Royal(ly) Rumble(d) – Godzilla vs Kong (IMAX) [2021]

I can hear the rumblings of grumbles coming.

Ever since this “MonsterVerse” kicked off with Gareth Edward’s Godzilla (2014), there have been a string of complaints on how the ‘monsters’ were underserved and the human story dominated too much. It’s not going to be much different here, although it is partly what I expected. Where the creatures are concerned, it has been fairly uniformed in how they’re depicted.

For one, Godzilla has always headed to where the creatures emerge and challenged them, never mind the tiny little humans who are in the way. Or particularly the humans who are causing the problems for Godzilla to deal with in the first place. So when the movie opens with Godzilla attacking a city with an APEX base, everyone thinks he’s gone on a rampage again. Everyone, save a returning Madison Russell (Millie Bobby Brown) who wants to get to the truth, roping in her friend Josh (Julian Dennison) and seeking out madcap paranoid podcaster Bernie Hayes (Brian Tyree Henry).

Meanwhile, on the other side of the world where Skull Island is located, Kong has been secured within a holographic dome by Monarch operative Ilene Andrews (Rebecca Hall) in order to hide his presence from Godzilla. Records of their ‘ancient rivalry’ (those cave drawings peppered across the credits of previous entries) suggest that a showdown is imminent.

Since Kong’s last appearance in Kong: Skull Island (2017) set in the late 1970s, Kong has grown even larger and now sports a grand beard, showing his age. We also learn that the indigenous tribe that lived on the island have been wiped out, except for one little deaf girl, Jia (Kaylee Hottie), who was saved by Kong. They have a unique connection too.

Reportedly, Godzilla: King of The Monsters (2019) was set in contemporary times, and this new entry is supposed to be set five years later (2024? didn’t notice any time stamps in the movie). I’m not clear what happened to the other monsters, but the movie does pick up the thread from the last movie with the supposition of a Hollow Earth being the origin of the monsters. And the post credits scene from the last movie is also dealt with.

ANYWAY, Godzilla attacks APEX at the beginning, the head of APEX Walter Simmons (Demián Bichir) seeks out Nathan Lind (Alexander Skarsgård) to find the way into the Hollow Earth in order to obtain some energy source to power a weapon. Nathan seeks out Ilene in order to use Kong to find the way to the Hollow Earth. yep, we get an amazing half a movie with a ‘Journey to the Centre of The Earth’ adventure.

The other half has Madison and gang finding out what weapon APEX is developing and why Godzilla attacked humans after being quiet for the last five years. Milage of preference may vary here as the action and adventure is tipped in favour of one story over the other. Once Kong is out of his protective dome, it’s only a matter of time (like much of the first hour) before Godzilla follows his nature, seeks out the big ape, and the smackdown begins. Or at least, Round One.

Let’s give credit there, the fights are pretty spectacular for a pair of animated behemoths going at it. It has the scale and power you’d expect and perhaps deserves an extra 1/2 rating. Yes, a major city gets demolished as you’d expect.

Kong also does get more action since he’s on a bigger adventure. The mini-world building done in the K:SI movie is expanded upon here, and it is glorious. That’s the half I like more, that sense of adventure compensating a little for the other half. And it also makes it a bit disappointing there aren’t any more planned instalments. It would be cool to explore more of that new world, but I don’t see where the stories could go after this instalment. It did feel like they were struggling a little to keep things going, dropping a few bits to be loose ends.

Director Adam Wingard does as well as he can manage, likely trying to find a tone for the overall piece. As mentioned however, we do have two movies in one here. One part a grand adventure of discovery, one part seemingly in the world of Stranger Things that Millie Bobby Brown might seem very comfortable with. Still, it’s clear Wingard’s a fan of these creatures.

The stars do as well as you’d expect, playing second fiddle to the creatures while driving the story to get these two creatures to clash. Skarsgård does appear to be enjoying himself in what must be something very different for him, balancing fairly well against Rebecca Hall for much of the movie. Their story is stolen by the precocious Kaylee Hottle who is such a key character.

The trio of Millie Bobby Brown, Julian Dennison, and Brian Tyree Henry play almost cliched characters, perhaps for familiarity’s sake, going up against Demián Bichir’s ambitious CEO of APEX. Also returning from the previous instalment is Kyle Chandler who pretty much has only a cameo. I doubt his total appearance totals over 10 minutes of screen time.

Ultimately, if you’ve enjoyed the previous entries, you’re likely to enjoy this one. If you’re coming in cold, just for the showdown, well… it’s going to be tricky since storytelling will dictate how many action set pieces there are in order to pace the story. The plot itself may infuriate some given the lack of the other monsters, although we have some other creatures coming in past the half-way mark.

There’s half a great movie here and half a decent enough piece of entertainment, with some spectacularly choreographed action set-pieces. Probably just don’t expect a full scale royal rumble. If anything, it IS worthwhile catching this on a really big screen.

This is simply pure entertainment.

Rating:   /5

Directed by Adam Wingard
Written by Eric Pearson & Max Borenstein
          Story by Terry Rossio, Michael Dougherty, and Zach Shields

Stars Alexander Skarsgård, Millie Bobby Brown, Rebecca Hall, Kaylee Hottle, Brian Tyree Henry, Shun Oguri, Eiza González, Julian Dennison, Demián Bichir, with Lance Reddick, and Kyle Chandler

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