Director: Adam Wingard
Year: 2021
Length: 113 minutes
I guess because of the understanding of how the Titans communicate and sense each others' presences, Monarch is protecting Kong on Skull Island within a gigantic dome from alpha Titan Godzilla. Kong isn't stupid though, and he knows his fortress is actually a prison. Dr. Ilene Andrews is Monarch's chief Kong-ologist, and her deaf adopted daughter, Jia, seems to have a special bond with Kong. She's taught him some sign language, but they keep that between them.
Walter Simmons is the megalomaniac head of Apex Cybernetics, a very powerful tech organization. He recruits ex-Monarch researcher and Hollow Earth theorist Dr. Nathan Lind after telling him he's created a vehicle for safe entry into the centre of the planet but what they need is a Titan to lead them to the gateway.
Using his connections they manage to get to Skull Island and convince Ilene that this mission is a good idea. On the way to the gateway, Godzilla attacks a drugged, dazed, and seemingly depressed Kong. Kong fights valiantly, enough to ward Godzilla off, but it's no victory. To continue on the path they've chose would risk another attack. But tracking Godzilla, they discover a gateway, and airlift Kong there.
They make passage into middle earth where they discover Kong's home territory, seemingly abandoned, but just laced with stones full of a new form of energy. Unknown to Doctors Andrews and Lind, this is what Walter Simmons was really after. Apex Cybernetics created a giant remote controlled Mecha-Godzilla that uses a hybrid cybernetic mind link between a human host and one of Ghidora's skulls from the previous film to control it, but it needs the raw power of the Hollow Earth to power it.
Godzilla knows that Kong has found a hotbed of power and, from Hong Kong big G revs up his atomic blast and opens up a hole right to Kong's homestead (that's 6000+ KM for reference). Armed with a super-charged axe, Kong makes his way to the surface to battle Godzilla (basically hopping up the tunnel Godzilla just bore into the Earth...all 6000+ KM), and once again finds he's just not a match. Godzilla nearly kills him.
Meanwhile, Simmons is out to prove man is the Apex Predator once more and sets MechaGodzilla out into the wild. It's a brawl, and Godzilla's about to lose, but Nathan uses the HEAV as a defibrillator and revives Kong. Jia explains to resurrected Kong that Godzilla doesn't have to be his enemy, and that he needs help. Kong steps in, and the two decimate Mecha-G in a pretty nice tag-team (Godzilla charging Kong's axe with his atomic breath was just aces). They reach an uneasy truce, an understanding of cohabitation, and go their separate ways.
Oh yeah, Mark and Madison Russell from the last film are in this as well. Madison is obsessed with a Titan-focussed conspiracy podcast run by Bernie Hayes, who works for Apex Cybernetics. Along with Madison's friend Josh, they manage to meet up with Bernie and go on a fruitless and meaningless adventure which culminates in them dumping a flask of whiskey on a computer to give Mecha-Godzilla a moment's pause, which is just enough to make a difference it the big finale.
Godzilla, Friend or Foe:
He's the same Godzilla as previous, a massive force of nature, but we get the sense that he's not *just* a force of nature. That he can think a bit too, and even socialize with others.
The Samesies:
Just like the previous Godzilla eras, the continuity here ain't so tight between the films, especially when you add Monarch: Legacy of Monsters to the mix, it's not easy to fit all the pieces together of what humanity knows about the habits and behaviours of the Titans and Hollow Earth, and when they knew about it. I'm sure it's all fudge-able, in the same way one has to fudge Star Wars continuity to make it make sense, but it's not all there on the screen.
Like many Godzilla films past, the technology available to mankind has gotten really advanced. There's some heavy investment into "super science" and research infrastructure, even way beyond the previous film. King of the Monsters toes the sci-fi waters, where GvK just jumps right in. It's pretty unapologetic about it, too, which I like a lot.
Mechagodzilla having a connection to Ghidorah is right out of the Heisei era Godzilla vs Mechagodzilla II, as is the idea of Ghidorah taking over the robot from its human controllers.
Like King Kong vs Godzilla, there's lore introduced here that suggests the two beasts have an ancient rivalry. This film goes into it a lot more than the 60's film did, though.
The Differences:
The Hollow Earth was teased in the previous film and even visited via an underwater portal (which I guess explains why there wasn't all the topsy-turvey-ness others have reported. The reason they don't go back to that gateway is, well, because they blew it up with a nuke. Anyway, the visit to the Hollow Earth here is very adventuresome and exploratory. It's vibrantly realized and I really dug this sequence.
The HEAV (Hollow Earth Aerial Vehicle?) is not too far off from the Super-X hovering tanks of Toho films past, although these are strictly transportation meant to accommodate the flippidy-doo journey into Hollow Earth. I like the Tron-like light trails it leaves behind in its wake.
