Godzilla vs Kong: Movie Titans Duke It Out (SPOILERS)

Freddy vs Jason, Dollman vs Demonic Toys, Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, and Frankenstein Meets The Wolf Man. You may be wondering what I’m getting at with all of this? These movies are all crossover vs movies. All of these movies have icons from their genre’s fighting to the death. You would think they would fight to the death wouldn’t you? But they don’t. Most of these movies are the same, two icons fight for ten minutes then team up to fight a bigger villain. Or they have two villains fight while boring and interesting protagonists guide the story (looking at you Freddy vs Jason). These types of movies started to arise more often when Freddy vs Jason came out in 2003. That movie changed everything and had probably the most iconic horror movie killers fighting each other which was teased at the end of Jason Goes To Hell: The Final Friday which came out ten years earlier.

We’ve had vs movies before that but very infrequently. Now blockbusters get crossovers and cinematic universes all of the time, most famously the Marvel cinematic universe. Another cinematic universe started in 2014 with Godzilla. Fans are in the middle with this one because Godzilla is barely in his self-titled movie. I enjoyed the suspense of the movie, its like Jaws but with a radioactive lizard and way worse. Then came Kong Skull Island which was a fun movie that involved zero brain power which is a running theme for these movies. After that was Godzilla King of The Monsters which in my opinion is the worst of the monsterverse. The humans are trash which is another running theme with all of these films. Kong Skull Island teased this movie at the end credit scene and since then we’ve been waiting for this film. Now its here on HBO max and theaters but most of us will be watching at home. So here is my review of Godzilla vs Kong. Spoiler alert from here on out. 

The Review

The plot of the movie starts with Kong on skull island in a containment area. As Kong grows the containment cell gets smaller so the humans that are protecting him go on a journey to find out where he came from. As they are moving Kong who is an alpha titan is sensed by Godzilla. Godzilla wants to be the only alpha on the planet so he senses Kong so he goes to fight him. Kong is transported on a boat where Godzilla finds him where the first fight occurs. That battle leaves Kong injured so they fly him to Antarctica which has a hole to hollow earth which is where all of these titans came from. But Godzilla finds him and does his radioactive breath thing and makes a hole to the hollow earth. So Kong goes up there and the final battle commences. While that is happening Milley Bobby Brown is trying to figure out why Godzilla is destroying cities he’s supposed to be the good guy. So with the help of the kid from Deadpool 2 she finds a podcaster who studies titans for a living. Their is a lab called Apex that Godzilla seemed to be attracted to. So all of them break into the lab and discover Mechagodzilla. Apex builds Mechagodzilla to stop Godzilla. But stuff goes wrong and Mechagodzilla becomes artificial intelligence and destroys the lab and goes after the titans.

A lot of plot for a dumb action movie but I’ll start with the good. If you came for Godzilla fighting Kong you get that in spades with some Mechagodzilla thrown in the mix. The monster fights are amazing. The biggest problems with the last two Godzilla movies were you couldn’t see anything, not here. This movie lets you see everything, every punch or stab you see and its incredible. If covid wasn’t a thing this would be quite the theater experience but I watched it on a chromebook. Easily the best fights in the entire monsterverse the highlight is the fight in Hong Kong before mechagodzilla shows up which is the final match with just them. Kong has this cool axe thats made of Godzilla’s spike things on his back so he uses that. He’s dodging blows from Godzilla’s radioactive breath, its really cool to watch. Another highlight is this little girl’s relationship with Kong. Before Monarch came which is the company who studies the monsters, native people from Skull Island hailed Kong. Then a disaster hit and they were all wiped out leaving this little girl who was deaf. She communicated with Kong via sign language. This was the heart of the movie and it was kinda sweet. Besides that though their really isn’t much. The humans like king of the monsters are bland and boring to watch especially Milley Bobby Brown’s story. Every time it cut away from the action just for a little scene with those dummies was boring and unnecessary.

The only point they served was to hype up Mechagodzilla who was also unnecessary. My biggest problem with vs movies is they fight for maybe fifteen minutes then team up to fight a bigger enemy. The culprit to this crime is Batman v Superman. They fight for two minutes, then they connect over the fact their moms have the same name and fight doomsday. This has way more Godzilla Kong fighting which is great, but they team up. I don’t really need Mechagodzilla in this movie, it feels rushed and a lot like padding. All they had to do was extend the Godzilla Kong fight, thats what we all want to see. I don’t know about you guys but I watched Godzilla vs Kong for just that, Godzilla fighting Kong. The director even hyped up that their was a winner. Honestly its pretty clear to me who won but I’ve seen people online saying Kong won. Godzilla stopped Kong’s heart, whats the debate? Lastly the reason why Godzilla turns evil all of a sudden is very unclear. I had to look it up and I guess Mechagodzilla sent out signals to Godzilla which were bad signals so he tried to destroy the signal while also destroying both cities he goes to.

Verdict

Overall if you’re looking for really cool looking special effects fighting each other, you get that and more. The fights like I said are the best in the entire monsterverse. Kong and the little girl’s relationship is great and gives some humanity to Kong. Because of the unnecessary inclusion of Milley Bobby Brown’s crew and Mechagodzilla, the movie just gets ruined by them. Its still up there with Kong Skull Island for me. I’m glad this movie finally came out because it got delayed a lot. They promised a winner and we got one. So with all of that in mind I’m going to give Godzilla vs Kong 3.5/5 panthers. If you like cgi filled popcorn movies with cinema icons and know what your getting into, I think you’ll have a good time. If you’re expecting a well acted oscar winner, go watch something else. Like I said earlier this movie is on HBO max until april 30 so go check it out I recommend it.