![]() While the misleadingly magnificent trailers for Godzilla: King of the Monsters teased a film of immersive action and sweeping, surreal beauty, the film itself offered up confusing choreography, ugly editing and an inability to turn a single stunning image into a sequence of note. His destructive reappearance leads to global concern that he may now be more foe than friend and so Kong, living in a controlled tech simulation within Skull Island, is recruited to help by leading a group of humans on a deep dive to the core of the Earth, the specifics of which are too silly to get into and also of lesser interest than the main question most readers will have: how are those fight scenes? The plot is, of course, just a frantic way to justify why the two titans would come to blows (both had been positioned as protectors of humanity in previous films) and their beef is down to a mysterious threat that is somehow connected to Apex Industries, a company whose headquarters is attacked by a previously dormant Godzilla in the first act. ![]() It’s not that Godzilla vs Kong isn’t also overstuffed but as a whole it’s a more graceful beast, dotting from one plot thread to the other with speed and agility, a proudly defined b-movie that picks goofiness over the strange self-serious pretentiousness that suffocated the Godzillas that came before it. But perhaps this unlikely underdog positioning has ultimately come to Godzilla vs Kong’s rescue because what was initially seen as a bloated and unwanted piece of boardroom product has now become a scrappy little contender, fighting its way from far beneath sea level up to the surface, triumphantly landing on both feet, the striking spring surprise none of us had expected.Īfter the overstuffed and underwritten jumble of Godzilla: King of the Monsters, which links directly to the plot here, it’s a pleasure to see the surer hand of horror director Adam Wingard leap over any similarly soapy setup (he quickly realises we give only the slightest of damns about the humans) and throw us directly into the action, which then barely relents for the ensuing almost two-hour runtime. The tea leaves weren’t offering up much hope, dampened even further by the pandemic, a film designed for the biggest screen possible modestly unfurling for many of us at home instead (in the US it will be available on HBO Max and in cinemas and in the UK it’s a premium rental).
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