Can you believe that Legendary’s MonsterVerse has been chugging along now for nearly a decade after Gareth Edward’s delivered his rather serious and stoic adaptation of Toho’s nuclear super-lizard, Godzilla? Things have gotten bigger and more colourful since then – and it’s sure as hell gotten more sillier too as a cadre of monster loving directors have added a more goofier tone with every subsequent entry, and the franchise arguably reached its peak with 2021s Godzilla Vs. Kong, an unabashed creature feature smackdown that not only brought cinema’s most endearing Titans for a rematch for the ages, but it also managed to zap a tired box office back to life after being ravaged by endless lockdowns.
Well, Godzilla, Kong and a whole host of their city obliterating chums are back once again to bellow heartily at yet another global threat, but after ten years of super-sized showdowns, does the MonsterVerse still have the pizzazz to throw its considerable weight around?
In the years since Godzilla and Kong turned the city of Hong Kong into their own, personal octagon, a sense of order has settled into this crazy world of men and monsters. With Kong safely out of the way in the subterranean realm of the Hollow Earth, Godzilla is free to continue his alpha duties by spanking the shit out of any other Titan who steps out of line. However, while the King of the Monsters is content doing his thing, Kong has started to feel somewhat disillusioned with his new homeworld.
The problem is loneliness, a feeling shared by teenaged Jia, the alienated last survivor of the Iwi tribe who built up a kinship with Kong as a child. As she grows despondent with normal life, her adopted mother, Dr. Ilene Andrew’s, worries about her greatly, until a signal from the Hollow Earth gives them all a reason to fire up another expedition and head into the trippy realm of monsters. Joining them are conspiracy obsessed podcaster Bernie Hayes who is pissed that no one believes he helped take down MechaGodzilla and Titan veterinarian Trapper, who brings good vibes, Hawaiian shirts and classic tunes with him wherever he goes.
As they embark on their mission, our two, titular Titans respond to the signal very differently. While Godzilla leaps into action on a globetrotting quest to gorge on as much energy as he can find in order to power up to combat the upcoming threat, Kong stumbles on a secret race of giant apes who are ruled with an iron fist and a nifty bone whip by the grizzled Skar King who also has an immense ice dragon named Shimo in his corner reluctantly acting as his muscle.
With a war brewing and prophecies being fulfilled all over the place, the battle for Hollow Earth (and regular Earth, too) is about to begin; but is there any hope that previous enemies Kong and Godzilla can actually get on the same page?
The MonsterVerse generally seems to be at it’s best when the movies keep things simple – Godzilla and Kong: Skull Island mainly concentrated on reintroducing us to the respective Kaiju in their modern, new roles, while Godzilla Vs. Kong concentrated chiefly on getting them to hammer the living crap out of each other for our amusement. However, whenever the franchise deliberately over complicates itself, as it did with the ambitious, but messy, Godzilla: King Of The Monsters, it becomes a little bit of a strain to stay enthused with all the monster mashing.
To be honest, Godzilla x Kong (the “x” is silent, apparently), fall somewhere between the two groups as it muddies its main hook (Kaiju buddy movie!) into a churning mass of crunching battles and a two hour exposition dump that simply couldn’t care less if you manage to keep up.
Adam Wingard managed to keep things rather straightforward in his previous MonsterVerse effort, but here he swamps the audience with three dueling plotlines with greatly differing levels of interest. Least of the three is, unsurprisingly, the humans, that gathers up Jia’s destiny, Ilene’s mothering instincts and the comedy stylings of Brian Tyree Henry’s fidgety Bernie and Dan Stevens’ swaggering monster vet. Everyone is having fun, it seems, but you can’t help but feel for Rebecca Hall who literally spends the entire movie endlessly explaining what is going on to anyone in the audience who has zoned out.
Faring a little better is Godzilla, yet his threas that sees him brutalizing fellow Titans in order to juice himself up to another level of evolution is impressively slight. However, considering the MonsterVerse TV show, Monach: Legacy Of Monsters and the vastly superior Toho entry, Godzilla Minus One only came out mere months ago, maybe a reduced role for the Big G is sort of wise, but the movie certainly doesn’t skimp on him trashing stuff.
This leaves the majority of the movie to be carried by Kong and the scenes of him traversing his new kingdom prove to be the most satisfactory moments of this entire endeavor. Be it his burgeoning friendship with punishment prone ape-ling Suko or the more day to day aspects of keeping track of a giant simian (the logistics of Titan dentistry prove to be especially fascinating), Kong, with his more “handsome”, movie star looks and his cool gauntlet upgrade, is undoubtedly the star of the show and the main thrust of the rising threat is centred almost entirely around him. Thankfully, the staff of visual effects house WETA are up to the task with a trio of Planet Of The Apes movies worth of experience to fully render the wordless emotions of feuding apes perfectly. On top of that, the gargantuan finale finally shoves the mountanous exposition aside in favour of a cacophony of CGI destruction that throws in team-ups, Kaiju resurrections, zero gravity punch ups and a nice line in monster wrestling moves (who on earth taught Godzilla how to pull off a suplex?). It belatedly manages to live up to the promise of the ad campaign with an utterly ludicrous final thirty minutes that mostly makes up for the needlessly convoluted journey it takes to get there.
While the final result isn’t as laboured and exhausting as one of Michael Bay’s later Transformers sequels, but it is a noticable step down from the previous MonsterVerse installment and if the adventures of Kong and Godzilla do continue, maybe it might be wise not to go quite so titanic with this world of titans.
Wingard has previously admitted a love for the sillier aspects of the Showa era of Godzilla’s history and you’ll have a far greater appreciation for Godzilla x Kong if you share in his enthusiasm, however, if you’re resistant to Kaiju cinema in all its forms, chances are you won’t give a monkeys.
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