By Kevin Miller
SPOILER FREE - I love monster movies! Give me anything with monsters and I'm in. What I don't love so much is the 'vs genre', mainly because there's a lack of story and a lot of plot holes. This is the common symptom of the genre due to the whole objective: get these two rivals to fight each other. I'm not the kind of person who enjoys turning my brain off in order to enjoy something either, which is what 'vs' movies tend to require. The only 'vs' movie I really liked was Batman v Superman: Ultimate Edition. Everything else, not so much. So you can imagine how "excited" I was to watch Godzilla vs. Kong.
Much to my surprise, I did enjoy it. It was a fun movie, I'm not sure if I was supposed to laugh at the drama of it all like when the titans would look at each other, or as they saw the end coming, they would do this dramatic slow turn, over the shoulder but I genuinely enjoyed my time watching the film.
I was very happy to find out that watching Kong: Skull Island (2017) and Godzilla: King of Monsters (2019) wasn't necessary, however if you haven't seen it you'll find the character development weak and the explanations for enhanced technology used in the film a bit of a plot hole but as it often is a common case with 'vs' movies, not outside its expectations of its genre.
The film is incredibly filled with CGI and although every year VFX artists outdo themselves with every big blockbuster, it often is still really obvious that CGI was used. There's just something about the lighting, texture and movement that takes me away from the moment. However, the best of the best was used in this film and I do believe every VFX artist would genuinely consider this a feast for the eyes! The final battle is beautiful and not in the fan boy kind of way, OK sure it is but by beautiful I really mean it's visually breathtaking! The colors are luscious and vibrant. The battle takes place at night with only the city's neon lights offering illumination, giving the overall scene a gorgeous pallet of colors. It's a wonderful scene that shows how important artists really are considering there's more than just VFX at play. I used to think that visually, Rise of SkyWalker was the best movie to use colors so beautifully to help tell its story but this movie blows it out of the ballpark for me! The final battle alone is something I really need to see on the big screen!
There aren't any standout performances but there are really cool battles, funny one-liners and overall it's simply a fun ride that offers a brief escape from life during Covid. It's nothing short of a Hollywood action- monster movie and a great addition to the 'vs' genre. I would definitely recommend this movie!
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