I know what you’re thinking: isn’t that an extremely pretentious tittle?

Damn right it is!

Do I even know what that means?

Hell no, but it did make you click on this article. Honestly, I can’t believe you keep falling for this. Anyways, Godzilla vs. Kong.

This sure is a movie I am talking about.

I’m gonna cut to the chase: I do not like this movie.

I won’t deny that there are parts of it I do enjoy, and there are plenty of inspired moments that make me want to like it, but as a film it has too many basic problems a movie simply shouldn’t have. It’s not like I expect perfection from every movie, but as a person with the refined cinematic acumen that can only be attained after watching Batman Begins 10 times in a week, I simply cannot bring myself to like this movie.

True Story btw.

Now, before people begin lighting their torches because I am being mean to a multimillion-dollar movie, let it be known that I don’t blame the people involved in it for making such a disappointing film.

I blame the studios that produced these movies.

Shame on you.

This is just one of those cases where you can tell the producers were dead set on making a profitable film, but instead putting any effort into making it good, they merely took all the negative feedback of the previous entry and set out to make a movie scientifically designed to please internet reviewers.

It’s not like it has no inherent entertainment value, but the movie isn’t really interested in anything that isn’t getting to the next big monster fight, suspension of disbelief be damned, like this scene where Godzilla blows a hole to the center of the earth just so we can get to the climax faster:

Personally, I wouldn’t call GVSK an abomination, the movie is extremely transparent about how it’s trying its best to please the audience, but as a film I do think it’s the worst movie in the Legendary Monsterverse, though as far a Monster films go, I would still say Godzilla King of The Monsters is worse.

And that’s entirely on this guy.

As such, there really isn’t much to say about this movie on a technical level, this is a textbook case of aiming for the low hanging fruit, but I do think it is worth discussing in the context of the cinematic universe it’s part of, if only because it encapsulates many of the problems the Legendary Monsterverse has.

A Crownless Kong

King Kong, the eighth wonder of the world.

Here, in the year 2021, I think it’s hard for people to grasp why King Kong is such a big deal. I mean sure, he’s been in a bunch of movies, but so has Harrison Ford and I don’t think anyone wants to see him fighting Godzilla.

Until now.

He is arguably the oldest icon of cinema (I mean Kong, not Mr. Ford), and there is a reason for that. By the 1930’s movies had existed for a couple decades, but you can argue that the medium was still seen as something of a novelty. People had been using books and plays and shadow puppets to tell stories for millennia, and while moving pictures were, as they used to say back then, super rad, I don’t think most people saw Movies as a medium that had to exist.

King Kong is the movie that showed the world Cinema could be used to tell stories larger than life. That you could go into a movie theater and have an experience you could not get anywhere else. Sure, a good book can take you anywhere, but a movie? A movie could show you anything.

And to see is to believe.

King Kong is synonymous with cinema. His career has taken him to all kinds of different mediums, but I don’t think anyone can deny that the Big Screen is where he belongs.

That is probably why it is so mystifying that of the many cinematic iterations that followed the original 1933 film, from Dino de Laurentiis’ take to Toho’s own two outings, none of them has truly recaptured the wonder of King Kong. Even Peter Jackson’s remake, arguably the most epic and high budget take on this story, felt like it was missing something.

Though it did have Adrien Brody, something most movies do lack.

And that brings us to the Legendary Monsterverse take on Kong, aptly named Kong. Because Kong.

Kong.

Released in 2017, Kong Skull Island is the only movie in history where Samuel L. Jackson fights a giant monkey, and that’s really all we need to say about it. Okay fine, it is also a pretty good movie, arguably the best in the Legendary shared Monster universe, though it could definitely be a lot better.

For the record, Skull Crawlers are lame.

Personally, I really dig how this movie went back to the original idea of Kong not being a giant gorilla, but rather a whole new creature, a missing link between Ape and Human, which is the one thing that genuinely bothered me about Peter Jackson’s King Kong. And yet, there is still something about the newest incarnation of Kong that doesn’t quite measure up to the legacy.

And I know what that is.

Now indulge me for a moment, I want you to close your eyes and think of King Kong. Done? Okay, now tell me, how many of you pictured a variation of this scene?

Every memorable movie has a scene that sticks with you long after the credits roll. The Empire Strikes Back had ‘No, I am your father’, Jaws had ‘We’re gonna need a bigger boat’. For King Kong, this was it.

