Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire review

This was the most fun I’ve had watching a new movie in a long time. At first I rolled my eyes, as I’m beginning to do with life in general, at the idea of releasing another sequel with the same overall premise as Godzilla vs. Kong (2021). This is after all the third time in cinema the two have squared off with the first being King Kong vs. Godzilla (1962).

The plot is almost the same as the last one. Hollow Earth is still under scientific investigation. This time it’s populated with, not only the thought-to-be lost Skull Island tribe, but also an entire species of “King Kongs” and other giant monsters (the Titans). The deaf Jia (Kaylee Hottle) has premonitions of this dimension going haywire and begins to frantically beg her scientist mom Dr. Ilene Andrews (Rebecca Hall) about impending doom. With the aid of Trapper (Dan Stevens), an eccentric giant monster veterinarian, and, once again, “conspiracy theorist” podcaster Bernie Hayes (Brian Tyree Henry) the quartet venture into Hollow Earth to save the day.

It should be noted that Kong no longer displays any sign language skills to communicate with Jia as he did in the previous movie. It’s like it never happened.

Godzilla and Kong are still at odds with one another and periodically hash it out with the various giant monsters and ultimately each other. Kong, once again, gets more screen time than Godzilla. Nonetheless, the fights are awesome and nicely over the top. One even features Kong using a giant baby ape as a pair of nunchucks to fight off other giant apes. Overall, it’s entertaining and well over 65% CGI monster brawls if not more. There’s close to no boring back and forth scenes of one-dimensional human characters talking about nothing. Welcome back cinema!

By the way, Mothra is back! She was last seen in Godzilla: King of The Monsters (2019). Of course, she assists wonderfully in the final battle between our two legendary giant monsters and their adversaries. There’s also Tiamat who is an evil Godzilla-type monster from the Arctic that has frostbite-inflicting ice breath rather than radiation breath. Kong also finds an antagonistic equivalent in Skar King who rules over a dystopian ape slave labor camp in Hollow Earth.

The color palette in this movie is awesome! The vibrant diverse colors really pop and offer a nicely rendered look to Hollow Earth with each area having its own color scheme. This is a nice change to the usual sterile and grey look we’ve been subjected to in movies for the last decade.

Let’s talk characters.

Brian Tyree Henry as Bernie Hayes, whose character I found outlandishly knowledgeable of government operations in the first one, comes off as typical Black guy comedic relief. It’s not racist but it’s definitely a tiring archetype I’m worn out from seeing. He’s sweaty, nervous and jittery the whole movie. Think something along the lines of, “Black people don’t do this dangerous stuff! Only White people!” or “How come White people aren’t afraid of Godzilla? What’s wrong with them?”. His “Black” hypersensitive survival skills in Hollow Earth are a foil to the otherwise comically “unaware” White people.

Let’s talk about the Mary Sue. Jia is adopted by the kind of cold Dr. Andrews. She obviously a.) couldn’t keep a man or b.) the man couldn’t keep her as there is NO father figure present like in a lot of recent movies. She has a bit of a “moment” where she corrects Trapper by reminding him she has two – count ’em two – master’s degrees. If that’s not one of the most worthless elitist appeals to authority I’ve ever heard then let’s hand her the keys to the kingdom boys. He should’ve responded with, “Hold on to those. I might need to wipe my ass later.” Even though Trapper doesn’t need to wipe his ass later the degrees do not help prevent the end of civilization. The monsters without master’s degrees do. Perhaps it’s symbolism for how worthless college is now.

I saw this twice with the second time being in 3-D. I probably won’t ever watch it again. It’s a movie forever bound to its theatrical presentation like all IMAX CGI orgies.

I.S.S. movie review

American and Russian astronauts find themselves trapped in a space station when a conflict between the United States and Russia erupts back home. The astronauts are then given secretive orders from their governments to immediately seize the station by any means necessary. This virtually vaporizes their friendship as the fate of their countries supersedes their aeronautical relationship.

