3.5 stars out of 5
Of the pandemic-era theatrical releases I’ve attended, Godzilla vs. Kong is the first one that really needs to be seen on a big screen. Too bad, then, that it’s not a better movie.
Which is not to say it’s awful. The vaguely intertwined Godzilla and Kong films from 2014 on have been generally pretty good. I even thought the most recent one, Godzilla: King of the Monsters, was very good. But, as they say, one Tokyo-crushing-step forward, two steps back.
We don’t even get Tokyo — it’s Florida (which, let’s face it, sort of deserves a Titan thrashing) and then Hong Kong. The basic plot: Last movie, we thought Godzilla was a good guy, so why is he being such a jerk now? They bring King Kong over from Skull Island to fight him. Well, that would have been an easy-to-follow plot. But what actually happens is they take Kong away from his home to Antarctica to find a secret power source in the hollow middle of Earth, which is mind-bogglingly stupid. And just wait till you find out what evil Apex Cybernetics, run by evil Demián Bichir (Marco Ruiz on The Bridge and he also starred in the Montefiore Health System adverfilm Corazón), plans to do with the secret power source!
Coach Taylor and daughter Maddie (Millie Bobby Brown) are back from King of the Monsters. Unfortunately, Kyle Chandler has nothing to do here except be an extremely inattentive dad. Which allows Maddie to yet again sneak off and evade ridiculously lax corporate security. This time she’s accompanied by talented actor Brian Tyree Henry (who had about 3 lines in Joker) as a giant-monster conspiracy podcaster. [Note to Hollywood: Please don’t portray conspiracy theorists as the good guys.] David Strathairn, who was in the last two Godzilla flicks, is MIA. On the Kong side, no actors are back from Skull Island because that was a period piece, kinda KK84. So we get the lovely and talented Rebecca Hall and a sign-language-wielding kid who has a special relationship with the big monkey. Blah! Also, these movies like to cast a token “elite” actor and this time it’s Alexander Skarsgård. But instead of raising up the material, he lowers his performance to it.
Luckily, the movie frequently lives up to its title, and the fight scenes are awesome. Genuinely thrilling! That’s why you wore a mask to the multiplex and used a self-checkout machine even to order popcorn, and they make it worth your while. Two sequences made me laugh out loud with glee. A third made me laugh with mockery but who cares! The action raises this movie from garbage to, you know, pretty good. You drive me ape, you big gorilla!
Jack Silbert, curator