*****SPOILERS FOR GODZILLA VS. KONG*****
Hello Internet!
I hope you are doing well and that everyone is staying healthy! I mentioned last week that I had gotten my first vaccine shot and I am still waiting for my second which should happen in a couple weeks. Here in the United States, more and more people are becoming vaccinated. Hopefully more and more people in the US and around the world can get vaccinated so we can put an end to this quarantine. The spring weather is bringing warmer weather and rain and I just want to spend time outside without worrying about other people not wearing masks. On top of everything else, I have been writing and publishing stuff on WordPress. Let’s take a moment to look back at the past week and the things I published. Last Sunday I published a Weekly Blog about Easter. I don’t usually talk about religion, but Easter gives me a good chance to talk about being a Christian and what it means to me. Then, on Wednesday, I published a Poem titled “Gardening.” Spring is here and lots of people have begun working on their gardens. Tilling the soil, water the plants. That sort of thing. This is a Haiku that summarizes that springtime gardening. Lastly, on Friday, I published a Writing Prompt Piece titled “Empowered.” This Piece focuses on a C-List Superhero named Awestruck who has the power of causing an existential crisis in others. She talks to a A-List Superhero named Captain Cold. Awestruck has a hard time understanding how her powers could be useful to fight evil, but Captain Cold is there with some advice. This is a shorter Writing Prompt Piece than I’ve done in the past, but if people really like it, I might return to it in another Writing Prompt Piece. If you missed any or all of those pieces, make sure you go back and read them. Give them a Like as well. Views and Likes let me know what people are interested in and what I should focus on in the future.
Now that we talked about what I published this past week, let’s move on to the biggest versus movie coming to a streaming service near you: Godzilla vs. Kong. This movie pins a Giant, Nuclear-Fire Breathing Lizard against a Giant Monkey and tries to tell you that they would be equal to one another. I’m going to talk about the plot of the movie as well as the strengths and weaknesses of the movie. Now I’ll start by saying that I’m a big fan of Godzilla as a character, but I haven’t really seen a lot of these new Monsterverse movies. I remember watching the 2014 Godzilla movie which had a ton of marketing over Brian Cranston even though he was only in the first 20 minutes of the movie. That movie was ok overall despite following human characters which were just kind of there when Godzilla showed up and action which was blurry or just alluded to off screen. Following that movie, I didn’t bother seeing the next two Monster movies. Kong: Skull Island didn’t interest me at all despite the fact that I actually liked the 2005 King Kong movie. King Kong just isn’t my Kaiju of choice. I’m a bigger fan of big, nuclear lizards. Speaking of which, another Godzilla movie came out in 2019 called Godzilla: King of the Monsters. Initially I was very excited to see this movie because they teased not only Godzilla, but also Mothra, Rodan, and King Ghidorah. Seeing these monsters battle on the big screen should have been awesome, but when the movie came out it was poorly reviewed and I heard it was boring. I couldn’t believe that having Godzilla and three other iconic monsters all in a movie together could be boring, but I ended up skipping the movie. Despite the low to middling ratings of the Monsterverse movies, nothing could stop these movies from coming out. Godzilla vs. King Kong was announced and it launched a thousand internet discussions about giant lizard vs. giant monkey. Who would win?
Well this question was answered when Godzilla vs. Kong was released in theaters and on HBO Max (which is how I watched it). And let me tell you what. It’s definitely…a movie. It’s an action movie which focuses on Godzilla and King Kong punching each other. If that’s all you are expecting from this movie as you watch it, you’ll probably like it. If you are expecting anything more than that, it probably won’t exceed that very low bar. I do think this movie does some things really well and a lot of things just ok or bad. Let me first talk about the positives of this movie and then we can move on to my critiques. Like I said, this movie is really all about the battle between Godzilla and King Kong and you can tell that’s where the budget went. The CGI surrounding Godzilla and King Kong is really good. The action and the fight scenes are also really strong. When it comes to action, sometimes it really boils down to two things punching each other and the winner just being whoever can punch harder. I find those types of fights to be very boring and not fun to watch. The fights between King Kong and Godzilla, on the other hand, are very fun to watch. The first fight between Godzilla and King Kong sees them battle it out in the ocean among a fleet of military ships. I think this fight highlights Godzilla’s raw power and his advantage when battling out in the ocean. Kong definitely gets some punches in, but Godzilla ultimately wins. After some Hollow Earth nonsense (we’ll talk about that in a bit), Godzilla and King Kong fight again in Hong Kong. This fight was also really spectacular to watch and even though Godzilla is stronger in terms of raw power and his nuclear blast, Kong actually fights smart and uses the city as a way to give him the upper hand. Again, the visuals of this fight is great and I really enjoyed the action.
