Godzilla Vs. Kong (2021) Dir: Adam Wingard

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The so-called Monsterverse has provided a series of entertaining, if not critically exceptional, sci-fi action films since 2014's 'Godzilla' reboot. This 2021 film, directed by Adam Wingard, is the fourth film in this current version of the Monsterverse franchise, which centres around two of the all-time great movie monsters; Godzilla and King Kong. I wasn't expecting this to be a classic, not by any stretches of the imagination, but I did expect to have fun with it, at the very least.

For some reason, this film looked significantly worse than the previous Monsterverse films. This was especially relevant in regards to the design of King Kong, who looked pretty goofy, particularly when compared to his original presentation in 'Kong: Skull Island'. Gozilla still looked as badass as ever, though. I think elements of the film looked great, but the overall quality definitely felt in question when looking back to the other three films in the franchise.

The inevitable fights did at least look absolutely awesome, which was, realistically speaking, what most of the audience would have come to see. The sheer scale of the action was very well-established, and certainly leant itself to the titanic scope and strength of the brawling monsters. Unfortunately, however, the narrative, and almost everything other than the monster fights, were absolutely abysmal. The audience were expected to swallow mediocrity by the bucket load, thanks to a substandard story and way too many unimportant and, quite frankly, unnecessary characters, which clogged up the screen. It didn't help that the dialogue was written horrendously, which made most of the human scenes almost unbearable to watch.

Of the bloated and extensive cast, not many of them actually stood out for positive reasons. Alexander Skarsgård lacked the screen presence to feel like the hero of the film, or even a believable scientist, whilst Rebecca Hall and Kaylee Hottle had to swim hard upstream to get passed the terrible writing of their characters. Brian Tyree Henry was relegated to the tiresome comedy relief, and a returning Millie Bobby Brown felt like she had been shoe-horned back into the story far too lazily to feel necessary.

Overall, this certainly wasn't the kind of film to be watched with the expectations of seeing a truly great piece of cinema. This film was pretty much what it said on the tin; a brutal battle between two of the most beloved and revisited monsters in cinema history. If I could watch a version of this film where all the mind-numbing human scenes were cut out, and it was simply just the monster-on-monster action, I genuinely would. Those were comfortably the best bits of the film, and by some considerable distance too.