Godzilla vs. Kong (2021) Review

 "I love crazy ideas.  They made me rich."

-Walter Simmons

When Godzilla attacks an Apex Cybernetics facility seemingly unprovoked, the CEO, Walter Simmons (Demián Bichir), recruits geologist Nathan Lind (Alexander Skarsgård) to find a power source to defeat Godzilla in the Hollow Earth.  Nathan realizes they will need to have Kong lead them into the Hollow Earth to find the power source and if the two Titans run into each other, the destruction will be catastrophic.

Spoilers ahead for Godzilla vs. Kong.  I'll be getting into spoilers below.  If you like big, dumb monster movies, than go see this film and come back and read my review.  It's a fun movie, but it's really dumb.  SPOILERS AHEAD!  You've been warned.

What Works:

What are we all here for?  The fights between Godzilla and Kong.  Nothing else really matters.  It's all about the fights, and boy do they deliver.  Godzilla and Kong only face off twice in the film, but both sequences are awesome and exciting.  We also get another gnarly sequence with Kong fighting creatures in the Hollow Earth.  All of the fight sequences are great and, as predicted, are the best parts of the film.  

The reveal that Mechagodzilla was in the film got my incredibly amped.  I'm so happy this wasn't spoiled for me.  It's so exciting and looks amazing.  The final showdown between Godzilla, Kong, and Mechagodzilla is nothing short of epic and worth the admission price on its own.

This movie looks fantastic.  This is a full on futuristic, sci-fi movie and those types of elements can often look bland.  That isn't the case here.  All of the future tech is colorful and gives the film a distinct visual style.  This movie is a feast for the eyes, that's for sure.

Finally, the music makes the film even better.  Tom Holkenborg gives us a score full of synth and it works perfectly with the sci-fi tone of the film.

What Sucks:

As is usually the case with these types of movies, the human characters drag the film down and it's especially egregious here.  There are two main groups of human characters.  First is the Hollow Earth expedition, led by Skarsgård's character.  This group is mostly just boring and they get almost no development, but what drove me nuts is that they bring a little kid on the voyage to the Hollow Earth with them.  It makes sense why the kid goes on the initial voyage to Antarctica, but bringing her on the trip into the Hollow Earth where they could all easily die!?  Unbelievable.

The other group consists of a group of conspiracy theorists that believe Apex is up to something sinister and infiltrate their buildings to investigate.  This group is even worse because all three of these characters are stupid and annoying.  It's too bad because I really like Millie Bobby Brown in Stranger Things, but her character sucks here.  It turns out these crazy conspiracy theorists are right about everything and that really rubs me the wrong way.  Is that really the message we want to be sending in 2021?  

All in all, these characters are among the dumbest characters I've ever seen in a movie.  None of them are likable or interesting.  Looking back at Godzilla: King of the Monsters, those characters weren't great either, but at least Kyle Chandler's character was good.  He gets nothing to do this time around.  He's on the sidelines for literally the entire movie.

Verdict:

To no one's surprise, the human characters are the worst part of Godzilla vs. Kong.  All of them are stupid and either boring or annoying.  That said, everything with Kong, Godzilla, and Mechagodzilla kicks a ton of ass with some excellent fight sequences, amazing visuals, and an awesome score.  This one is worth seeing in theaters if you like monster movies.  

 7/10: Good