Tuesday 6 June 2023

Godzilla vs Kong (2021) - Where's the 'no humans' edit?

Oh, my was I disappointed with this one.  I'm not sure what I want from a 'giant monster' movie, but this wasn't it - for the most part.  I have a chequered past with the franchise.  I hated the original 'Godzilla' as there wasn't enough of the monster (or Bryan Cranston) then the 'King of Monsters' sequel was little more than colours and noise before me, yet the - much maligned 'Kong: Skull Island' was quite an enjoyable romp.

Here we have a film about humans.  A lot of humans.  Occasionally a giant ape or lizard show up and punch each other.  That's about it.  It's like 2007's 'Transformers' film all over again.  I know that focusing a story on either giant monster would be difficult, so humans would have to be a major part of it - I don't know - it's just it felt too centred around pointless stuff.  If the main cast of humans wasn't enough, they feel the need to include a totally redundant sub-plot about Millie Bobby Brown leading a pair of other wise-cracking, yet still bland, sidekicks around a secret facility.  This whole aspect could have been left on the cutting room floor and the movie would be all the better for not seeing this - supposedly - secret base.  Yes, this is the most secure facility that just allows any old Tom, Dick or Harry to simply wander in and nose around.

And that's just one of the plot holes.  I swear if a modern movie exists that has more leaps of faith in it than 'Godzilla vs Kong' then I haven't seen it yet.  To even hope of enjoying this film you really can't afford to allow yourself to actually think too deeply about what you're watching, because nothing really holds up when put under any form of scrutiny.

The humans are annoying, but the monsters are - reasonably - cool.  Yeah, even for a big budget film like this they're still kind of CGI-looking, but they at least do more than their human counterparts.  Naturally, our titular beasties have to team up to fight some 'greater evil' - if you've seen 'Batman vs Superman' it's almost a play for play re-enactment and I kept expecting it to be Doomsday.  Don't worry - it's not just the - obviously evil - human baddie in this film who wears a coat over his shoulder just to prove what a cad he really is.

It's a film.  It's way too long.  It's not terrible, but I got through it by not watching it at the cinema and therefore in the comfort of my living room I was able to fast-forward every time I saw Millie Bobby Brown come on.

6/10 Should probably keep you awake if Freddy Krueger was haunting your nights

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