I haven't been re-watching Kong films, but doesn't Kong usually have something of a connection with young women? I think this is the first time he's really had a relationship with a child, and maybe the first time he's shown an aptitude for communicating with sign language.
This is the first Godzilla movie to feature a podcaster, and dive into conspiracy theories as they apply to the Monsterverse. Of course, this is the annoying thing where we know more than Bernie does.
Anyone worth caring about?
Oh, so much more to care about than in the previous film. Rebecca Hall as Ilene and Alexander Skarsgard as Nathan are both immediately and infinitely more appealing and likeable than Vera Farmiga and Kyle Chandler. Chandler is still in this film but really tossed into the background, where he should be. Hall, Skarsgard, and Kaylee Hottle (Jia), as well as the Apex and Monarch crews, are all basically team Kong, while Millie Bobbie Brown (returning as Madison), Brian Tyree Henry as Bernie, and Julian Denison as Josh are the largely useless and purposeless team Godzilla but quite likeable. I'm happy to see some of this crew are back in one of two "Empire" movies this March of 2024 in Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire (see also Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire).
But, really, the best character in the film is Kong. He's so expressive. He's a big, homesick, lonely boy, with such soulful eyes, and every moment he has with Jia made me just a little, teensy bit weepy.
The Message:
Uh, it's possible to make peace with even your longest-standing enemy? *ahem*
Rating (out of 5 Zs): ZZZ
This isn't a super-smart movie, and it's sense of scale goes all out-of-whack, but boy does it know how to have fun. If there's a big difference between this and King of the Monsters it is exactly that point. The characters in this film are going on a big old ride and despite the peril they may be in, the performers seem to be having fun. It's contagious.
The Kong v Godzilla fights are very well orchestrated with a LOT of fun little nuances you could never accomplish in suitmation. That's not a dig on the fun of suitmation, but just part of the comparison. CGI frees the filmmakers up to create more expressive creatures, and have more nuanced fights. Not sure the physics always work out in its favour but who cares!? Big dumb fun is supposed to be exactly that.
I just wish Skarsgaard was playing Tarzan in this.
Sleepytime Factor:
I did have a brief little headbob of a nod during the Ghidorah-head discovery or one of the team Godzilla scenes, but I never went right out.
As with the previous movie, I didn't realize how much they were nodding and winking to the "real" Godzilla movies. Until I read your posts, that is. It makes the idea more fun.
ReplyDeleteThis movie is, as you say, as we said before, is way more fun than the previous two movies. I am still not sure how they made such a misstep with the last, when it SHOULD have been waaay fun. While I was disappointed they turned the tone of the first on its heel, if they had switched to uber fun to begin with, I would have been on board.
I love how you call it "middle earth" on a few sentences. I cannot help but imagine Godzilla tromping around fighting armies of orcs and dwarves, while Gandalf shouts, "YOU. SHALL. NO.... oh, fuck this shit, I am out of here!!"
One thing still bugs me. Simmons is up front that he wants to go get a new power source. oh he doesn't say he wants it for a big wobot but why wouldn't he have done it for BOTH? that power source, all the floaty blue rocks, could have been really helpful to his bottom line.
I kind of like the whole conceit of the Hollow Earth, and while I like the "better explanation" provided by the TV series (another dimension) its weird fun to think of a place inside our own planet that is thousands of miles away but has magical portals to get there in a timely fashion. were they created by the precursor society from the previous movies? OR was it all invented by the aliens from the planet that Ghidora is from? SO MUCH FUN TO BE HAD. Maybe aliens from another dimension?
They are actually more enjoyable the more you see how they're playing with scenes or tropes from the various Toho series. I still see the major problem of GKotM as having two very unlikable lead actors playing unlikable characters doing things in their roles that should very well have been covered by other characters in the film. I think they needed a transition from the severity of Edwards film and in a way GKotM did do that by bringing in all the other monsters and such,yeah, but not good enough.
DeleteHere's what I see with Simmons: he's got so much money and there's not going to be any end to it, so he's completely over capitalism. He's now all about power. There's no greater power than Godzilla. And so MechaG is the surrogate by which he gets to claim that power for himself. He's built a company called Apex (after apex predator) so he's spelling his intentions outright on the letterhead.
I wonder if we'll get an actual aliens plot. 2 out of every 10 Godzilla plots seem to involve alien invaders somehow so we're due for another one. I have to believe New Empire will have more monsters than just other apes. We already have a planet of the apes series. Do we really need a planet of the giant apes?
Maybe all the apes we see in the trailer, except the little baby one, are in flashback to the Apes vs Godzillas war? Ah, enough speculating, we'll be watching it soon enough ;)