Movie Review--Godzilla Vs. Kong

"The island is the one thing that's kept him isolated.  If he leaves, Godzilla will come for him."

--Dr. Ilene Andrews, Godzilla vs. Kong

Blair Witch and The Guest director Adam Wingard helms the fourth entry in WB's MonsterVerse, and this franchise has fallen far from its very promising start with Godzilla in 2014.  Godzilla vs. Kong does have moments of excellence, just an excellence that is reserved almost exclusively for action and CGI.  Ironically, in spite of the praise it is receiving for its monster fights, there really are not many action sequences in the movie.  This would not be problematic at all if it was not for the large cast of undeveloped human characters that either have no need to be in the story or desperately needed more characterization.  At least Godzilla had some emphasis on Bryan Cranston's character before his death.  Here, almost everything is sacrificed for a small handful of action scenes.

Production Values

What a mixed jumble this film turns out to be--having more relentless action or just more frequent fights could have saved part of it by putting more of a spotlight on the excellent animation for Godzilla and Kong.  The two of them, alone and together, represent how far CGI has come in the last three decades.  Their clashes even have some creativity in the locations and truly demonstrate how powerful these Titans are.  Human onlookers are powerfless, even when using military vehicles like fighter jets.  Unfortunately for the quality of the dialogue and characterization, the thematic and artistic depth of the film away from its action scenes is about as weak as military efforts to stop Godzilla.  Alexander Skarsgard, Millie Bobby Brown, and Rebecca Hall, among other actors/actresses, are wasted in a script that is mediocre at best.  Comedy and plot necessity are the only reasons for the characters to be here, and many of them are still unecessary.

Story

Some spoilers are below.

A Monarch setup on Skull Island has been used to keep Kong away from Godzilla's attention for years, yet Kong has started figuring out that he is in an artificial biodome.  Prompted by an executive from a technology company called Apex, an author who has written about the Hollow Earth concept attempts to bring Kong to an entry point to a massive cave system from which he can reach the hollow interior of the planet the idea posits.  Unexpectedly, Godzilla attacks the transport convoy of naval ships moving Kong, marking the second time he has attacked an area with humans seemingly unprovoked.  Apex has a sinister connection to the first of these attacks, and some of its attempts to harness Titan remains for technological purposes begin to come to light.

Intellectual Content

The Hollow Earth concept is used as a plot device and the justification for a new MonsterVerse character who resembles a toned-down Alex Jones to add more unneeded comedy into a movie that is already very loose with the quality of its dialogue.  Ultimately, the idea of a hollow region with Earth is supposedly connected to various pagan religions and many kinds of older scientific estimations.  None of the historical significance of Hollow Earth as something people have entertained as a real possibility is even hinted at in Godzilla vs. Kong.  Moreover, the movie makes it seem like accessing such an area would be far easier than it would be in all likelihood.  This series has lost much of the subtly intellectual framework it had at the beginning.

Conclusion

The MonsterVerse could still continue after its first crossover film, but, if this will happen, it needs to be done with far more effort put into the worldbuilding and human characters.  Why have such a high number of talented cast members appear for short periods of time in generic scenes?  Why forsake the more thoughtful approach of the movie that started the MonsterVerse?  Admittedly, the 2014 Godzilla film would have benefited from more extensive characterization itself, and yet it was a very serious, "grounded" take on its famous Titan.  Kong: Skull Island immediately contradicted this promise, only for Godzilla: King of the Monsters to fare better but disregard its human part of the story.  Godzilla vs. Kong completely squanders the chance to avoid this same mistake.

Content:

 1.  Violence:  The action, even with several scenes of Kong ripping biological creatures apart and a scene of a Skullcrawler getting killed by atomic breath, is kept at a very limited PG-13 level.

 2.  Profanity:  "Damn" and "shit" get used on occasion.