GODZILLA VS KONG (2021) – All brawn and no brain
Rating: ⭐⭐
Ah yes .. here it is. The battle of the titans as we have been teased by promotions to watch since early last year. After multiple delays due to the pandemic, Godzilla vs Kong finally gets to open in cinemas late March and then straight to HBO Max streaming service after about a week.. Now that it is finally here .. I have “good news” and “bed news”. The “good news” is that this one is better than the last Godzilla movie Godzilla: King of the Monsters (2019). The “bad news” is that it is not much better. Like its predecessor, G v K suffers from an illogical script involving the humans, which once again is made to look like just fillers for the giant monster brawls. The sub plot involving returning popular young star Millie Bobby Brown in particular, made little sense and just seems like a weak excuse to have Millie reprise her role from the last movie. Alexander Skarsgard appears lost as scientist Nathan Lind who comes up with some cock and bull theory about getting Kong to help locate some sort of power source in the core of the earth. This sort of role is definitely not something that Skarsgard is suited for and he is totally insignificant in the movie.
After having seen all three movies in this franchise, I would have to say “Kong: Skull Island” the first in the series still stands out as the best. That has at least some sort of focus story, and some very exciting and incredible action sequences involving Kong and helicopters. Happily, here, we also get to have at least two elaborate and very well staged monster brawls between Kong and Godzilla. The first takes place in the open seas and have a lot of warships destroyed as collateral damage. The closing brawl takes place smack in the middle of the concrete jungle of Hong Kong. By film’s end the two titans have leveled the island capital into a unrecognisable mess! Everything else that happens in between these bolts of energised mayhem makes little sense and is just a waste of running time.
In these strange times where Hollywood blockbusters are scarce any opportunity to enjoy some noisy CGI laden action on the big IMAX screen would be a welcome escape. I shouldn’t complain too much as such block busters may become as extinct as Godzilla and King Kong, if cinema and movies fail to survive the pandemic. So, I would say go for this if you miss the excitement of seeing something on the giant IMAX screen accompanied by deafening sound effects. After that, it’s back to reality …