie) her father Dr. Mark Russel and her friend Josh and shows that Madison is a avid listener of Bernie's podcast. Then we get introduced to some more characters, mainly Apex CEO Walter Simmons and Ren Serizawa, the son of Ishiro from the last movie as they recruit Nathan Lind, a hollow earth theorist, who believes they can utilize a Titan to show them the way as they intend to search for a power source in the hollow earth to create a weapon capable of defeating Godzilla. They then go meet with Dr. Ilene Andrews, the lead Monarch scientist and adoptive mother of Jia, at the Kong dome and convince her to "borrow" Kong so they can do their plan. I thought she gave in rather easily and that this was a pretty bonkers plan but if you really had to deal with a giant monster like Godzilla what other options would you have. And the last character you're introduced to here is Maia Simmons (Eiza Gonzalez) who is CEO Walter Simmons daughter and Apex Cybernetics person in charge of utilizing these advanced HEAV's (specialized crafts capable of withstanding the pressure exerted by the gravity field protecting hollow earth). I'm not sure what was more unbelievable the plan or how they had all this advanced technology like the HEAV's which seemed to have a Tony Stark/Iron Man type propulsion system. So we get to the first really awesome part of the movie where Godzilla comes for Kong on the Navy ships while they're transporting him to Antartica. Round 1, fight! And this first battle did not disappoint. It was pretty cool and Godzilla definitely had the advantage out in the middle of the ocean but that didn't stop Kong from getting in some good licks and punching Godzilla hard more than once when Godzilla climbs up on a ship and also when Godzilla fights with him underwater. I'm bigtime team Godzilla but it was hard not to cheer for Kong as he was going to the people's rescue whe he saw that Godzilla was going to easily destroy the other ships with people in them. Godzilla wins this one as Kong nearly drowns and is saved by the humans. They decide to move Kong by air and use a fleet of helicopters and a giant rope net capable of holding him. When they get there Ilene gets Jia to convince Kong to enter the tunnel and find Hollow Earth by saying it's possible he could have family there. Madison and Josh are able to find Bernie and decide to sneak back into the destroyed Pensacola Apex facility and get trapped in a container on a advanced technology monorail system that travels over 600 mph and takes them to Hong Kong. There they find that Apex has created a giant robot version of Godzilla (Mecha-Godzilla) utilizing the severed head of Ghidorah. It's shown that Ren is telepathically controlling it through neural networks in the severed head and that the robot is severely limited by it's huge power demand which explains the true reason they are in search of the Hollow Earth's energy source. The trip into Hollow Earth has got to be one of the coolest moments outside the giant monster fight scenes. It was really cool and Hollow Earth looked really awesome. We're previewed to some of the cool animals there like these giant flying snake creatures that attack Kong, some crab like creatures that come out of the ground and a giant lizard that eats them and also these flying bat-bird creatures that we see better later. They follow Kong who leads them to some kind of ancestral throne room where there appears to be some kind of remains of a battle/war with Godzilla's kind and Kong finds a giant axe made from what appears to be a Godzilla dorsal plate/spike. There was so much I wanted them to show and explain in this location. I mean we literally get nothing. They don't explain what this throne room is or why there are these holes in the floor for the weapons. There's even a glyph of what looks like a snake with a Godzilla head or something and it glows and encircles the throne. It would have been nice if they would have shown some sort of flashback to when the Kong/Godzilla war happened or alluded that maybe some kind of advanced Alien culture was responsible for the Titans but once again we're given cryptic clues and left in the dark. Meanwhile Godzilla heads towards Hong Kong attracted by Mechagodzilla's activation when Apex tests it against a Skullcrawler in it's Hong Kong facility. Godzilla now in Hong Kong senses Kong below and uses his atomic breath to drill a hole into hollow earth and Maia and her Apex team are killed after trying to escape once they got what they needed, a signature of the energy they found down there. I can't believe Godzilla was able to burn a hole all the way down into hollow earth but damn. I didn't think anything at the time but one of the major plot holes of the movie is the whole thing with the power source. They decided to go all the way to hollow earth to find this thing and when they were in the throne room Maia uses this spider robot drone to get a sample of this energy. Then they're able to utilize it on the surface after she sends them an email or copy of it. That makes no sense, I mean how is that even possible. This and Godzilla blasting a hole into the throne room causes those bat/bird creatures to awaken and fly around attacking and killing all the Apex teams which was another pretty cool scene. Anyways Kong grabs his axe which is now charged up from him placing it in the floor of the throne room and goes up/down the shaft to face Godzilla. Round 2 fight! This fight sequence was the crown jewel of the movie and was extremely satisfying. This was the fight everyone was waiting for since this movie was first announced. This time around Kong is able to maneuver a lot better in the cityscape and has his axe which proves to be both weapon and shield against Godzilla as Kong is able to block Godzilla's atomic breath with it and knocks Godzilla down and out. Round 2 goes to Kong. Godzilla however is not defeated and gets back up for Round 3. This time they go all out against each other and as the battle progresses it becomes clear that Kong is no match for Godzilla and his atomic breath attack. Kong winds up running all over the city trying to avoid it but eventually Godzilla strikes him with it and gets the upper hand. He claws at Kong's chest and winds up pinning him down where Kong secedes victory to him. Godzilla's victory is short lived though as just as he has defeated Kong, Walter orders Ren to activate Mechagodzilla with the new power source which he quickly loses control of as now the severed head of Ghidorah has taken over. I have to say that I'm not too big a fan of the way this Mechagodzilla looks. I think it could have been designed a little better but they did make it just as hardcore as the original one. The laser that it showed it had earlier was capable of cutting a Skullcralwer in half like it was nothing. Mechagodzilla begins to battle an already battle worn Godzilla and proceeds to hand his ass to him utilizing his many weapons such as all kinds of rockets, energy punches and kicks and a crazy spinning blade tail. There was a part where he went WWE on Godzilla and grabbed him by the head and threw him face first into no less than 3 different skyscrapers. Meanwhile Jia runs over to Kong who laid defeated on the ground and hears that his heartbeat is fading. Ilene and Nathan make a plan to utilize the HEAV they escaped in and give Kong a shock to restart his heart and after succeeding Jia tells Kong that Mechagodzilla is the enemy not Godzilla. This is when they team up and fight Mechagodzilla together with Godzilla helping Kong by charging up his axe and Kong cutting off Mechagodzilla's arms and legs and giving the finishing blow, then ripping off his head and spine. The movie ends rather abruptly not really showing much more except that Kong and Godzilla acknowledge each other before Godzilla leaves and they go their separate ways. There's no after credits scene which was pretty disappointing to me but we are shown that sometime later Monarch has established an observation post in Hollow Earth where Kong now rules. This review is probably the longest I've ever done but I'm a huge Godzilla fan and remember watching all the movies whenever they would show them on tv as a kid. I even checked out books about him in the library in elementary school so this is something I'm pretty passionate about. Like I said this was a really good movie especially if you like the whole Godzilla/Kong movie franchise but it was riddled with some pretty terrible plot holes and an under utilized cast in my opinion. Still I
recommend this movie for people to see in theaters or HBOMax and give it my "must see seal of approval" and give this movie a 7/10.