Spoilers Godzilla vs. Kong release thread

[captainkirk]

Since the film is now out in non-US countries, I figured it's time it had a dedicated thread. I just got back from seeing it and will try to sum up my overall thoughts without getting into spoilers until next week.

This is first and foremost a movie about the monsters. I know that might sound obvious, but you have to remember how long the 2014 film left it before Godzilla got anything to do and how KOTM had him nearly dead for the 2nd act. This movie has a pretty relentless pace, perhaps too much so at times, and gets to the monster scenes right away.
The fight scenes are possibly the best kaiju battles I've seen. We've got daytime fights with the monsters fully visible and minimal cutting away from the action. For years, people have been making jokes comparing this to BvS, this movie delivers on its title far better than that movie and has much better fights between its title characters.
The human characters are, well, they're human characters in a Godzilla movie. They're not objectionable, but there isn't anyone who stands out too much like in the previous movies. The human antagonists were very bland and underutilized. They could have done with more depth.
The movie sets up some interesting worldbuilding but doesn't have much room to explore it. I know there's a Kong anime coming, I hope that can expand on it.
I've seen people criticizing the science and plausibility, if you're the sort of person who can't get over that aspect then don't watch this movie because it does not adhere to the laws of physics at all.
I didn't like the score nearly as much as McCreary's work on KOTM. Holkenborg's score isn't bad and there are callbacks to old themes, but it just doesn't stand out the way McCreary's did.

Overall, I had a great time. If you enjoy epic monster battles, watch it on the biggest screen you can. If you prefer slow and somber (think Shin Godzilla), this may not be for you.

 

[captainkirk]

It looks like the movie is having a huge opening weekend in China:
https://deadline.com/2021/03/godzil...nd-china-international-box-office-1234722557/
I only hope it does well enough overseas and on HBOMax for a sequel to be greenlit.

 

[thribs]

Can’t wait to see Godzilla kick that overgrown ape’s ass.

 

[Morpheus 02]

I am waiting to hear, in subtitles...

<Save...Mothra!>

<why did you say that name!>

 

[Dick Whitman]

Do you think someone could see this without having seen any of the modern movies?

It looks fun. Not much in theaters and this is the type of thing best to see in a theater. Last March the last film I saw in a theater before shutdown was the original 1933 King Kong.

 

[captainkirk]

Do you think someone could see this without having seen any of the modern movies?

Seeing them will help, but the opening credits do include clips of the previous fights and there is dialogue reminding the audience of what happened before. So I think you’ll understand most things fine.

 

[theenglish]

Do you think someone could see this without having seen any of the modern movies?

It looks fun. Not much in theaters and this is the type of thing best to see in a theater. Last March the last film I saw in a theater before shutdown was the original 1933 King Kong.

I am sure there is nothing in the previous movies you can't read about online--

 

[Dick Whitman]

Thanks good to know. I was reading one of the new magazines in stores on the new movie and peaked my interest. I am the type would go back and watch the others if I like this first.

 

[JD]

I think it would be more satisfying if you've seen at least King of the Monsters and Skull Island, but you could follow it fine without them.
I watched it this morning and I really enjoyed it. After all the build up it was cool to finally get to see the Hollow Earth.
The two big fights we get, the one on the ship and the Hong Kong one are the two best fight's we've gotten in these movies so far.
It did a good job of bringing together stuff from the other movies, and like the Avengers really felt like what we've been building to.

Spoiler

Even though I knew about Mecha Godzilla going in, the reveal was still pretty cool.
I was curious if all of the statues and things down in Hollow Earth mean that there were people there, if it was all supposed to have come from the apes.
I was a little surprised that we got a pretty definitely loss for Kong in the first part of the Hong Kong fight, I had expected more of a draw.
His big return to help fight Mechagodzilla was an awesome moment.
I was pretty happy with the human stuff, the exploration of Hollow Earth was cool, and the Apex stuff was good too.

 

[captainkirk]

Spoiler

It's not stated, but I think all the structures in the Hollow Earth were built by Kong's ancestors. The doors alone are huge compared to him so it doesn't seem feasible for them to be built by humans. They do establish that Kong is intelligent enough to learn a language and have a basic conversation with a human so I buy the idea that his species once had human-like levels of intelligence and had a whole civilization.

 

[Aragorn]

Entertaining movie but way too many underwritten and/or pointless characters, which is right out of the Michael Bay playbook.

Millie Bobby Brown didn't need two comedic co-stars, but when you look at the movie after the fact, that entire subplot was unnecessary other than to provide the audience with information.

I also wonder how many days Kyle Chandler and Eiza Gonzalez needed to be on set.

 

[JD]

Spoiler

It's not stated, but I think all the structures in the Hollow Earth were built by Kong's ancestors. The doors alone are huge compared to him so it doesn't seem feasible for them to be built by humans. They do establish that Kong is intelligent enough to learn a language and have a basic conversation with a human so I buy the idea that his species once had human-like levels of intelligence and had a whole civilization.