The movie launches when Ariana DeBose, who portrays Dr. Kira Foster, a still wet behind the ears astronaut, joins Americans Gordon Barrett (Chris Messina) and Christian (John Gallagher, Jr.). Opposite to them are Russians Weronika (Masha Mashkova), Alexey Pulov (Pilou Asbæk) and Nicholai (Costa Ronin). With a plot this simple there has to be a spicy obligatory subplot. In this game of survival, it involves a secret relationship between Weronika and Christian. A very simple, yet fitting, monkey wrench since it makes the astronauts second guess every advance toward harrowing and hesitant domination.

For a 2020s movie there is just about NO woke panhandling. The key words are “just about.” There are several lines exchanged however when Christian comically asks the buzzcut-donning Kira about her moronically assumed heterosexual relationship status. She of course corrects him by stating the obvious.

This is a good example of what people mean when they say they hate “wokeness.” It’s irrelevant to the plot and is a socially and politically bargain bin way of trying to make us go “oooo” and “ahh.”

I did not expect it however to slip in the latest cockeyed mantra for women in their down and dirty 30s though. Getting close to dog mom territory, Kira then informs him, to a retina-spraining eye roll, that (paraphrasing), “I’m just going to focus on my career” as it’s implied her lesbian lover crossed the surprisingly non-Mary Sue character. Makes sense I guess.

Apathy is now synonymous with liberation.

Surprisingly, the movie isn’t 70hrs. long but instead a wholesome 1hr. and 35min. Oh my god. Talk about a pre-2010 runtime.

I’m a bit taken aback that the movie is only getting lukewarm reviews. It’s riveting even though it’s not an original plot by any means. I guess reviewers got confused when they didn’t see spandex-clad superheroes.

2023: A Year in Movies

By and large, there’s nothing impressive here folks. So, here’s a review dump of all the new movies I saw this year. In my honest opinion, the best movie I saw all year was Back to The Future.

Renfield

Pretty bad but fun at times. The plot, which stars Nicholas Cage as Count Dracula, involves him training his typically insect-eating servant Renfield (Nicholas Hoult) to carry over his legacy of vampirism. A spate of mysterious and ultra-grisly deaths soon sends law enforcement on their tail. The two female leads suck big time. A law enforcement agent, Kate Quincy (Camille Chen) is, I’m sure feminists will take this as a compliment, an unforgivable and unlikeable bitch. Don’t expect any elegant, intelligent, and cunning Peter Cushing Van Helsing vampire hunter here. Thrown in the lackluster and unimpressive mix is Rebecca portrayed by the diabolically and eternally annoying Awkafina. I remember her character as a bit redeemable though.

The movie does a cockeyed job of mimicking Marvel super hero fare by having Dracula have superpowers and run up walls – not scale them in a stealth demeanor like in the novel. Crap.

Ride On

Jackie Chan is back and since it’s the 21st century it’s destined to not be impressive. And it isn’t. I wish I could say I’d write a singular extensive review on this like I did his last movie Vanguard (2020) but there’s not much here. The movie follows Chan as a retired stuntman who has been aided in a decades long career by his trusty horse Red Hare. The two are being phased out by CGI and old age and his character Lao Luo has run into financial hardships which puts him at risk of being violently penalized by debt collectors. He gets his estranged law school daughter Xiao Bao (Liu Haocun) and her boyfriend Naihua (Guo Qilin) to help pay off the debt.

Isn’t that exciting? The brief spills Chan manages to get himself into are with the hokey debt collectors who don’t come off as threats but more as playful bullies who are only intent on gingerly apprehending him. I don’t mean to crap on the nearly 70-year old Jackie Chan but he’s finished. Close to every move he does he’s doubled by someone who looks significantly younger than him. Worst of all, it looks as though the director Larry Yang didn’t know how to get around it so lots of the brief spills are spliced in a very choppy style. Still, I’m confident Chan is more agile and fit than your average 70-something year old American action star. Much respect.