That image of a giant ape fighting planes on top of the world was the very first thing Merian C. Cooper, the producer behind the movie, ever came up with. Every other part of the legend like Skull Island or the damsel in distress came later, he always knew what King Kong was really about.

He also knew how to wear the hell out of that hat.

That defining moment is the one thing Kong Skull Island is missing. This is not a criticism against the movie, by all means it is a good film, but quality aside it still lacks what made King Kong King Kong; an impossible creature from a prehistoric world brought into our own, where it dies because there simply is no place for him in it. That is the tragedy of King Kong.

“It was beauty that killed the beast.”

That is the sequence that made of King Kong more than just another movie.

That is the scene that made him into an Icon.

And that is why the Legendary version of Kong feels lacking.

He just doesn’t have an iconic moment that really defines him as the Kong.

Sure, between Kong Skull Island and Godzilla vs. Kong, this version the of the eponymous giant ape is the most complex, relatable and well written he’s been in decades. He is literally the best character in the Legendary Monsterverse that is not shaped like Bryan Cranston. But being well written is not the same thing as being iconic.

And that is important because the entire point of a film like Godzilla vs. Kong is to have two icons of cinema facing each other. Take that away and you’re left with just another movie with a giant ape.

This shot was sweet though.

A Godzilla in Shape Only

I have my grievances with the way Legendary and WB have handled the current American incarnation of Godzilla. This is not so much a secret as much as it is part of my curriculum.

I also know Java and am incredibly partial towards Gamera.

I know I’ve made a whole other essay about this, but it is a point that does bear worth repeating; the entire point of Godzilla is that he is a man-made monstrosity, not a natural-born creature. The fact that the Legendary Godzilla movies have gone out of their way to make him not just an animal, but one that exists to sustain the natural order has never sit right with me.

Don’t take me wrong, it is a really good concept for a monster movie, but it’s just not Godzilla.

If only there was another one…

I know this will shock people who think monster movies should be nothing more than empty spectacle, but Godzilla is an actual character, one that has fascinated audiences around the world for almost 70 years, and there is a reason for that. Much like King Kong he is a creature whose ethos is rooted in tragedy, and this is something that has remained consistent even when the franchise has been at its goofiest.

If you didn’t cry at the end of Son of Godzilla, you have no soul.

That disconnect between the audience and the actual movies is something I’ve always found as fascinating as I found it irritating. Like, there is a vocal portion of the fandom that sees monster movies as nothing more than cheesy entertainment, people who believe these movies have always been nothing more than monsters fighting monsters.

I am not going to pretend that every single Kaiju Eiga has been some kind of intellectual master piece, but the monster part has always been a relatively small portion of them. Things like characters and plot have always mattered as much as the monsters, if not more. But there is this strange notion in pop culture that the ‘movie’ aspect has never mattered, that the monster spectacle is the only thing that’s of any value and everything else is in the way.

That mentality is how we ended up with Godzilla vs Kong.

This is your fault, is what I am saying.

It is no secret that Godzilla isn’t a character in this film. That’s not because the movie doesn’t care about him, but rather because the movie doesn’t want you to care about him. It only wants you to sit tight and be in awe of the spectacle, which isn’t a bad thing in on itself, but once you reach that point then it doesn’t really matter if its name is Godzilla or not.

I call him Pepe.

The Greatest Rivalry… that never was.

Much like Robocop, a movie like King Kong vs. Godzilla is one of those premises that just has to exists. It is just one of those ideas that single handedly justifies the existence of movies, which is probably why many people overlook the obvious: Godzilla is way out of King Kong’s league.

Godzilla: The original dark, tall and handsome.

Think about it for a moment. In the original Gojira, Godzilla was a creature so powerful it took a weapon far more terrible than the Hydrogen bomb to destroy him. King Kong fell off of a building. We’re talking about two entirely different power scales here.

And yet, the idea of these two titans of cinema facing each other is so cool, pretty much everyone forgets that the original 1962 Japanese movie was actually a satire.

A terrifyingly relevant satire.

It is no secret that most of Ishiro Honda’s films carried some kind of social commentary, and King Kong vs. Godzilla was no exception; the entire movie pokes fun at the absurd length’s companies would go for the sake of TV ratings. Even by the film’s own admission, King Kong fighting Godzilla was just an absurd publicity stunt since the mighty ape stood absolutely no chance against the atomic beast.

Hell, in their first fight King Kong can’t even get close to his opponent, and as soon as he gets slightly burned by Godzilla’s atomic breath, he nopes harder than any Ape has ever nope’d.

