TAS Reviews: Godzilla vs. Kong
I should preface this review by saying you should take my review with a grain of salt, because this movie is not for me. I'm not the target audience. If you're one of those people who watched the trailers, know what to expect and think it sounds like a great time, you're probably going to love this movie. That wasn't the case for me, because I never liked what this movie was about. From the moment I heard about this movie, I felt that the premise was broken and flawed to the core. I'm all for a good crossover "versus" movie, but there's nothing appealing to me about two mindless monsters who cannot talk fighting one another. I might as well go into my garage, take out two of my old action figures and smash them together while making "BOOM! POW!" sounds with my mouth.
Because Kong and Godzilla are two mindless creatures which us as audience members are unable to connect to on a personal level, the filmmakers have no choice but to manufacture a bunch of human characters through which we view the story. Because of how much screen time these human characters occupy, you'd think the filmmakers would ensure these characters are worthy of our care, love and attention, but if you've watched any of the previous movies set in this universe, you won't be surprised to find that the "human" characters are just as lifeless as the creatures. At the end of the day, these characters feel like exactlywhat they are: a tacked on, cheap attempt at humanising a fundamentally inhumane and shallow movie. I can make a movie where two people watch paint dry, but no matter how many big-name actors I can hire, it's still a movie about watching paint dry.
I was hoping that the human portions of the movie would be carried by some solid acting, but I can't even afford that compliment to the movie. Millie Bobby Brown turns in an underwhelming performance - her character marred by an unconvincing American accent, which more often than not sounds British. Julian Dennison, who I enjoyed in Hunt For The Wilderpeople and Deadpool 2, turns in a mediocre performance and struggles to breathe life into a terrible screenplay. Bryan Tyree Henry, who I love as Paperboy in Atlanta, feels woefully out of place and out of his element in this movie. Kyle Chandler, who I love from Game Night and The Spectacular Now barely gets any screen time. I could name more examples, but you get the point. The movie is an exercise in how many talented actors you can simultaneously waste.
But to a lot of people, this stuff doesn't matter. Because Godzilla vs. Kong is "an action movie about two monsters fighting each other." So how does the action itself hold up? Well, it's pretty great, and easily the highlight of the movie. Director Adam Wingard does a great job capturing the larger-than-life scale of these action sequence, turning in some visually arresting set-pieces. I also loved the range of colour in the action sequences, and I was pleasantly surprised by the hand-held camera feel of a lot of the set-pieces, which were the most immersive moments of the movie. Whenever the action transitions into that hand-held quality, you feel like you're in the midst of the chaos and craziness of these action sequences. Unfortunately, though the movie serves up some exciting action sequences, they're far from superb, and a lot of that has to do with the repetitive nature of Godzilla and Kong's abilities. There's only so much variety in two giant monsters punching and throwing stuff at each other, the only exception being the fact that Godzilla can shoot lasers from his eyes. For a movie that's main draw is two CGI monsters, I was also disappointed that the quality of the CGI was not amongst the best I've ever seen. It's solid, but I was underwhelmed after seeing the impeccable CGI of Thanos in the Avengers movie, or even the stunning CGI of the apes in Matt Reeves's Apes trilogy. There was a sense of photorealism missing from the CGI in this movie.
Last of all, throughout the entire movie, I couldn't help but think to myself "wow! The score in this movie is a blatant rip off of Hans Zimmer and Junkie XL's work on Man of Steel and Batman v. Superman. When I got home and searched up who composed the movie, I found out it was none other than, you guessed it, Junkie XL (Tom Holkenberg) himself! This is a terrible sign, because the score is a rehash of the work he did with Zimmer on the DCEU movies, and it shows. In terms of the overall plot of the movie, Godzilla vs. Kong follows one of the most predictable trajectories I've seen in a movie. You can outline where the movie is headed before you've even entered the theatre, and it doesn't do enough to distinguish itself in execution. For a lot of people, "the story and human characters don't matter. That's not why I'm watching the movie. I'm watching it to see Godzilla and Kong fight each other!" But in a movie where those action sequences only make up 20% of the runtime, that excuse doesn't quite work. It is a movie about boring human characters doing boring human things, and the exciting action sequences are merely the icing on top.
Conclusion
Leaving Godzilla vs. Kong, I tried thinking about something good to say about it to my family who I watched it with. And no matter how hard I tried, the best compliments I could muster were "it was good to be back in the cinema again. The action was good. At least it was better than Kong: Skull Island. And I'm glad it wasn't longer than two hours." When 3 of my 4 praises for this movie are back-handed compliments, that's not a sign you've done something right. Godzilla vs. Kong is exactly the movie you would expect from the trailer, and for a lot of people, that will be a good thing. For me, it was exactly what I expected in the worst way possible: a boring, 95 minute narrative of characters I don't care about, and 25 minutes of good action sequences. I'm okay with never revisiting this franchise again.
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