If you’re a Chan fan you’ll love the scene where he watches a best of reel of former movie stunts of his and guess what? They’re scenes from classic JC movies! It’s all the greatest hits (literally) with a large amount coming from his 80s films. You see Police Story (1985), Armour of God (1986), Project A (1983), and just about every other shining moment. Iconic cinema aside, one of the actors, Jing Wu also starred alongside Chan in Shaolin (2011). Another veteran is Rongguang Yu who previously worked with Jackie on Shanghai Noon (2000), New Police Story (2004), The Myth (2005), Little Big Soldier (2010), The Karate Kid (2010), and Police Story 2013 (2013 – a.k.a. Police Story: Lockdown). As long as Jackie makes movies Yu will always have a job.

It’s 2 and a half hours by the way. Two and a half hours.

Haunted Mansion

Move over Eddie Murphy! Disney has resurrected the momentous ride in a new cinematic venture that comes off as meh. I’m not sure what direction the plot could go in for a movie based off of a ride with such a simple straightforward premise so it makes sense to have it be about a single mom (fuck dads am I right?) and her son who move into a haunted mansion. They then enlist the help of a ragtag team of spiritualists to help them rid the house of its ghosts. The characters are about as exciting as the bottom of an empty trash bag.

One element of this movie that compensates for a blindspot in the, in my opinion, better 2003 Eddie Murphy adaptation are its homages to the actual ride. There’s an overload of references, easter eggs, and set pieces for die hard riders to fawn over.

Talk to Me

More horror trick or treats from A24 studios. This one is somewhat clever. It involves a beat up and scribbled hand statue that when gripped possesses the person. I’m kidding. It’s not clever now that I typed it out and read it back. Mia (Sophie Wilde), the female protagonist, gets the most possessed and has to destroy the daisy chain of demonic overthrows as it ravages her friends and family.

Make sure not to get this mixed up with the shock jock Petey Green biopic Talk to Me (2007).

Oppenheimer

It’s a pretty good movie for a 3-hour tour de force that is comprised of long conversations in offices. Obviously, there is the detonation scene which is riveting as expected from director Christopher Nolan. I don’t know close to anything about the actual H-bomb engineer J. Robert Oppenheimer (portrayed here by Cillian Murphy) so I can’t say what’s accurate and what isn’t. I do know Josh Peck of Nickelodeon’s famed Drake & Josh plays a bit part as one of the detonators.

The movie can be broken down as follows:

I don’t know how to make the bomb.

I’m making the bomb.

I made the bomb.

I detonated the bomb.

Should I have made the bomb?

The government investigates.

Thanksgiving

It was fun. It involves a serial killer who disguises as John Carver (one of the Mayflower pilgrims) who is on a revenge killing spree after some locals were killed in a very American Black Friday sale stampede. There’s nothing original here and there doesn’t need to be. It’s a horror-comedy that’s based off of director Eli Roth’s faux trailer from 2007’s Grindhouse. This has to be the 4-billionth horror movie to have a Texas Chainsaw Massacre-esque cannibalistic dinner scene with captive diners.

Godzilla Minus One

The best movie of the year is Asian and I’m not surprised. Toho, with its $15 million budget, shames Americans by exhibiting quality acting, story, CGI, and big box office receipts with so little money behind it. Minus One has a very bleak wartime feel appropriately giving you emotional vignettes of Saving Private Ryan (1999) and Dunkirk (2017).

Don’t expect any campy Godzilla tropes though. This movie plays it seriously like the very first and offers a much more gritty tone than any other attempts within recent years. There’s fans that claim Godzilla is only in it for 4 and a half minutes but, if so, it does not feel like that. I will admit though that it’s too long like every movie known to man made within the past 15 years.

And this does have a connection to the H-bomb as it takes place shortly after the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings.

Ferrari

Spoiler ahead.

