Godzilla vs Kong is a movie whose title speaks for itself
He promises that a giant radioactive breathing lizard will fight a huge monkey. And he keeps his promise. Godzilla and Kong face off in a duel not one, not two, but three times! I won’t tell you who will win, but I doubt that the outcome of the battle is of any interest to anyone. This is the case when the process is more important than the result.
Adam Wingard, the director of the film, also understands this. Therefore, it is noticeable that the scenes with the participation of the two titular characters receive much more attention than scenes where for some reason people are in the center of the frame. And the contrast between them is very noticeable. The fights between Godzilla and Kong are bright, large-scale, with clear choreography and, importantly, well-lit. Unlike “Transformers”, where the action scenes are more reminiscent of a series of explosions at a dump of auto parts, here we see both rivals well and at every moment we understand what is happening and who is gaining the upper hand. As for the scenes with people … They are, and this is very bad.
To say that the plot of the film is absurd is to say nothing. Absurd, banal, secondary – you can pick up epithets (often obscene) for each letter of the alphabet. On the other hand, what can you expect from a movie called Godzilla vs. Kong? Therefore, it is more expedient to make claims not to the quality of the plot, but to its quantity. To combine two monsters in one film, five screenwriters (and this is not counting Adam Wingard, who, according to rumors, was also actively involved in rewriting history, but did not claim the title of screenwriter) use two plots at once, which are almost completely unrelated …
The first is a mini-remake of Journey to the Center of the Earth with Alexander Skarsgard (The Legend of Tarzan, Big Little Lies) and Rebecca Hall (Vicky Cristina Barcelona, Prestige). In it, a group of scientists takes Kong to his homeland, because, as it turned out, all the monsters come from the center of the Earth, inside which there is emptiness. The second – adventures in the style of Scooby-Doo (albeit without a dog) with Millie Bobby Brown (“Strange Wonders”, “Enola Holmes”), Brian Tyree Henry (“Atlanta”) and Julian Dennison (“Deadpool 2”). They play a group of conspiracy enthusiasts who are trying to uncover the secrets of the Apex Cybernetic Corporation.
The installation of the tape, sewn with white threads, can testify to the agony in which these plots were born. Scenes literally push each other off the screen, starting out of nowhere and ending in unexpected places. At first glance, it seems that you can even notice from your seat in the cinema which frames were filmed later and “crashed” between the finished scenes. Of course, for films of this scale, reshoots are a common and even necessary thing, but rarely is it noticeable so strongly.
As a result, the film grows to a running time of almost 2 hours, although according to the rules of the Film Academy, only 40 minutes is enough for the “full-length” status! Yes, perhaps this is a small figure, but to make a solid one and a half hours (including credits) – and we will get a high-quality, compact and entertaining blockbuster that knows what the viewer wants to see. And he wants to see how a monkey beats a lizard, and not how a podcaster conspiracy theorist talks about his deceased wife.
Once upon a time, monster movies weren’t really about monsters. The first “Godzilla” is more of a disaster film, where a giant lizard is a rather transparent allegory of the nuclear bomb that Japan suffered from. The original 1933 King Kong is also a metaphorical story, albeit with a tangible racist tinge. Depending on how you perceive it, this is either the embodiment of the fear “they steal our women”, or a little less offensive criticism of colonialism, which took “the king and God” in its world to become a simple entertainment for the “civilized” world. One way or another, but the representations of other peoples in the form of a huge black monkey can hardly be called anything other than frankly xenophobic.
But you won’t find deep symbolism in Godzilla v. Kong. As well as attempts to somehow update the genre. But you will see how a giant monkey fights with a huge lizard. And if this is exactly what you want to see on the big screen after a long quarantine, then feel free to watch. The only pity is that in order to see a fight, you have to endure awkward dialogues with unbearable human characters.
Godzilla vs. Kong – Official Trailer
