Godzilla vs Kong, saw it the other day and well, I made a review, it's quite lenghty so I'm sorry in advance and thanks for your time.
Godzilla vs Kong, the 2x1 of Legendary Pictures.
Year 2021 of our lord Godzilla, the "monster-verse" reaches its zenith with the confrontation between the two most famous titans in the world, the Japanese Godzilla and the American King Kong, a confrontation that already took place in 1962, and one of the most recognizable Kaiju Eiga villains of all, Mechagodzilla, who already had his own film in 1974, but, what exactly is this movie then?
Well, to describe it properly I have to make two parallel explanations, the simplest would be that it is the continuation of what had been made clear in 2019's "King of the Monsters" where Godzilla was left as undisputed king of all the titans after having finished with Ghidorah so the film happens at some point in the near future to this confrontation.
On the other hand, the second parallel explanation would be that this is a mix between the two Showa era classics of Kaiju Eiga, the film picks up the central plot lines of the two classics and leaves them as intact as it can but adapting it to the context of the post Ghidorah world and with Legendary's lore, does it get it right? Definitely, if by any chance you have seen the originals and remember them I assure you that you will not fail to see constant homages to both films, from very simple things like the tree in the mouth to a slight modification of the birth of Mechagodzilla but retaining the sci-fi aesthetics that had the original (for those who do not know how it is born in the original, in the 1974 film an alien race of humanoids arrives on earth in order to conquer it but to do so they have to kill their most powerful protector so they decide to make a mechanical copy of it in order to hit each other).
Having done a little exposition of the past, what does this film present us with? The film takes place several years after Godzilla's proclamation as king of the monsters and ally of mankind, however other titans have prostrated before Godzilla or have perished, all except Kong who remains on Skull Island under observation by Monarch although Kong is not happy with his containment, the reason for this situation? Both Godzilla and Kong are the alphas and do not kneel to each other. At the same time Godzilla seems to have an erratic behavior by attacking a facility of Apex Industries (a new technological company that appears in this film and is founded after the previous one) to stop Godzilla we have a new Macguffin that will be the central axis of the film and the one that will take the script as far as it wants to take it, that is, to the confrontation between the ape and the lizard (and someone else, of course).
In case it has not been clear by using the word Macguffin, what I mean is that the script is a scaffolding that allows the characters to get from point A to B and then to C without much thought, there is no real character building, the bad guy is bad because he is bad, the good guys are good because they are good, we need this object because now it is important but not before and so on, the difference is that, even being a script as poor as the previous film, where one took itself too seriously, this one knows perfectly well where it is and what its mission is, to see how two bugs hit each other, does it achieve its goal? Yes, effectively because the whole visual section is spectacular but at the plot level is simpler than the operation of a jug, it is not bad per se, it is simply a movie to disconnect but it is not a masterpiece nor does it pretend to be.
Where we are going to notice this weak script is, again, in the human characters, characters that are flat as an ironing board, whose motivations are a sovereign nonsense and whose actions are, at least, questionable, one comes to wonder if Godzilla or Kong are smarter than these humans because really, some of them are. At least the movie has the decency not to put in romantic subplots, family dramas (like the previous one) or great intellectual grandiloquence, au contraire, the movie not only relegates them to the background but mocks the heroic actions of these characters who think they can make a difference, no hominid friend, your role while two titans of the ancient era and a mecha armed to the teeth are beating the crap out of each other is not to be the hero, it's to watch from a distance and pray you don't get crushed by a helmet or the foot of one of the critters, if anything to be just another Macguffin from time to time.
However there is a character that stands out above all but for good, Jia, the girl who has the link with Kong, in the same way Mothra had the sisters as a connection with humans, Jia is the same for Kong, a deaf mute girl who communicates with him through signs and seems to be the only character not only not stupid but who knows what his role in all this is, Jia butt, you really know!
Fortunately, to get rid of the bad taste in the mouth of the parts concerning humans we have the audiovisual part with everything concerning the monsters and the science fiction elements.