It’s a biopic about Enzo Ferrari. I don’t know why it’s relevant especially since it’s based on a 30-something year old biography by Brock Yates (who wrote the screenplay for the goofball Cannonball Run). Like Oppenheimer, I don’t know how accurate it is. I personally think it should have been about the ending race car crash that killed numerous spectators.

Adam Driver portrays him and the most noticeable error is that Ferrari couldn’t really speak English yet here he seems to be doing an excellent job the entire movie. I’m not sure what angle they were approaching his story from. It seems to be more about the very focused, cold, and even incompetent side of Ferrari and his business troubles. His wife Laura (Penélope Cruz), who he’s cheating on, handles his money and conflict ensues. As someone who is half-Italian I’m offended that she’s played by a hispanic actress. Italianphobes. There’s really little to do with engineering cars here so you might raise one eyebrow after it’s over.

I’d say the biggest problem with the movies of 2023 is they’re too long and Asian movies are better. Fathom Events, who re-release beloved classics that you could watch at home on your TV, was on par this year…just sayin’.

Happy New Year!

Cocaine Bear movie review

I did see it.

Cocaine Bear is a hyper-violent horror-comedy littered with stupidity, gore and profanity. It’s, perhaps to your surprise dear reader, loosely based off of a true story. In 1985, the year the movie takes place in, a black bear ingested a large amount of missing cocaine and died. That’s it. In this fictional rendering, the bear instead goes nuts and kills any sign of life whenever she’s under the influence of blow which fell out of a drug dealer’s plane. It’s like Popeye and his trusty spinach.

The story involves multiple plots. There’s two kids who get lost in the Georgian forest (where this takes place) who stumble upon one of the bags of cocaine and even attempt eating some of it. The tough-as-nails mom (Keri Russell) of the annoying know-it-all little girl (Brooklyn Prince), who comes from a fatherless home, sets out to rescue them. On the other hand we have a law enforcement investigation being conducted that sends a detective (Isiah Whitlock, Jr.) to the forest to track down the mentally inept goofball drug dealers with the kingpin being portrayed by the late great Ray Liotta. We’re not done. There’s also moronic park rangers and paramedics stumbling around in there as well.

All of these clowns are thrown in either one of two predicaments: hide from the bear and/or retrieve the cocaine.

No one is likable in this movie and the only characters portrayed in a mostly ‘straight’ manner are Russell and Liotta. Everybody, for the most part, is ravaged in very graphic ways. No one making this movie took it seriously. There’s no way. That’s okay however I get the feeling that they intentionally didn’t take it seriously to try and be edgy. This is the best comedies can do these days. Lot’s of profanity, mundane crude behavior and snappy quips have become the placeholder for humor that might get the filmmakers hanged.

Movie Review dump

Here’s some movies dating back to March that I’ve been meaning to review.

Real quick:

X

A fun throwback horror film about a group of filmmakers producing a porn film in 1979 on a farm managed by a psychotic old couple. The nostalgia factor is great and, even though this has nothing new to add to the horror genre, it’s still ghastly infectious. Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974) is a big influence.

Ambulance

An injured bank robber is being kept alive by his accomplice and a nurse taken hostage in an ambulance and cop car chase. As far as woke Michael Bay productions go, the panhandling here was for gay audiences in the form of a flippant and sassy gay detective. To make matters worse, the bank robber who was on the edge of death ends up being heroically saved since no one wants to see his son grow up without a father. Trash if I’ve ever seen it.

The Northman

Nice and bloody Nordic tale. The violence is choreographed, unrelentingly and creative unlike most Marvel fare.

Top Gun: Maverick

It’s straightforward action is nicely shot with great lengths gone for accuracy. I was never a big fan of the first one so I can’t say I’m too knowledgeable to make a solid opinion here but I do recommend you see this IN theaters.

