Godzilla Vs. Kong delivers all the giddy monster-on-monster mayhem a kaiju fan could desire

Before we get into Godzilla Vs. Kong, an apology. In a 2019 review of Godzilla: King Of The Monsters, this writer stated, “You can’t just have two hours of kaiju slapping each other around like a gargantuan WWE highlights reel.” While that statement was technically correct—you do need a few humans to explain who these creatures are and why they’re tussling like drunks outside a bar on St. Patrick’s Day—it does not accurately reflect The A.V. Club’s stance on monster-on-monster violence. And for that, we are truly sorry. As it turns out, King Kong choke-slamming Godzilla into a skyscraper is more than enough to keep an audience entertained. It just helps if you’re able to see what’s going on.

HBO Max Watch Guide | Godzilla vs. Kong

Praising the legibility of the action might seem like reaching for something nice to say about this film. But after King Of The Monsters drenched its gorgeous creature design in obscuring sheets of rain, being able to follow the blow-by-blow of the gargantuan punch-outs in director Adam Wingard’s Godzilla Vs. Kong is enough to get a fan bouncing in their seat like a kid at the circus. For better or for worse, each of the four films in Legendary’s MonsterVerse has allowed its director to add his personal touch to the franchise. For Wingard, whose You’re Next andThe Guest are among the finest genre films of the past decade, that means two things: his signature needle drops, and a delirious rollercoaster approach to big, dumb popcorn fun. After watching Wingard get lost in other peoples’ intellectual property with Blair Witch and Death Note, it’s a welcome surprise to see him reassert his personality—as much as he can, anyway, in a mega-blockbuster like Godzilla Vs. Kong.

We open with one of those aforementioned needle drops, as Kong awakens for another day reigning over paradise to the tune of Bobby Vinton’s “Over The Mountain, Across The Sea.” It’s been 40 years since the events ofKong: Skull Island, which does nominally explain why he’s a couple hundred feet taller here than he was there. (Apparently, the big guy has been eating his vegetables.) But, as Wingard quickly reveals, the amber skies of Skull Island are actually a projection over the unfathomably large dome where scientist Ilene Andrews (Rebecca Hall) is keeping Kong trapped in a simian version of The Truman Show. There, she studies him, trying to break the interspecies communication barrier with the help of Jia (Kaylee Hottle), a deaf orphan born on Skull Island who has a special, perhaps even psychic bond with Kong.

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