Now the third fight kind of dips for me. You see, after Godzilla and King Kong fight for a second time, the humans unleash their own titan. If you watched the trailers or any theory video on this movie, you’d know that Mechagodzilla shows up at the end of this movie. I mean what’s a “versus” movie without having a real bad guy show up so the two good guys can fight it instead of each other. The humans end up losing control of Mechagodzilla and it goes on a rampage through Hong Kong, fighting both Godzilla and King Kong. Mechagodzilla shows off its own power and easily beats the two of them, separately. But then the most believable thing happens and Godzilla and King Kong team up to fight Mechagodzilla, defeating him with teamwork. This battle was kind of a mixed bag. It seemed like the movie makers kind of used all the good ideas for the first two big fights and this third one just wasn’t as good. We just watched a huge fight between monsters in Hong Kong and now we get another with three monsters in Hong Kong. It just fell flat to me. Also the design of Mechagodzilla isn’t great. In theory I was excited to see Mechagodzilla, but it kind of looks like a rejected transformer. Plus the ending fight seemed kind of rushed. I would have liked to see a bit more back and forth between Godzilla and Kong vs. Mechagodzilla.
Moving on to the things I did not like about the movie which can be summarized as basically anything that wasn’t two monsters fighting. I know that there is a common complaint among these Monsterverse movies that the human stories are never as interesting as the monster stories. And for the most part I disagree with that sentiment. I think the human element can be really strong and some of the earliest Godzilla movies highlighted that. Now with this movie, I think the complaint is totally valid. The weakest part of the story is everything around Millie Bobby Brown’s character and her adventures investigating the technology company that ends up creating Mechagodzilla. I think she had a more significant role in Godzilla: King of the Monsters, but in this movie she is just here. The people surrounding King Kong’s side of things are a little bit more interesting, but that’s about it. The other big negative of this movie comes from any time this movie has to explain anything scientifically. I get that this is an action movie and realistic science isn’t the top priority, but a lot of it is either basically magic or complete nonsense. These people take King Kong to Hollow Earth and find some magic energy source which then gets uploaded from a drone to the Hong Kong facility that is building Mechagodzilla. Like they basically just email energy to power a super-robot. Also everything around Hollow Earth is basically nonsense and makes very little sense. I’m pretty sure Hollow Earth is connected to Godzilla and the titans in these movies, but to me it’s just a super strange vehicle to get Godzilla and King Kong together so they can fight. They might as well have Atlantis show up in the next one because that would make just as much sense. ..wait…just looked it up and it turns out Atlantis is a real thing in the Godzilla mythos so I guess I was more on point than I first thought.
Overall I’m not really sure what to think of Godzilla vs. King Kong. In some ways the movie was pretty good and in other ways it was not. I think it really comes down to expectations around this movie. If you are just looking for an action movie where you get to see a huge lizard punch a giant ape and then a giant ape punch a giant lizard and then a giant lizard and a giant ape punch a giant robot lizard, you will probably have a good time. If you are watching this movie hoping that anything outside of that will make a lick of sense. Well, this movie will probably not live up to those standards. I liked Godzilla vs. King Kong enough, but just don’t expect a masterpiece out of this Kaiju Movie.
Thank you so much for reading that Weekly Blog all about Godzilla vs. King Kong. If you liked this Weekly Blog, feel free to give it a Like. You can also leave a comment down below with your thoughts about this movie. Did you enjoy watching Godzilla vs. King Kong or was it a disappointment? No matter if you agree with me or disagree with me, I’d love to hear your opinions about the movie. If you really liked this Weekly Blog or the stuff I write, I hope that you will choose to Follow Me here on WordPress. Recently we passed 700 Followers and I hope to continue to grow this community bigger and bigger. I am slowly building a positive and creative space on the internet and I want you to be a part of that. I really do appreciate all the love and support I get from readers new and old. Just knowing that people all over the world are reading and enjoying the stuff I write, really makes my day/week/month/year.
Thank you again and I hope you have a wonderful week!
-Allen_The_Writer
Header Photo Credit to Godzilla vs. Kong’s IMDb page.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5034838/
Allen The Writer 