Jackass Forever review

The original cast of Jackass is back (for the most part), in their latest variety film of juvenile antics and pure gross-out gags. The last time we saw the gang was in 2010’s Jackass 3-D, which was filmed less than a year before member Ryan Dunn’s drunk driving death which also took out a Jackass crew member as well. Although not deceased, Bam Margera, for the most part, remained absent from the film due to sobriety issues. Originally, Paramount and the other Jackass members (namely Steve-O, Johnny Knoxville and director, Jeff Tremaine) required daily on set drug tests. As a result of this surveillance, he quit production early on. He does, however, manage to appear in a blink and you’ll miss him stunt though.

I’ve always been a Jackass fan and have seen the prior movies with my opinion being Jackass 3-D as, not necessarily the worst, but the weakest of the trilogy which also includes Jackass: The Movie (2002) and Jackass Number Two (2006). For those of you not familiar with their TV series and movies, the style is a string of harrowing stunts ranging from bullfighting, airborne cannonball jumps, and electric shocks. This movie, in particular, involves a sizable amount of stunts involving animals and other creatures including venomous snakes, venomous spiders, a bear, bees and a scorpion thrown in for good measure.

These stick out the most for me. Arguably, the most painful one to watch is when Johnny gets decimated by a bull while performing a magic trick for it. There’s also an impressive array of nut shots inflicted on Ehren McGhehey from softball strikes by Danielle O’Toole and hockey all-star, P.K. Subban who apparently has the hardest puck shots in the sport.

Of course, since Jackass is primarily white guys you have to put in inexplicable pop-out-of-nowhere stock black contributors who appear for some stunts. For the non-existent female market, we have Rachel Wolfson. I’m not sure who she is either but she doesn’t do any heavy-hitting stunts. She does impress us with a botox procedure on her lips inflicted by a pissed-off scorpion. Poopies contributes. I don’t know either. I remember him doing some dangerous gags but he’s nothing special and, even for Jackass standards, the name is annoyingly stupid. He contributes nothing that will make the audience beg for more in potential future movies.

It’s their most graphic and they made a point of it. The opening involves a Godzilla-style giant monster attack except the “monster” is Chris Pontius’s penis spraying fake semen (I hope) everywhere. Dave Englund plays paddle ball with his penis smooshed in a see-through paddle and Steve-O has bees latch on to his penis all of which you see in their full glory.

People are saying it’s their best. I’m not sure. I like moments from all three and there’s stunts from this one that I can add to my best-of.

Eternals quick review

I’m unimpressed as I am with most Marvel movies. I have no idea where this fits in with the Marvel universe so pardon me for a lackluster review.

It’s essentially a movie about flat and boring generic superheroes bound to earth that unite to kill off villains known as Defiants. Big budget names such as Angelina Jolie (Thena) and the always gorgeous Salma Hayek (Ajak) breathe life into the thin script. Be on the lookout for One Direction lead singer, Harry Styles. I guess comedy is the new genre they’re going for.

Surprisingly, there is ‘strong’ adult content for a Disney movie. Ikaris (Richard Madden) and Sersi (Gemma Chan) have passionate sex on a beach. From what I’ve heard, this is the first instance of sex in a Marvel film.

SJW crap pollutes a bit of the movie. The superhero Phastos (Brian Tyree Henry) kisses his “husband” and/or “wife” out of nowhere (which was cut for some territories). I actually can’t remember which character or actor he does it too. There’s nothing wrong with gay characters in movies but the heterosexual panhandling for a fanbase, whose existence can be debated, is eye-rolling.

Meanwhile, Kumail Nanjiani (Kingo) is worried about perpetuating toxic masculinity with his hero. Trust me. Shirley Temple is more masculine than him. Plus, if he’s so worried about it, why take on the role of a superhero?

It was too long as well.

Better than No Time to Die? Maybe. At least the heroes don’t die.

Halloween Kills review

Michael Myers is back and badder than ever in his 11th (not counting the unrelated Halloween III: Season of The Witch – 1982) return to the fictional town of Haddonfield, Illinois where no one with a pulse is safe.

