Godzilla vs. Kong Review Thread (No Spoilers)

[EdGojira]

Went more in depth in the spoiler discussion thread and need to keep this brief for the moment but if you were expecting a sequel to KOTM, this is not it. The movie is very small scale and not in a good way, like a dialing down from every previous film except for maybe Skull Island. Characters are way worse than Skull Island and the plot barely makes sense. They just throw out the hooks from the previous movie. The Hollow Earth thing is a total afterthought and the fights are short.

Not even Godzilla makes this better because he behaves out of character and is pushed aside in favor of Kong. I'm going to give it a 2/10 for the time being until I maybe watch it earlier in the day and in a better mood.

[Sammy19]

After watching this , I felt satisfied but empty. I spent most of my free time looking at leaks and listening to theories. Now that's passed and I don't know what to do. This was my most anticipated movie of the year and now I've already seen it. Hope legendary gives news of more movies. Until then , i'm gonna distract myself with other things.

[Angilasman]

I grew up with Godzilla movies being largely dismissed as puerile, so it's quite fun to see a movie largely equivalent to Gamera vs. Jiger being embraced.

[Pkmatrix]

Went more in depth in the spoiler discussion thread and need to keep this brief for the moment but if you were expecting a sequel to KOTM, this is not it. The movie is very small scale and not in a good way, like a dialing down from every previous film except for maybe Skull Island. Characters are way worse than Skull Island and the plot barely makes sense. They just throw out the hooks from the previous movie. The Hollow Earth thing is a total afterthought and the fights are short.

Not even Godzilla makes this better because he behaves out of character and is pushed aside in favor of Kong. I'm going to give it a 2/10 for the time being until I maybe watch it earlier in the day and in a better mood.

I agree with all your criticisms from the spoiler thread, but overall I walked away feeling more positive about it than you did largely on the strength of the fights and monster action. And also in the hopes that there's going to be an Extended Cut that solves most of my issues with it.

[KingKaiju]

I rented a theater for this, and it was worth every penny. I absolutely LOVE this film!!!!! Will it be winning any awards? No, absolutely not. This is a shut-your-mind-off, pure entertainment, popcorn flick, and it knows it!! There's no attempt to try to be anything it's not, there's no overcompensating for what any other movie did. It completely understands what it is, and it goes all in on it! But where I think this film succeeds well is that it manages to be both a Godzilla and Kong film. At first, it feels VERY Kong heavy. But understanding both characters, you understand that Godzilla couldn't be played out the way that Kong is, and vice versa. They're both different characters that represent different things, and I think Wingard portrayed that well. The movie is called "Godzilla vs. Kong," and while there's a lot of other things going on, it make sure to stay on course of that. I LOVE IT!!!

A lot of people defended KOTM as this, "shut-your-mind off" and I never understood that. I thought that KOTM was over bloated, talked down to the viewers, and largely pretended to be more action heavy and epic than it actually was. I agree and think it was more of a Kong flick, but still loved it. Might be the funnest entry in the monster verse, and a good note to go off on.

Yeah, the whole idea of "OMG!!! KOTM is like 80% monster action" is a narrative that I never understood. I felt that movie tried too hard to blend hollywood popcorn with deeper metaphors and meanings. And while I loved it for it's big moments, ultimately the film felt choppy. It was like Dougherty was trying to do so much more with the characters, and everything just fell flat. Whereas, I think this film does enough to just get you to care before just throwing you right at the action. I think the thing that made this film superior, at least in the realm of action was that Wingard let the scenes breath and sink in. Dougherty overedited his scenes, and we never really got a chance to just bask in the glory of Godzilla and Ghidorah fighting. To me, this film really felt like a successful blend of a Kong and Godzilla movie. I think you could take both those portions and make it their own films, and that would've worked.

[Leviarex]

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