Summary
If you’ve been waiting on seeing a giant ape fight an even bigger radioactive lizard, then the fourth film in the MonsterVerse doesn’t disappoint.
If Godzilla has dominated the giant monster landscape for almost seven decades, then he at least partially owes his success to King Kong: the granddaddy of the modern kaiju. Kong is in Godzilla’s DNA, from the inspiration that it gave special effects wizard Eiji Tsuburaya through to Godzilla’s Japanese name, which literally crosses ‘gorilla’ and ‘whale.’ Yet they were always destined to clash.
The titans first collided in 1962 in King Kong vs. Godzilla, a film that started its life as a clash between Kong and Frankenstein’s monster. While the monsters wouldn’t meet again for almost 60 years, Toho would produce King Kong Escapes (1967) from Godzilla originator Ishirō Honda. That film involved a fight between the giant ape, a Mechani-Kong and the dinosaur Gorosaurus. In some ways, it’s even more of a forerunner to GODZILLA VS. KONG, the third entry in the current Hollywood produced Monsterverse.
The set-up to the film is almost irrelevant, but here goes. Kong is being kept in an artificial Skull Island environment by Dr. Ilene Andrews (Rebecca Hall), accompanied by her adopted hearing impaired child Jia (Kaylee Hottle) who seems to have a strange affinity with the titan. Meanwhile, Godzilla attacks Apex Cybernetics without apparent provocation. Apex CEO Walter Simmons (Demián Bichir) tasks fringe scientist Dr. Nathan Lind (Alexander Skarsgård) to follow his Hollow Earth theories by using Kong as a guide, but as soon as he’s out of protective custody a clash is inevitable.
If ever there was a film that does exactly what it says it’s going to do on the back of the tin, then it’s this one. There are naturally the trappings and posturing of all the major blockbusters, but director Adam Wingard is under no delusion as to why we are are here. We want to see the monkey and the lizard fight, and sure enough that’s just what they do. As flares light up the sky — one of the first major set-pieces is a seaborne collision — we bear witness as the twin titans wrestle underwater, and Kong leaps from ship to ship. It’s genuinely spectacular.
Many of these sequences pay visual tribute to earlier entries in both franchises. Kong being transported on the back of a ship is a direct nod to the first clash in 1962. Of course, cast members of both the recent Kong and Godzilla films also show up, sometimes in glorified cameos and others in their own storylines. Kyle Chandler quite literally phones it it, while his on-screen daughter (played by Stranger Things co-star Millie Bobby Brown) globe-trots with Josh Valentine (the ubiquitous Julian Dennison) and conspiracy podcaster Bernie (Brian Tyree Henry) in a parallel story path. Which is the probably the biggest structural problem of the piece: the two threads never fully converge, and the Hollow Earth storyline is only given lip service as Hong Kong becomes the battleground for the kaiju — and a surprise guest.
Having built up to this clash since 2014’s Godzilla, this fourth entry feels (refreshingly) like an ending. There’s no end-credits stingers or hints at another monster lurking under the proverbial. Of course, the future of the franchise will depend entirely on the success of this film, and we know there’s always a buck to be had in Godzilla.
2021 | USA | DIRECTOR: Adam Wingard | WRITERS: Eric Pearson, Max Borenstein | CAST: Alexander Skarsgård, Millie Bobby Brown, Rebecca Hall, Brian Tyree Henry, Shun Oguri, Eiza González, Julian Dennison, Kyle Chandler, Demián Bichir | DISTRIBUTOR: Warner | RUNNING TIME: 113 minutes | RELEASE DATE: 24 March 2021
