Wednesday, January 19, 2022

Godzilla vs. Kong (2021)

I don’t imagine it’s easy to maintain a franchise that knocks it out of the park every time.  Star Trek and Star Wars each had entries that fans didn’t like.  Of course, both of those span countless entries.  Godzilla vs. Kong is only the fourth entry in Legendary’s MonsterVerse and it already seems like it’s just going through the motions.

The movie picks up five years after the previous entry where Kong is being monitored by Monarch.  He has this massive habitat that looks like his home island, but he knows it’s not real.  Meanwhile, Godzilla attacks an Apex facility for reasons not entirely clear.  And Apex’s CEO gets a former Monarch scientist to lead an expedition into the Hollow Earth.   Add to this podcaster Bernie, who suspects some sort of nefarious plot, which wouldn’t be out of line.

As the title of the movie implies, everything builds up to an epic battle where Godzilla and Kong throw each other around in an attempt to level Hong Kong.  (Seriously, though.  I feel bad for the people who have to come home only to realize that their building was leveled.  Most of the inhabitants of the city seem apathetic to the battle.)

A lot of the movie, you can see coming.  Apex’s representative on the Hollow Earth expedition is after a power source and basically goes the evil-corporate-selfish route at the first opportunity.  Kong and Godzilla seem to do battle in the middle of the movie, mostly as a way to show how clever Kong’s handlers are by having him play dead.

There were a few things I didn’t understand.  First, why did they need Kong to lead them into Hollow Earth?  It seemed more like a way to put everyone in danger by having them transport Kong in the first place.

The movie also has Bernie break into Apex with Madison and Josh.  You may remember Madison from Godzilla: King of the Monsters.  Josh is the annoying friend who seem to exist for the sole purpose of making me want to slap Josh.  They could have left him out and it would have been a much better movie.  Even having Bernie as the conspiracy-spewing inside man was a bit much.  He seemed to be in all the right places to keep the story moving along.

The movie seems like it’s a bridge between the previous movies and another movie, but I’m not sure what another movie would look like.  Would they be introducing new monsters?  Would it be another battle between Godzilla and Kong?  IMDb doesn’t list any future titles, but it could be a possibility.  I will say that the CGI was good, but I don’t hold out much hope for the next installment’s plot.

 

IMDb page