Rating: C+
Dir: Adam Wingard
Star: Rebecca Hall, Brian Tyree Henry, Dan Stevens, Kaylee Hottle
There feels something wrong about listing the actors above, when the actual stars are Godzilla, King Kong, Mothra, and some unnamed lizard thing with ice breath. The humans here don’t get to do much more than stand around, holding the participants’ jackets, and looking awestruck. I’m fine with this, since as ever, we are present for the monsters mashing, not the human drama. Except here, there’s rather too much monkey on monkey violence, which at teams feels like clips from a particularly brutal David Attenborough documentary. For a significant amount of time is spent on Kong fighting a hollow Earth rival, who rules it with an iron fist, because… monkey see, monkey do, or something.
The puny humans here include Monarch researcher Ilene Andrews (Hall), her adopted daughter from Skull Island, Jia (Hottle), conspiracy researcher Bernie Hayes (Henry), and kaiju veterinarian Trapper (Stevens). The last-named has to do a tooth extraction on Kong, which is not something I’d do. Fortunately, Godzilla prefers to self-medicate, dosing himself with radiation. Good thing there’s no checking for performance enhancing substances in the Monsterverse. Jia turns our to be the key to awakening Mothra, though her incarnation seems particularly spikey. More like Gothra, I’d say: thus version is all piercings and tattoos, fresh off a double shift at Hot Topic. She’s needed to wield the power of friendship, stop Kong and Godzilla tearing each other apart at the Great Pyramids, and focus on beating their common enemy.
There’s some odd stuff around the edges, such as Kong adopting a little (relatively speaking) ape, a cringeworthy parallel to the relationship between Ilene and Jia. He looks like Elijah Wood in gorilla form, and takes part against Jia in a contest to see who can look more earnestly concerned. It’s a close-fought battle. But to me, the concept of there being a whole species of Kongs, rather than one unique individual, dilutes their impact. There are parts where this feels closer to an installment in the Planet of the Apes franchise. For, when everyone is gigantic, nobody is gigantic. [While I’m complaining, what is going on with that title? It’s the most needlessly convoluted since the second Angelina Jolie Tomb Raider film.]
It is better than Godzilla vs. Kong. Mothra helps bring balance, and the image of Godzilla sleeping curled up in the Colosseum like a gigantic cat-basket is one of the best this series has had to offer. But I still feel Kong is the weakest of the kaiju, especially when they try and imbue him with human traits. By all means, give Kong his own sub-franchise, and those who like faffing around in Hollow Earth can go enjoy him there. I prefer my monsters to be monstrous, thank you very much. The difference in this area between this and Godzilla Minus One – which cost roughly one-tenth as much, incidentally – remains big enough for both Godzilla and Kong to run laps around.