HBO Max dropped another blockbuster onto their streaming service this week, Godzilla vs. Kong. It was the fourth instalment into the Godzilla monster universe, and it was the best one out of the four. It was an epic spectacle to behold even in home, but obviously watching giant monsters fight would be better on the big screen. When I watched Godzilla: King of the Monsters for the first time, I did it on my laptop, and that did not do it justice, so watching this one on a big tv with a great stereo was a big help. It did draw many people back into the theaters to see it, so far it has made around $50 million, which compared to the budget it took to make it is only about a fourth of it, but for a pandemic release it is doing quite well. The film does try to have an underlying message other than just two monsters going at it, and it also draws on some other older literary materials for its stories.
The movie starts with Kong being trapped in some sort of bio shelter zoo that was close to the size of a football arena, but he was very unhappy being trapped in this enclosure. He was no longer allowed the freedom to roam Skull Island. Apex, a new monster organization, needed some of the natural power force that they thought was trapped in the center of the Earth, which is hollow in this film, and they needed Kong to lead them to the center. Apex needs the power source to help power their MechaGodzilla, Godzilla could sense that another monster was around, so he kept trying to attack these centers where they were building it. Godzilla also tried to attack the transport of Kong to Antarctica. Once at Antarctica Kong and the crew entered the hole into the center of the Earth, where they find the power source that the monsters tap into. Kong used it to power up his axe, and then the battle between him and Godzilla commences in Hong Kong. A wrench gets further thrown into this battle when MechaGodzilla comes out, and MechaGodzilla has become sentient and no longer controlled by Apex. Godzilla and Kong were now forced to work together to defeat their common foe.
So the only real underlying theme that seemed to be present in the film was a search for home, a place of belonging. This was most present in the form of Kong. At the very beginning of the film, it showed him trapped in a dome that was supposed to resemble his home, but clearly, he could tell the difference. Clearly this made him sad and frustrated because he is an intelligent creature, and animals with that high of a brain function do not do well in captivity, but when they decided to try and move him, he still seemed to long for his original home on Skull Island. Then once he got to the center of the Earth and found his ancestral homeland, he seemed more at peace and a sense of belonging. It was similar with the girl in the film, Jia. She was indigenous to Skull Island, but her family was killed in a storm, and one of the scientists adopted her. So she felt similar to Kong in that she did have her original home, and had to find a new place of belonging with her adopted mother.
A new element being introduced into films has been the replacement of investigative journalists with podcasters. One of the first times where this happened was in the newest Halloween movie, there was a true crime podcast going to try and talk to Michael Myers. Then in part of Justice League they show people trying to ask Superman questions for their podcast. In Godzilla Vs. Kong, they have a guy who was a lower-level employee who works for Apex trying to uncover their conspiracy, and what they are creating. It did seem odd to me that this big secretive company has an employee who was openly trying to expose their secrets, but he was not fired. He was doing it “anonymously,” but if a big secretive business was having its secrets relayed to the public, they would find out who the mole was and get them fired, so this seemed a little off. The movie also embraced one of the more popular weird conspiracies right now which is that the Earth is hollow and that there is some weird stuff going on down there.
One piece of literature that this film seemed to lean on was Jules Verne’s Journey to the Center of the Earth. In the book, scientists discover that there was a whole different world under the surface of the Earth. This world had a variety of different wildlife than could be seen on the surface, and dinosaurs still existed. There were also natural phenomena that occurred down there that did not occur in the outside world. So this whole idea of a world beneath the surface where these prehistoric creatures dwell like King Kong and the dinosaurs, that he quickly slaughtered, has an almost identical feel to this older story, but in Godzilla Vs. Kong there were titans fighting it out the death which makes it more interesting. Also in this hollow Earth it gave Kong the chance to do his signature move of ripping the jaw open of a dinosaur, which is always kind of disgusting and hard to imagine how it would feel, but awesome in a monster movie sort of way.
The biggest problem with this movie was the size discrepancy between Kong and Godzilla. In the first two Godzilla movies, he is as tall as skyscrapers and easily destroys them, and this for the most part holds true in this movie, but Kong’s size seems to vary erratically. In Kong: Skull Island, Kong is obviously massive, but he was not hundreds of feet tall. There was no way he would tower as tall as a skyscraper, but in every fight, he has with Godzilla they were face to face. Then when they make it to Hong Kong, Kong was as tall as the skyscrapers which vastly over sized him. Also there would be no way two skyscraper sized monsters could both share an aircraft carrier, it just does not make sense. This is not really a complaint though because if Godzilla had been like 300 feet taller than Kong, the movie would have been much shorter and much less interesting because all Godzilla would have had to do was step on Kong and the movie would have been over, so the massive discrepancy was a large help.
With all the Superhero movies and monster movies recently, it is hard to watch them without thinking about the massive amounts of destruction they are creating. In the Marvel Cinematic Universe, they have the Sokovia Accords, which was an agreement between countries at the United Nations to try and hold the Avengers more accountable for their actions, particularly when it came to destroying cities, which was very prevalent in the Avengers films with whole cities being toppled. Clearly monsters cannot be held accountable in the same way, but they manage to do as much if not more damage. In Godzilla King of the Monsters, the city of Boston was essentially wiped out, and in this movie, Hong Kong gets demolished. So there are two things to note here, one is that they say that all of the people are/have been evacuated from the city, but think about it, in these cities there are millions of people, and if they are all trying to flood out in a mass exodus at the same time, then they will be very unsuccessful. Not to mention all the people that would have to use public transportation, and those who would refuse to leave their homes. This would leave a massive amount of people in extreme danger still. Secondly when these massive buildings are destroyed, and in these movies, many of them are, it would take years upon years of rebuilding. Just to make one skyscraper alone it could take years, so compounded on that a massive loss of life and having to make way more than just one sky scraper, it could be decades before a city recovers. To clean up the twin towers, it took nine months, and that was two skyscrapers, so the clean up alone could take years. Which made the end of this movie kind of odd because the people start to flood the streets, but there would be so much rubble in the roads that this would be impossible. The point of these movies is not to think about the destruction they are causing, but to enjoy it, but it is interesting to think what it would be like to live in a world like this.
After this movie, it does raise the question as to what is next for the Monsterverse? In the first two Godzilla movies, they use almost all the big names in the Godzilla rolodex, and then they add King Kong to the list in this film. So it is not clear what direction they will take from here. The next film might take place more primarily in this underground world, or maybe some alien beast from outer space might invade, and Kong and Godzilla might have to band together again to fight for Earth. Overall this was a very enjoyable movie, it was not made to be some cinematic work of art, but to be a great enjoyment of an action packed two hours, and it definitely achieved this goal. I gave it an 85 and highly recommend watching it, it is an excellent and fun way to spend two hours either at home or in the theaters. Oh and Godzilla definitely won the fight, Kong just got some redemption from using an axe powered by Godzilla to easily dismantle MechaGodzilla, who started to malfunction because a drink was spilled on his controls.
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