Movie Review: Godzilla vs. Kong

By: Brice Kingsbury

On March 31st, 2021, the two most popular movie monsters faced off for the first time on film in over 50 years.

Directed by Adam Wingard, the film depicts a group of humans trying to bring Kong to a new home, as they fear he may be in danger from Godzilla. Meanwhile, Maddison Russell (Millie Bobby Brown) and her group of friends discover unknown secrets in relation to Godzilla all in a movie that delivers on action and giant monster fights but also suffers from one major issue…the human characters.

This film is the fourth installment in what is considered to be a cinematic “Monsterverse”, and it perfectly manages to depict stupidly entertaining monster action scenes. Seeing Kong jump off of a boat to avoid Godzilla’s atomic breath is probably one of the coolest things anybody will ever see. The fights are loud, perfectly timed, well shot, and complemented by the incredible CGI. 

Another positive of this movie is that it actually knows what it is. The movie never takes itself too seriously, and the director knows exactly what audiences want to see (which of course is a big monkey and a big lizard punching each other for two hours). It doesn’t try to include some deeper philosophical meaning or any character development, which is extremely refreshing after so many seriously-toned action movies. 

Unfortunately, as mentioned before, the movie does suffer from one problem that almost every new age monster movie faces. The human characters are boring and their side plots are uninteresting. Although this movie does not spend too much time on the characters in comparison to past films in this “Monsterverse,” whenever a human character popped up on screen while a fight was going on it took away from the momentum that had been building up.

We don’t need to see Millie Bobby Brown running around in a lab, just let the monsters do their thing. It’s clear that the film doesn’t actually care about those characters, but just needs them there to fill in the extra time. Hopefully, they can find a solution in the next monster film.

Overall, Godzilla vs. Kong is a fun, over the top spectacle with amazing action and visuals, but falls flat with the human side stories. If you’re looking for a mind numbing, fist-pumping blockbuster to watch in your free time, then I highly recommend checking this one out. 

Tags: arts and entertainment, Brice Kingsbury, entertainment, Godzilla, Kong, movie review, movies, redwood gigantea, redwood journalism