Halloween Kills picks up right where the 2018 Halloween sequel reboot ends. It wastes no time in bringing you some of the most gory and creative kills in the entire series. Myers does not mess around as his kills range from stabbing someone to death with a jagged fluorescent light tube to stabbing somebody straight through their eye socket.

The story, like the 2018 reboot, centers around an act of retribution against the returning Myers waged by the townspeople who were around during the 1978 killing spree. In this case, those seeking revenge are primarily characters who were children at the time. That’s it. That’s the thin plot line. It’s a premise that many Halloween aficionados, like myself, love mainly because it features a reunion of cast members from the first two films of the franchise.

It needs to be realized that this movie is a convoluted pile up of dozens and dozens of useful and useless characters from the past and present of the series.

Jamie Lee Curtis is back for the sixth time portraying a badly injured Laurie Strode. Much like in the ‘original’ Halloween II (1981), she doesn’t have much to do and spends the majority of the movie in Haddonfield Memorial Hospital. Returning to kick ass are series veterans Nancy Stephens, who previously portrayed Nurse Marion Chambers in Halloween (1978), Halloween II and H20 (1998) along with Charles Cyphers who portrayed Sheriff Leigh Brackett in Halloween (1978) and Halloween II. Nick Castle, the original Michael Myers, reprises his role for the third time while sharing double-duty with James Jude Courtney much like he did in Halloween ‘18.

The then children of the neighborhood from the original Halloween returning to slay Myers are Kyle Richards who played Lindsey Wallace and Anthony Michael Hall who played Tommy Doyle. There’s also one more returning character, who all hardcore fans will know of, by the name of Lonnie, who was originally portrayed by Brent Le Page. Here he’s portrayed by Robert Longstreet.

Notable returning characters from Halloween ‘18 include Judy Greer and Andi Matichek who portray Laurie Strode’s vengeful daughters, Karen and Allyson.

New characters to the franchise include a very gay couple by the names of Big John (Scott MacArthur) and Little John (Michael McDonald). The couple have since moved into a faithful recreation of the Myers’ house and have great little comedic scenes scattered throughout. We all know what happens to them. If you’re a slasher fan you’ll know that bigger casts mean a bigger kill count. Violent moments aside, this is the most comedic of the series as far as characters go as laugh after laugh turns into slash after slash.

As I mentioned prior, the film is essentially the townspeople chasing after Myers as he lurks from kill to kill similar to Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers (1988). Amongst those standard slasher kills, we also get some outlandish ensemble kills such as Michael versus a group of firefighters and a group of angry townspeople.

Last, but not least, is Donald Pleasance as Dr. Sam Loomis who is back for ‘new’ flashbacks. Wait a minute…The Donald Pleasance who passed away in 1995? No. Instead, we get Loomis portrayed by Tom Jones, Jr. in some of the most incredible 11-piece latex appliances I’ve ever seen. Enough praise cannot go to creator Oscar and Emmy Award-winning FX man, Christopher Nelson. The resemblance to Pleasance is stunningly uncanny. Jones, who is a construction foreman for Nelson, didn’t even need to be obscured by lighting and evasive camera angles that’s how great it is. Let’s also give voice artist, Colin Mahen a strong recognition as well for doing a stellar impersonation of the late actor’s voice.

TRAGIC SPOILER ALERT

Some of the series veterans get killed after all these years! The most tedious kill is Nurse Marion as she was already killed in H20. Why?

I’d recommend seeing it. Is it everything stupid you’d expect? Yes. Will you have fun watching it with friends, family or a big audience? Definitely. Is it the worst in the series? No way. That goes to both Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers (1995) and Halloween Resurrection (2002). It’s actually more uplifting than No Time to Die. At least, Michael Myers lives. Have fun and see it. Happy Halloween!

Shang-Chi & The Legend of The 10 Rings (quick review)

I’m not one for Marvel or any other superhero movies but I was excited to see this entry in the Marvel universe. As I’ve said before, I love Chinese martial arts movies and I knew this was going to have elements of that genre not limited to the fact that it stars Hong Kong cinema legends. Michelle Yeoh (Police Story III: Supercop) and, for hardcore fans of the genre, Yuen Wah (Bruce Lee’s stunt double and all around industry mainstay badass) along with stalwart Tony Leung are all I need to say to make it awesome.

