KYMM'S 365 DAY MOVIE CHALLENGE #8: GODZILLA VS KONG (2021, dir Adam Wingard, USA)

I hadn’t seen a movie in a movie theatre in 400 days exactly, but the theatres are re-opening safely and I have been vaccinated, so I went to see the brand spanking new remake: Godzilla vs. Kong!

It's no masterpiece, but it's big dumb fun, and definitely a movie to see on the big screen, as the monster fights are kind of what the movie has going for it. If you are going to see Godzilla vs. Kong for the intricate plot and human interaction, go see The Father instead.

Each of the Titans has humans on their sides. Kong has Rebecca Hall, the scientist known as The Kong Whisperer. Alexander Skarsgård is a scientist who knows how to get into the centre of the earth which is hollow (stay with me). And the last living native from Skull Island, a small deaf girl played by Kaylee Hottle, who can communicate with Kong in ASL.

Rebecca and Kaylee live with Kong on a replica of Skull Island, but Kong totally knows that he's being Truman Show-ed, and keeps throwing trees into the sky to break it.

On Godzilla's side are Millie Bobbie Brown, the daughter of Kyle Chandler (in a very brief appearance), who got saved by Godzilla in the last movie, her friend played by Julian Dennison (more on him anon), and a conspiracy theory podcaster played by Brian Tyree Henry, who is trying to find out what a Visibly Evil Billionaire played by Demián Bichir is up to. Turns out, it has to do with getting the Kong gang to go to the hollow earth, which is where the Titans come from in the first place, in order to do something involving Godzilla. This something may or may not be evil.

Anyway, it's all ridiculous nonsense, we're just waiting for Kong and Godzilla to battle, which they do, several times, and that’s when the movie starts cooking with kaiju butter!

The one human character that is given anything to say that is interesting or funny, and then gives it that extra spin, is Julian Dennison, whom you might remember as Ricky from Taika Waititi’s breakout New Zealand comedy hit The Hunt for the Wilder People. Basically if you’ve never seen that movie, stop reading this, go watch it, then come back and finish.

Julian is the epitome of comic relief in this movie, as it is such a relief to have something to laugh at.

But these American (or are they really just international conglomerate) remakes of kaiju and Kong movies still haven’t found a way to make the human characters/stories interesting. The original 1950’s-1970’s Showa Kaiju human stories were no great shakes but they always did tie in pretty interestingly to the themes.

For instance in the original KING KONG VS GODZILLA (1962), there was a hilarious subplot about a major company trying to exploit Kong and Godzilla to its advantage regardless of the clear stupidity of the forces they were about to unleash. That’s here too but it’s much more muddled in pseudo-epic “dialogue for the trailer” throwaway scenes.

So do I recommend Godzilla vs. Kong? Not as such, but as far as being the first movie I saw in a movie theatre after exactly 400 days (March 14, 2020, I saw the crazy Lucio Fulci giallo A Lizard in a Woman's Skin at Secret Movie Club), it is a classic of world cinema.

Also, Team Kong, all the way.

Kymm Zuckert is an actor/writer/native Angelino. When Kymm was a child, her parents would take her to see anything, which means that sometimes she will see a film today and say, “I saw that when I was eight, I don’t remember any of that inappropriate sex stuff!” Check out her entire 365 day blog @ https://365filmsin365days.movie.blog