*I mean, what are we doing here?

IMDB Synopsis

Fearsome monsters Godzilla and King Kong square off in an epic battle for the ages, while humanity looks to wipe out both of the creatures and take back the planet once and for all.

“There’s something provoking him that we’re not seeing here.”

It is fitting that last weekend the UFC had their Heavyweight Championship promoting this titanic matchup the entire event. Stipe Miocic and Francis Ngannou felt like an appetizer to seeing Godzilla and King Kong duke it out throughout Legendary Pictures new release. Of course, this is part of the Monsterverse as well, which as we learned with King of the Monsters, has a logo!

Since Godzilla came out in 2014 and Kong Skull Island came out in 2017 fans of the Kaiju have been clamoring to see these two Titans duke it out. Well we got our wish as part of the Warner Bros. HBO Max deal where they are releasing these movies in theaters and streaming at the same time. And no it did not look like this…

The matchup was everything we wanted it to be, because this movie really did embrace what it wanted to be. Which was a big cartoonish, nonsensical battle between two lovable behemoths, with very minimal amount of human interference on screen. Sure there were human storylines that helped push this story along, but unlike the previous movies it felt like the monsters were really the center stage.

What surprised me watching this was how much more this movie was about Kong. This universe has been so centered around Godzilla, giving us time with the Ape was a great choice and really fun. We see Kong taking a shower, using sign language, and just enjoying life at points. Much different than the stoic, defensive personality we have seen from Zilla over time. The reason we see so much Kong is the Apex Corporation is using him to help them get into the Hollow Earth. The Hollow Earth, which we learned out a bit in previous films, they believe holds a power source that of course can power the earth. When we do get to see the Hollow Earth with our human friends (Rebecca Hall, Alexander Skarsgard) it is just as incredible as you might think. Beautiful and wondrous landscapes with creatures and dinosaurs that you cant find on Earth.

But Apex of course has nefarious motives as well and it causes Godzilla to act out of character and do battle with aforementioned Ape. Honestly, describing the plot of this movie sounds stupid when you write it out, but just think Batman vs. Superman (Ultimate Edition I am not a heathen) with big CGI monsters.

As with King of the Monsters, let’s do some stocks, but not for our humans who had about 10 pages of dialogue in the whole movie it felt like. Let’s talk about the Monsters and where they are now in the Universe.

Stock Watch

Stock Neutral – Godzilla

What can you say about the big Lizard at this point. He is a beast and comes back from anything you hit him with. Sure sometimes he needs to be nuked to be woken up but the man exudes power. He absolutely dominates Kong in their battles, let’s be serious, but I do wish we got more from him. I loved seeing his home and getting some personality in King of Monsters, so getting shoved off to the side here was kind of odd.

Stock Down – King Kong

Our guy took a hit here Juicer. Clearly the man was no match for Godzilla without his Stormbreaker esque weapon so he is clearly not the apex predator of all the monsters. He even needed to be defibrillated by a massive explosion by the end of their battle. However, by the end he still gets to be the king of the Hollow Earth, so he is doing just fine. It was really cool to see his bond with Jia, and seeing him receive and use sign language. It really gave him a personality and made you care for him.

Stock Down – Mecha Godzilla

Honestly the dude hardly even put up a fight. He comes in all menacing acting like he can counter anything the monsters can throw at him. But the second the boys team up it is game over. I am completely out on Mecha Godzilla after this performance.

*A couple other tidbits

• Julian Dennison and Millie Bobbie Brown are a great pairing even if their story was out of control.
• Why is Kyle Chandler in this?
• Rebecca Hall must have really only filmed for a week or less, she was in and out.
• I was very surprised at the subdued score during the big battles. I thought they would really want to blow that out, but I guess they let the sound effects do the talking.
• It was cool to see Kong still had the battle marks from his battles in the previous movie.

This movie definitely knows what it wants to be which is great to say about any movie. What it gives us is big time movie making and a payoff for this universe they have created out of these historic monsters. If you are looking for a big, dumb monster movie to turn your brain off to, this is absolutely the perfect movie for that. And honestly I would continue to watch more of these movies in this universe, I think there is a place for them in the movies.

Juice Rating:

*You can find my 2021 Movie Rankings here.

*You can find all of my Movie Ratings here.

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