Good Lord – it’s Pinhead vs. the Mob Boss.
In Godzilla vs. Kong (2021) we’re confronted with a confounding question:
Why did the producers bother?
Oh, sure, there’s big audiences and big money, wherein the latter is incurred in the big budget necessary to render monsters not derived from rubber suits, reportedly ranging from $155-$200 million. There’s gotta be an ego-boost in being told that you put that much money into a movie about a rivalry between an overgrown, supercharged chicken with a grumpy ‘tude and big fucking chimp. Fucking big chimp. However you prefer those overused adjectives ordered, eh?
But it might help to consider the traditional thematics of these two star critters. Gojira (1954) used Godzilla as the vehicle to ask what a society is to do when attacked by the forces of irrationality. Japan had not provoked this attack, at least in this version of reality, and its attempts at defense were dubious at best. Some reviewers narrowed it down to an implicit condemnation of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki by the United States, as Godzilla is contaminated with radiation; later stories gave him an actual nuclear heart, whatever that meant. But the terror of being menaced, minus provocation, by a vehicle of indiscriminate destruction made Gojira a true horror tale.
King Kong (1933) is a classic anti-free markets screed, as a corporate head chooses to transport a truly gigantic ape from its isolated island into the very midst of American civilization, all in pursuit of a lot of money; once Kong escapes and kills a few people, he must be exterminated, all while he expresses a slightly creepy affection for a normal sized woman. It attacks at least a couple of American ideals having to do with our favorite obsessions, money and sex, and that made it, along with the poor guy plucked from a tree and eaten by one of Kong’s dinosauroid rivals on the island, a real horror story for the American psyche.
But in Godzilla vs. Kong we have little more than a grudge match between two ancient rivals. Yes, there’s the corporate fellow who may be responsible for this clash in the middle of a city, but his motivation isn’t the crass chase after profits, but rather being the saviour of mankind. Maybe. Or maybe king of the world. He’s not well developed, unlike the hackers who get a role in this because … computers. Important, ya know?
This lack of clearcut connection to the earlier, effective sagas damages this story, leaving the audience to wonder just how much they’ve been taken for. Are they really here because they’re susceptible to the charms of a fight between an overgrown chicken with halitosis and a chimp borrowed from 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)? And, maybe, a robot? A telepathic robot?
Or cyborg?
Yeah, it’s just a mess, as sequels often become. It’s flashy enough, but not very sensical. Don’t mortgage your house to see this. It’ll be hard enough on your good sense.