Let's start with the most "boring" part of this section, without going into too much detail, at the beginning of this text I mentioned who were the creators of the original mechagodzilla in 1974, obviously in this film there are no aliens trying to invade the earth, however we have two fantastic elements, on the one hand the two corporations that appear, Monarch and Apex, if in the previous film we already saw technological advances of the repanocha, here is already the festival of sci-fi and futurism, the film in wanting to have a "pop" aesthetic or more specifically one that is pleasing to the Asian market (as they are the audience to which they want to go) we will see not only technology that would be years away (and here they already have it perfectly established and normalized) but we will also see something that I personally love and fascinates me, the megastructures.
We could already see some in the previous film but here there is a lot of emphasis on how big are these metal mastodons created by man, structures of impossible proportions with a style that we could say that is a revisionism of industrialism of the mid-20th century but with all the modernity that would have today, absolute fan of this section, you will see it with your eyes if you see the film or if you have already seen it you will know what I mean.
On the other hand we have the most expected and why we have come here, as Hulk would say, IT'S TIME FOR THE FIGHT!
Although not as spectacular as seeing a lizard in thermonuclear reactor mode and a three-headed dragon creating electrical storms, the fights are spectacular and much more agile (which I have to comment) and dynamic, Kong will not have powers or special abilities with natural elements but he has intelligence and the power to use tools and make strategies which makes these fights much more fun and different from what we have seen before, again, we are talking about an ape and not a mountain, his mobility allows him to do things that other titans can't, then we have mechagodzilla who, well, simply a machine that has missiles up to his right shoulder, that looks like a kinder surprise, you don't know what you're going to get.
The destruction they cause is at the same level as the previous ones but with a point in favor, it has moments of day and night so we can enjoy many spectacular moments in both cases, in the day because the action is much clearer while at night the neon of the buildings gives us very colorful prints worthy of people like Michael Bay.
However all the good that brings this section also has a side that is possibly the one that bothers me most personally and is that both Godzilla, Kong and Mechagodzilla are winners of the featherweight category, how? You may ask, well, this is something that has been disappearing with the passage of the films of this universe of monsters.
If you remember the first film of this saga, Godzilla (2014), there was a lot of emphasis on a detail by G. Edward, the perspective always from human points of view to highlight the scale and strength of these creatures, from a simple foot to being able to see the titans from the rooftops but always from the perspective of a human, in Kong we have this same to a large extent except in the final fight (first time we lose this perspective) and in "King of the Monsters" except for a few scenes, this perspective is completely lost with what the scale was lost but surprisingly the speed and feeling of forcefulness of each blow and each step was still maintained, remember that they are bugs the size of mountains that are fighting in the middle of our cities, their weight is immense and the effort to take each step is proportional to this, in Godzilla vs Kong this has been completely lost and gives a strange feeling when watching them fight or simply move on land.
Creatures of hundreds of thousands of tons simply can not move with the speed at which they move in this film, I personally call that the "Pacific Rim syndrome" where the first installment had these simple rules of shots from perspectives where the scale is highlighted and each movement had a sense of weight but in the sequel the camera was free or from distant shots and movements were at the speed of a human, with some bugs this is fine but with mastodons is very rare and very unreal (within the context of fantasy that we are seeing, This is by far the most negative point I have to take from it because it is a trend I am seeing a lot in order to please very specific markets (in fact with Pacific Rim the producers themselves confirmed it, the changes to certain colors and certain shots are more liked in some regions than in others) but apart from that, the action is very well done and is very entertaining.
I think it's about time to finish these quick impressions of the film, in general terms I was very excited to see how they have merged two classic films and have added their own background, at the level of script and characters is an ironing board of how flat everything is and we ignore the fact that there are Macguffins to give and give away, however it is very consistent with what it aims to be and its relaxed nature, it does not take itself seriously and that makes it much more enjoyable than the previous one at the level of tone.
Although before this review I put it as the best movie of the monster-verse, I have decided to consider them individually because each film has a completely different tone and honestly, I do not feel like making a ranking.
In short, movie to disconnect and a visual and sound delight, the monsters are very well represented, full of winks to the past and positioning for the future of the saga if Toho decides to extend the collaboration with Legendary (which seems likely if the economic results continue to go) so I can say without problem that I really liked it and is highly recommended to see relaxing to disconnect.
Long live the king.
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