A lot has already been reviewed but here’s my take:

Shang-Chi, portrayed by Simu Liu, is about a man whose family structure was setup around 10 rings that have mystical powers. His father Xu Wenwu (Tony Leung) was a conquerer who one day found his true love, Ying Li (Fala Chen). Unfortunately, her village of birth rejects him causing her to move. Wenwu beds down with her and they end up having Shang-Chi and Xialing (Meng’er Zhang) who are both raised to be immortal physics defying martial artists. Initially, her father only allows Shang-Chi to learn martial arts so Xialing eventually teaches herself in an act of disobedience. Somewhere down the line, their mother is killed by enemies sending Wenwu into rage.

He commands Shang-Chi to avenge his mother’s death however, he ends up estranging himself from the family angering his father. In the present day, Shang-Chi works as a valet in San Francisco’s Chinatown with his boisterous, sometimes obnoxious, and VERY American (I guess you could say) friend Katy (Awkwafina). Long story short, the two are sent to China to find his estranged sister who runs a fight club.

The rest of the movie follows the snowballing gang, seek out the village where Ying Li was from where they run into characters such as Jiang Nan (Michelle Yeoh) and Guang Bo (Yuen Wah). Of course, this all culminates in an epic showdown between Shang-Chi and his long lost father and every other good and bad warrior in the movie centered around the thousand and something year old rings.

From a fight scene perspective, I’d say the bus fight near the beginning is the best fight scene for me. It has a perfect amalgamation of Chinese martial arts choreopgraphy as well as over the top destructive Marvel CGI superpowers. The end battle is really drawn out with too many false endings and long contemplative pauses and speeches mainly between Shang-Chi and Wenwu. Other than that, it was a fun movie. There were a few bland patches in the middle but they were made up for with action. The characters were all respectable and seem to be a welcome addition to the Marvel universe.

The movie was dedicated to stuntman and stunt coordinator, Brad Allan, who recently passed away. Allan was most known for being the first non-Chinese member of Jackie Chan’s stunt team and even got to fight with Chan in one of his lesser known movies, Gorgeous (1999). He would later become the head of Chan’s stunt team for quite some time.

Godzilla vs. Kong review

Could this be Hollywood’s pandemic savior? Based off of its massive publicity and ceaseless social media chatter alone I think it is.

What do you say about a movie like Godzilla vs. Kong? For those of you who are Godzilla and King Kong cinephiles you’ve seen the Toho original, King Kong vs. Godzilla (1962 – Japan/1963 – US) which is done in the classic Kaju (guys in suits) style. At the time, that was the first time audiences saw Kong in a movie since 1933 which was also his original debut. The 1962 movie is one of my favorite giant monster movies and I know nothing can beat the original fun that radiates from that genre of film. It’s nice to see a movie like this getting a CGI makeover perfect for IMAX viewing. Right now, I’m plowing through the Criterion Godzilla Showa Era (1954 – 1975) blu-ray box set so this movie is good timing.

Obviously, even if you haven’t seen the movie you know what to expect and you know what it’s going to be about; giant monsters kicking ass and right crossing each other in the face mixed with copious amounts of property destruction and explosions. That’s all. The original formula of the 60s and onward Godzilla has been retained. Generic (usually likable) characters and giant monster fights are here to stay. Interestingly enough, while the Godzilla movies are usually formulaic, the Kong movies have always been well-written and involve much more chiseled out stories than his competitor.