That thought did occur to me, but I wasn't entire sure about it.

 

[wayoung]

Anyone else a little weirded out they genocided an entire people off screen with a throwaway line about a storm?

I liked it more than the other Godzilla movies. Maybe not as much as Skull Island. It was more fun than the Godzilla movies, less dark - you could actually see what happened.

Still not sure if Kong's ancestors were highly intelligent stone age/nuclear age combo technologists or if that was supposed to be another ancient human temple like in KOTM.

They did good showing how a giant gorilla, using tools, could stand up to a nuclear powered dinosaur which outweighed him.

The whole teenage sleuths angle could have been cut and the movie would have been fine.

Why was Lance Reddick in this? Ah well, dude deserves an easy paycheque.

 

[thribs]

It was pretty good. Reminded me of BvS. Does that mean the League of Monsters is next?

Wasnt the biggest fan of using Mechagodzilla. I would have waited until the aliens are introduced as I don’t see humans building something that advanced so soon.

 

[Admiral2]

Godzilla was badass.
Kong was even more badass.
Mechagodzilla was OK.
The humans, as usual, wasted valuable screen time that could have been given to the kaiju.

 

[Starbreaker]

I feel like there's a better cut of this movie out there. I would have watched a three hour version with time to breathe.

 

[Xerxes82]

Hmm. I liked it, but I didn't love it. King of the Monsters was better.

I found it interesting that for the first time they didn't even ATTEMPT to tell a story with the human characters. They were there merely to set up the fight set pieces. You have Rebecca Hall and Millie Bobby Brown, and they are basically just window dressing and exposition machines. Very disappointing. But at least they mostly stayed out of the way of the fisticuffs this time.

Mark Russell's sudden lack of faith in Godzilla was surprising, and a little silly. The whole point of KotM was him coming around on the Big G, and learning to love the Lizard King. But here he's ready to buy into the heel turn, even though there is obviously shady business afoot. Seriously, Godzilla limits his attack to the campus of one tech corporation and that's not raising alarm bells for anybody else?

A couple of the new characters had interesting set ups, but don't go anywhere. What was up with Ren? I wish we'd gotten some sense of that character. From his name I'm assuming he's related to the character from the previous films? Why then is he working with Apex? There feels like an entire plotline there that was cut from the film. I would have liked to have seen that, personally. Or Dr. Lind. The stuff with his brother left plenty of room for angst and some kind of arc, but it doesn't look like the film cared. Oh well.

The generic human villain was, well, generic. A dime-a-dozen Lex Luthor or Bond type villain. And his annoying daughter who was another non-character. Though she generated one of my favorite Kong moments of the film. That dismissive little toss at the end! I chuckled, not going to lie.

The monster battles were the highlight. And aside from being a little WWE in their staging, they were pretty good. Particularly liked the Hong Kong battle at the climax. It felt like the filmmakers had a good grasp on what they thought each combatant's strengths and weaknesses were, and they let the fighters have moments ahead and behind to show them off. This was clearly where most of the love was put into the film. And bonus points for making both Kong and Godzilla be smart about their fighting styles. Seeing each of them try to use what they had to gain advantage was awesome. These weren't just animals thrashing about, they were strategic, thinking.

Spoiler

MechaG was awesome, on the whole. The design is all kinds of wonky, but it looked good in action. I would have liked a longer fight sequence to show it off more, but what was there was really good. They telegraphed Ghidorah seizing control of it pretty well, and of course made the human's responsible for making it look like complete morons. MechaG going for the laser down the throat attack for his finish was a nice nod to the previous film. Kong going for his signature head rip finisher felt appropriately satisfying when the moment came, even if it felt a little Mortal Kombat for my tastes.

I was a little surprised how sci-fi they went with the Apex tech. KotM obviously had the Orca and the huge HQ airship, but this went almost full Stargate: Atlantis with the technology.

Still, it was fun, and looked great. I'm not sure I'll rewatch it with the same glee I do Skull Island or King of the Monsters, but it was a good way to spend an evening.

 

[Skywalker]

I am waiting to hear, in subtitles...

<Save...Mothra!>

<why did you say that name!>

Spoiler

There you go.

 

[Enterprise is Great]

The plot and human characters were tissue paper thin even more so than in the previous movies. The best thing were the fight scenes between the monsters and the score.

Some of the CGI was pretty wonky in places. A step down from the previous films.

As usual in his movies I felt bad for Kong. All he wants to do is live a nice quite life and humans just won’t leave him the hell alone.

 

[captainkirk]

Some of the CGI was pretty wonky in places. A step down from the previous films.

I'm curious to know which parts you thought were wonky. I thought the CG was great throughout.