“Superior intellect my ass. Imma outta here.”

This movie isn’t so much King Kong vs. Godzilla as much as it is King Kong gets curb stomped by Godzilla, and that is by design. The only reason why King Kong quote on quote wins in this movie is because they came up with this very convoluted plot point where electricity powers him up while weakening Godzilla.

You shouldn’t need a Kaiju scholar like myself to tell you that electricity doesn’t actually weakens Godzilla. It merely turns him into an electromagnet.

This is basic Godzilla science.

That is why the very existence of Godzilla vs. Kong is so bizarrely funny to me. From an ad campaign centered around ‘Who will win?’ to the #TeamGodzilla and #TeamKong hashtags, this movie is the exact same kind of publicity stunt the original film was making fun of.

I do have to give credit to Adam Wingard, the director of the movie; he wastes no time in establishing that Godzilla will absolutely wipe the floor with Kong if they ever face each other. In fact, the only way they even manage to make them fight on even ground is by giving Kong a weapon made of Godzilla. That’s kind of like trying to fight Superman by politely asking him to punch himself.

“For the last time Bruce, no.”

Mind you, I completely understand the appeal of this concept. I too has monkee brain you see. But the fact that Hollywood continues to play this concept completely straight instead of trying to do anything interesting with it, really tells you all you need to know about how western audiences see monster movies.

And they let them Fight.

If you go and watch any number of reviews for Godzilla vs. Kong, because this is what your life has come to, you’ll probably notice virtually all of them offer the exact same praise for it: the monster fights in GVSK are better than in King of the Monsters because this time you can actually see what’s going on.

Ah yes, Hong Kong, a city most famous for its Neon buildings.

While this is a fair assessment, it also highlights how little the audience for these movies understands about how fights work in movies; in any narrative, a good fight needs to have the proper context, it needs to have defined stakes, and it must resolve a conflict within the story. Otherwise, even if the performance is good, the fight itself will feel pointless.

The monster fights in KOTM had a lot of problems, both narratively and technically, but these problems were not the kind of issues that were immediately obvious to general audiences, so most people settled for the one thing they could understand: visibility.

“Screw you.” – The army of digital artists who worked in this.

That was a real issue, but it was a minor one, so while the monster fights in GVSK are generally an improvement over KOTM, they still carry some flaws: the initial boat fight has a good setup and it is pretty fun, but the resolution is somewhat underwhelming; the titular fight of the movie, while genuinely impressive on a technical level, it was very poorly set up, to the point that it’s of little consequence to anything happening in the plot.

Also, this might be an entirely biased opinion, but I cannot comprehend how they managed to make Mechagodzilla lame.

He looks like a Bayformer. A boring one.

If it sounds like I am nagging about this a bit too much, that’s because I am, and there is a reason for that:

Every couple of years I’ve seen these studios try and fail to make a giant monster movie with genuinely good fights, which is baffling when you remember that we live in a universe where Pacific Rim exists.

Incredible movie. Shame it never had a sequel.

Pacific Rim knew how to properly convey the sense of scale of the monsters in order to make the fights exciting. It knew how to use its characters to raise the stakes in every action sequence. And most importantly, it knew that there is nothing cooler than a Rocket Punch.

I have pages of Equations to back that up.

My point is, making an American Monster movie that it is entertaining, has spectacular fights and it is genuinely good is actually possible, all you need is someone who knows its craft, understands the genre and respects it beyond a superficial level. And I am not saying that just because Guillermo del Toro and I are both Mexicans AND love Alien Baltan.

We’re basically brothers.

One Final Roar.

Watching the experiment known as the Legendary Monsterverse trying its darnedest not to crash and burn has been an interesting journey. This entire series of movies is yet another victim of Hollywood failing to understand that audiences don’t like trends, they like good movies.

That is the actual reason why the MCU succeeded where everyone else has failed.

Okay, that and Robert Downey Jr.

Personally, while there are things I like about these movies, after GVSK I simply have no interest in seeing them continue.

With Godzilla King of the Monsters Legendary and WB blew their entire load in hopes that they could make this cinematic universe work. When that movie failed to meet everyone’s expectations, they focused so much in making Godzilla vs Kong a movie that could please audiences that they ended up wasting all the potential and good will the Legendary Monsterverse still had.

It ended up making enough money that it is likely they will try again, but I just don’t see an interesting direction this franchise could take going forward.

Unless…