The movie follows IIlene Andrews (Rebecca Hall) and Dr. Nathan Lind (Alexander Skarsgard) as they try and turn Kong’s Skull Island into a safe habitat for him while also setup a base that tracks Godzilla’s movements who makes an attack on a scientific facility early on. The two scientists are trying to prove the Hollow Earth Theory and eventually believe the hole to the inside of our planet, which is inhabited by monsters who are a part of the Titan kingdom (a huge conglomerate of monsters who are a part of the Godzilla universe), can be reached through Antartica. They also believe there’s a power source of some kind there. Somehow only Kong can lead them there. There they find an underground base that tunnels straight to China (could there be an agenda?). They make it so Kong can “speak” using sign language. A little girl named Gia (Kaylee Hottle), who is deaf and is the last of the island’s natives, is the only one who’s able to communicate with him. Trouble ensues when Godzilla emerges from the ocean (as usual) and decides to interrupt Kong’s sedated barge travel with a giant monster royal rumble. Madison Russell (Millie Bobby Brown) is the daughter of another Godzilla-monitoring scientist, Mark Russell (Kyle Chandler – who was in Peter Jackson’s 2005 King Kong remake) spends his time ignoring every plot point about Godzilla’s behavior lashed out by his brainiac snotty daughter.

In the spirit of most things contemporary, the kids are always smarter than the adults. His daughter predicts the movements of Godzilla and Kong based off of a conspiracy theorist’s podcast she listens to hosted by the mysterious voice of Bernie Hayes (Brian Tyree Henry). From there on out the protagonists all team up to try and prevent the eventual epic showdown between Godzilla, a mind-controlled Mechagodzilla (who was assembled in China – first debuted in 1974’s Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla), the Titans and Kong which takes place in Hong Kong (not Japan?). Mechagodzilla is being controlled by a group of villains led by the respectable and underwritten badass, Maya Simmons (Eliza González) who wants the energy source as well. There’s other needless characters but these are the ones who “matter”.

The fights are amazing. The CGI choreography is beautiful. Kong, who usually has his looks slightly altered movie after movie dating back to 1933, looks different here. Godzilla has maintained the same round fat physique and heavily-cracked muddy-looking skin he’s had since the 2014 American remake. I have to say, from my point of view, I think Kong gets more screen time or at least more continuous screen time whereas Godzilla seems to be placed throughout the movie. The podcast angle is weird. It takes much more of a suspension of disbelief to wrap your heard around a podcaster accurately knowing about top secret scientific projects than it does believing in giant monsters.

The movie delivers on what it’s advertised to deliver however it seems to spend a lot of time giving exposition as if they’re expecting a large audience of people who don’t know anything about the monsters are going to see this. That could be true, but still, it’s a giant monster movie and you’d be incredibly absent-minded to not know what type of movie you’ll be seeing. That being said, if they don’t know anything about the 88-year old Kong and the 67-year old Godzilla where the hell have they been and do they even know what shoes are?

I have to single out the female characters here. They suck with the Mary Sue awards going to Millie Bobby Brown and Rebecca Hall. They could’ve been worse had the movie not been in the giant monster genre but nonetheless they perfectly fit the archetypes most female characters do these days. They’re pissy, bitchy, and abrasive with deeply chipped shoulders. They’re arrogant assholes who somehow can predict what’s going to happen with the abilities of infallible prophets whose predictions are literally laid out. There’s no Nostradamus allegories here. They have straight up accurate predictions almost as if they’re time travelers . They can predict what’s going to happen yet suck at preventing it. I’m sure they’d blame it on men as they do a decent job of bossing them around throughout the movie. Gonzalez’s character isn’t this bad even though she’s a villain! Then again, it could be because she’s an underwritten pure evil villain-type. Of course, there seems to be an agenda of the ‘you know what’ variety here as there usually is with new female characters in movies and TV shows.

As far as I can tell, there doesn’t seem to be anything political here. You could have fun guessing why they chose to have it take place in China for certain parts and depict the monsters destroying a portion the mainland hates.

I’d recommend seeing this in IMAX. There’s no other way. Do not watch this at home whatever you do. That’s as pointless as swimming on dry land. For me, I’d say Kong: Skull Island is slightly better but this one holds it own.