Can there be only one king of the monsters? Godzilla vs. Kong, the fourth feature in the ongoing MonsterVerse series, may leave you feeling like you don’t need to know the answer. The film is a far cry from Gareth Edwards’s evocative, thematically rich Godzilla from 2014, and about level with the two subpar sequels, Jordan Vogt-Roberts’s Kong: Skull Island and Michael Dougherty’s Godzilla: King of the Monsters, both of which privileged numbingly weightless wrecking-ball spectacle over anything genuinely resonant.
It’s true that, to some degree, kaiju movies are all about reveling in destructo-vision. But the best of them also allow for a deep-breath sense of awe at the concomitant wonders and horrors unleashed by the behemoths around which they revolve. Godzilla vs. Kong, directed by Adam Wingard, is all wheezy momentum, racing from location to location and plot point to plot point with the sort of strenuous indifference that becomes quickly exhausting.
The film begins with Kong wandering around a Truman Show-like enclosure on Skull Island, where he’s watched over by scientist Ilene Andrews (Rebecca Hall) and communicated with via sign language by a hearing-impaired little girl, Jia (Kaylee Hottle), the last surviving native human inhabitant of the island. Meanwhile, in Pensacola, Florida, Godzilla mysteriously attacks a facility, Apex, owned by Elon Musk-like Walter Simmons (Demián Bichir), while a conspiracy-minded podcaster, Bernie Hayes (Brian Tyree Henry, channeling Jurassic Park’s goofball rogue Dennis Nedry), steals company secrets for some whistleblowing leverage.
Elsewhere, King of the Monsters’s teen heroine, Madison Russell (Millie Bobby Brown), reappears with an annoyingly quippy best friend (Julian Dennison) and a fervent determination to uncover Godzilla’s true motives. Her father, Mark (Kyle Chandler), still working for the monster-surveilling agency Monarch, pops up occasionally throughout, looking perpetually perturbed. And just when you think the film has completely rolled out all its cardboard characters, we’re introduced to Nathan Lind (Alexander Skarsgård), a fringe scientist who wrote a non-bestselling book on Hollow Earth theory, which strangely enough may be the key to uncovering Kong and Godzilla’s not-so-otherworldly origins.
But what you probably want to know is when, where, and how often do the seething, snarling, titular titans fight each other. Answer: In the first and last third of Godzilla vs. Kong, in the middle of the ocean and in Hong Kong, and twice total for about five minutes each. To say if there’s a winner would be a spoiler, but it’s safe to reveal that there’s a bit of a wrinkle—you might call it a “mecha-nical” one—that forces them to become a tag team. Does that sound awesome? It should be, and yet Godzilla and Kong’s brawls have the ennui-inducing feel of a child arbitrarily smashing action figures together, save for one giddy slow-motion shot of Kong leaping to avoid an explosion, a la Bruce Willis in Die Hard.
Wingard and cinematographer Ben Seresin (or, more likely, a computer-bound army of pre-viz and digital F/X technicians) produce a few other eye-catchers. The skyscrapers surrounding Kong and Godzilla during their climactic match-up are lit like glowsticks, while a journey to the literal center of the Earth conjures a fleeting sense of wonder, particularly when Kong finds gravity getting all topsy-turvy. (This is also the point at which Tom “Junkie XL” Holkenborg’s otherwise unexceptional score gets agreeably Tangerine Dreamy.) Apart from that, the copious world-unbuilding is stupefyingly perfunctory, as well as borderline offensive in its cynical disregard for human life. These callous qualities, unique to mega-budget blockbusters, are something that Edwards’s Godzilla film poetically eschewed and the sequels, with their profit-minded fixation on pleasing particular kinds of lizard-brains, regrettably embrace.
Image/Sound
Of all the films in the MonsterVerse series, Godzilla vs. Kong is the one that most unreservedly embraces the splashiness of the original Godzilla franchise, and this 4K disc perfectly renders its gaudy neon color scheme. You can make out the finest shades of blue and white in Godzilla’s atomic breath, and every resplendent color that dots Hong Kong’s cityscape spectacularly stands out during the climactic showdown between the titular monsters. Contrast is consistently sharp, and little touches like the spittle that flies from Godzilla and King Kong’s mouths are almost unnervingly crisp. The accompanying Atmos mix is also superb, as its height presence works in unison with the rear channels to amplify the maximalist skirmishes. Combined with the discrete panning efforts and surround activity, this release ensures that the film’s sonic assault will give your home video system a workout.
Extras
The disc comes with a commentary track by director Adam Wingard, who discusses his approach to the film and how he attempted to stay true to both the over-the-top chaos of kaiju movies and their underlying sense of sociopolitical urgency. Additionally, the accompanying Blu-ray contains about an hour’s worth of various featurettes devoted to specific aspects of the production, mostly the elaborate computer effects. There’s nothing especially revelatory in these videos, but one does get the sense that, whatever the pros and cons of the results, the filmmakers truly do want to honor both the Godzilla and King Kong franchises.
Overall
Possessed of many of the virtues and flaws endemic to the classic Godzilla franchise, Godzilla vs. Kong receives a robust ultra-high-def release from Warner Bros. Home Entertainment.
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