Godzilla vs. Kong: no better than Bowser against Donkey Kong (review)

This opus of the franchise may be spectacular at times, but it nonetheless remains very disappointing.

Before Godzilla X Kongwhich is currently a hit at the cinema, there was in spring 2021 (directly to VOD due to the Covid-19 epidemic) Godzilla vs. Kong. TMC is programming it this evening to benefit from the undeniable success of its successor.

Is this Adam Wingard film, starring Millie Bobby Brown, Rebecca Hall and Dan Stevens, worth watching? What's more on television? So-so. At its output, First did not hide his disappointment. But it may still be interesting to (re)discover it before its sequel… Here is our review.

Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire is a great, fun and lively spectacle (review)

Review originally published on April 3, 2021: Obviously, Godzilla vs. Kong is a pure cinema film, to be seen on the big screen, as big as possible, with optimum sound to be blown away with each punch of the giant American gorilla, on the snout of the irradiated simili-dino of Japanese origin. Obviously, discovering this kind of blockbuster on a television is not desirable. But we have to get on with the times. The pandemic is here. The rooms are closed. And it is therefore on VOD that is released today in France Godzilla vs. Kong.

In this direct sequel to Godzilla 2: King of the Monsters, humanity has learned to live with these titans who can devastate everything in an instant. Fortunately, the Alpha male, the most powerful of all, has no bellicose intentions with Man. As long as we leave him alone, he spends his time snoozing in the depths of the oceans. Except that Godzilla suddenly decides to attack a research base in Southeast Asia. Would he suddenly become an unstoppable threat? The Monarch Organization then bets on Kong, an equally formidable phenomenal gorilla and candidate for the title of Alpha, hidden for years by the scientists who brought him back from Skull Island to avoid a new wrath from Godzilla…

Adam Wingard: “My Godzilla is a bit like the incarnation of Barbenheimer, a neon pink atomic creature!”

Of course, the two potential Alphas will cross paths and it will hurt. On the fighting side, there is nothing to complain about. Godzilla vs. Kong hits hard. Visually, the overdose of CGI doesn't burn the retina too much and the sequences are spectacular enough to impress, even if Adam Wingard's direction often lacks inspiration. The problem is that this unleashing of brute force leaves us completely unmoved.

This fourth film in the franchise MonsterVerse advances stupidly, mechanically, towards its obligatory crossing points, from “Round one” to “Round final”. If we remove the gigantism of the thing, we could summarize the film as a vintage video game match, Bowser vs. Donkey Kong, disconcertingly poor. Because the most absurd in Godzilla vs. Kong, this is not the Kaiju feud. To be honest, we still devour with children's eyes a good old wild explanation between two monsters larger than life… as long as it is well done! Except that the blockbuster has completely neglected the before, the after, the surroundings.

In Godzilla vs. Kong, everything that is not a fight is monstrously absurd. The screenwriters Eric Pearson and Max Borenstein clearly wanted to cram too much into it and we wrote three films in one, without any sense. Disjointed plots, which fit together as poorly as pieces of different puzzles. Let's go through this wobbly “rip-off” of Journey to the Center of the Earth – a sort of unintentional parody of Ice Age III -, but the whole part with Millie Bobby Brown is undeniably superfluous. As if stacked on the main plot, to bring back the star of Stranger Things (arrival in 2019 in Godzilla 2), and keep it at the heart of the franchise. Without humans thick enough by their side to make them shine, both creatures end the film as flushed as us, leaving an aftertaste of much ado about nothing. Perhaps the worst for a film of this type. Better to turn on your good old Super Nintendo again.

Godzilla X Kong/Godzilla Minus One: There are lots of lizards! “This globalization of the beast is good”