Godzilla is on the move.
King Kong is exploring his new home.
When a new menace threatens the world, can the boys put aside their differences?
This might be the best version of these movies.
I have not see Kong: Skull Island, but the previous movies felt like they were striving for something more.
Godzilla 2014 tried to go the Jaws route of focusing on a human story with Godzilla as the backdrop.
Its sequels were more interested in being monster mashes, but we’re still stuffed with so many characters and mythology it felt like the movies could not breathe.
Godzilla x Kong sheds most of the padding to become an ‘all killer/no filler’ monster movie.
I was not a fan of it, but it seems like the most unabashed and straightforward version of this franchise.
The last movie was an unexpected hit. Godzilla 2 had underwhelmed in 2019, and Godzilla v Kong was released in March 2021, as theatres were slowly reopening. It was also released as part of Warner Bros Project Popcorn, which saw their tent poles released day and date in theatres and Video On Demand.
The filmmakers behind that movie have returned, and they clearly took some lessons from their previous success.
The human cast are stripped down, with the focus largely on Kong.
I cannot remember much about the last movie but I remember thinking Kong should be the audience surrogate because Godzilla’s characterisation was more animalistic and its face was not as expressive.
What this movie gets right is the positioning of its leads: Kong is the protagonist of this movie, with Godzilla as a deux ex machina/time bomb for the third act.
We get one beat down between the leads, but most of the movie is a Kong buddy movie as he discovers a lost tribe of other apes and forms an uneasy alliance with a young ape.
This section of the film starts to feel more like a simian version of Conan the Barbarian or Lone Wolf and Cub. Kong is presented as an aging warrior wandering the land with a massive axe, sternly teaching his young companion the ways of the world.
It adds to the sense that this franchise has turned from a grim dark reboot of cultural icons, to a gleeful grab bag of genre influences.
This is a movie featuring a giant power glove, an underground civilisation and giant monsters using pro wrestling moves on each other.
The human cast are fine: Rebecca Hall does not embarrass herself being a count of exposition, and Dan Stevens adds a dose of personality as a space-y monster veterinarian.
But this movie knows what it is, and it keeps the focus where it should be.
It is not a movie with aspirations to be something more cerebral.
The movie seems to have a sliver of self-awareness in the way it portrays its giant-sized stars casually destroying human infrastructure without a care. One almost wishes the movie were a little more gleeful in its disregard for human level carnage. But that is not the movie.
If you are here for Kong and Godzilla, then this is the movie for you.
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