Saturday, April 10, 2021

Movie Review: "Godzilla vs. Kong "

This past January I received my Comcast bill and noticed that it had increased by nearly $20 from the previous month. I also noticed that my last discount "perk" had expired a month earlier, which was a primary reason why. So I did what I usually do when that happens: give Comcast a call and inquire about current deals for existing customers. That usually works, and really paid dividends this time as they dropped my monthly bill $15 lower than what it was before the increase, while doubling my internet speed and throwing in both HBO Max and Showtime for two years. Thank you Comcast!

This allowed me the opportunity to do something I hadn't done in over 1 1/2 years: watch a new theatrically-released movie. In case you weren't aware, HBO Max, at least for the time being, is showing an occasional theatrically-developed movie in conjunction with it being released in the theater. Two such movies this year were "Wonder Woman 1984", which I didn't like and won't waste time writing about, and this one, "Godzilla vs. Kong", which was pleasantly entertaining. And after watching two bad Godzilla movies in 2014 and 2019, and an almost equally bad King Kong move in 2017, I never thought I'd say that!

Sure, "Godzilla vs. Kong" still had some lame storylines, and even lamer characters, but the action and visual effects all but made up for them. The general plot features a race between legitimate scientists and the proverbial nutty professor to find a power source in an unexplored area at the core of the earth. This power source is evidently what empowers the "Titans", or the prehistoric creatures that have appeared in the aforementioned Godzilla and King Kong movies. Including the two star "Titans" themselves.

The film starts out with King Kong discovering that the habitat he was moved to after his 2017 movie is man-made. Concerned that he might escape, his "keepers" decide to move Kong and plot to use him to lead them to this "power source" at the earth's core, and possibly discover Kong's original home. In the meantime, Kong has bonded with a deaf young girl named Jia who, it turns out unbeknownst to everyone, he can communicate with using sign language. On route to the entrance point of the earth's core, which I'm not quite sure how they discovered, Kong's keepers are alerted that Godzilla has sensed the presence of Kong, evidently through his power source, and is tracking him down. Can they get Kong to the core before Godzilla finds them?  That's the million dollar question. Or at least the first one.

In addition to all of this, a wealthy, ambitious, soft spoken, mumbling, hard to understand, borderline good actor business magnate has come up with the brilliant idea to create a mechanical man-controlled "Titan" that will destroy all of the other "Titans" threatening the world. And once he gets wind of this earth's core power source that could empower his creation, he and his loyal band of followers join in on the chase.

What did I tell you about the storylines?

I won't spoil when and where they happen, but Godzilla and Kong do have numerous confrontations (wouldn't be much of a movie if they didn't), including one with the mechanical "Titan", reminiscent of 1974's "Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla" movie (sans Kong). And that's where the movie really shined. These confrontations were game changers, cinematically. They were really incredible to watch. Even on a 55" screen!  One of the big reasons why is that they happened during the day!  If you go back and watch the two previous Godzilla movies, practically all of the monster fight scenes were done either at night or during a rainstorm where you could barely see what was happening. The fighting in "Godzilla vs. Kong" was a completely different, satisfactory experience. And even a little funny at times, as I'm willing to bet the movie makers are wrestling fans, as I could have sworn I saw both combatants use one or two WWE moves during their fighting.

Getting back to subplot #2, the wealthy magnate does get to the power source, thanks to a spy within the Kong group, but things don't go as planned when he tries to apply it to his mechanical monster. This all leads up to a pretty tasty conclusion.

Cast-wise, not all of the characters made a whole lot of sense. There was a trio of nitwits that tried to infiltrate the businessman's headquarters for apparently no other reason than to be the comedy relief for the movie. Their roles served no real purpose to the overall plot and were really a distraction for me. I rolled my eyes whenever they appeared, as they take you away from what's really happening. And as I stated earlier, the business magnate, played by actor Demian Bichir, although not bad, was very hard to understand, as the combination of mumbling, speaking softly, and having a thick accent is not ideal for one of the integral stars of a movie. Plus I have tinnitus, which doesn't help!

Overall, though, the movie was fun to watch and enjoyable with a pretty satisfying ending, despite the issues with some of the plot and characters. Ideal "brain candy", if that's what you're looking for. I'd recommend trying to see it in a theater if you can. I'm sure it's pretty spectacular watching it on a 50 foot screen compared to my 55" TV!



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