Godzilla vs Kong

Dai

Dai

Death Scythe
Godzilla vs Kong has been bouncing around the release schedule like crazy. First it was due to hit in March 2020, then November, then May 2021, and most recently it's been brought forward to this March. The first trailer finally hit today:


It's interesting that Legendary's Monsterverse has followed a similar trajectory to the original showa Godzilla series, starting with a serious film before getting progressively more over-the-top and bonkers. Thankfully it looks like we'll be able to see what's happening in the action scenes this time too!

Any other Godzilla fans on the forums, or is it just me?
 
Looking forward to this as I thought Skull Island was great, King of the Monsters was so so but enjoyable.
My biggest worry and something I didn't notice in the trailer until reddit pointed it out was Mechagodzilla... I'm not saying the director of Netflix smash hit Death Note might make it too cheesey.... but you know, the fear is there 😂
 
This is the final US Godzilla movie before the rights revert to Toho, so I don't think they should show any self-restraint for this one and just make it as wild as possible. Bring on Mechagodzilla. Hell, give Kong a Mechanikong power suit. My main worry is if Godzilla has been turned into Mechagodzilla via nanomachines or something, rather than it being a separate monster.
 
Dai said:
This is the final US Godzilla movie before the rights revert to Toho, so I don't think they should show any self-restraint for this one and just make it as wild as possible. Bring on Mechagodzilla. Hell, give Kong a Mechanikong power suit. My main worry is if Godzilla has been turned into Mechagodzilla via nanomachines or something, rather than it being a separate monster.
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If it makes money Toho will extend the license I'd imagine.
From the 0.5 second glimpse in the trailer it looks like the humans are charging up a giant Mecha G suit so the theory is thats why Godzilla has gone crazy and they'll team up to bring it down as the opening shot of the trailer seems to show Mecha attacking a city.
Take it all with a pinch of 'reddit' though could be completely off base and its actually a story about human families learning to love each other... because you know that's what I want in a GvK film 🤷‍♂️
And save the MechaKong suit for the Mecha Gidorah fight if they get it.
 
RebelNotorious said:
Really? I thought they had another Godzilla movie planned for after this, especially with the Mecha King Gidorah tease at the end of King of the Monsters.
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One theory is that Ghidorah was an alien bioweapon or cyborg, and so the head becomes the basis for the tech to make Mechagodzilla.

Jon O Fun said:
If it makes money Toho will extend the license I'd imagine.
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I can't see any big budget movies breaking even this year, especially one dropping in March before most people have been vaccinated and while cinemas may still be closed. The pandemic brings a whole new unwelcome meaning to the phrase, "I'm dying to see that movie."

Besides, Toho have been itching to get back to making live-action Godzilla movies since Shin Godzilla was such a massive domestic hit. That's why they've been circling the edges of their deal with Legendary by making anime versions.
 
Well, it's official. Cinemas in the UK won't be reopening until at least 17th May, so there goes any chance of seeing Godzilla vs Kong on the big screen. :(
 
This I did not see coming. Despite screening in the middle of a pandemic, this film's opening weekend is by far the strongest of the Monsterverse movies, beating Godzilla 2014 by almost $30 million. I'll still be amazed if it breaks even under current conditions, but it's an impressive start.

www.animenewsnetwork.com

Godzilla vs. Kong Earns US$121 Million in 1st 3 Days Internationally

Film opens at #1 in all 38 overseas markets where it released, earns US$70.34 million in China alone
www.animenewsnetwork.com www.animenewsnetwork.com

Supposedly it will be available to rent on VoD platforms from Thursday, which will probably be at the same £15.99 price point as Wonder Woman 1984 was during its cinema run. I imagine I'm the only person on these forums who is planning to pay that much for 48 hours access to a lizard fighting a monkey.
 
I guess people are starved for movies considered worthy of going to the cinema for, as block buster movies keep being delayed to a later date.
 
I'll wait for the BD. I'm looking forward to seeing it, but I've got no interest in paying £15-20 for a rental of any movie TBH 😅
 
awadama fever said:
I'll wait for the BD. I'm looking forward to seeing it, but I've got no interest in paying £15-20 for a rental of any movie TBH 😅
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It's the only movie this year that I'll be paying that much to rent (assuming it's actually available). I'm something of an obsessive Godzilla fan. The wait for a blu-ray of Shin Godzilla was hell.
 
Well that was a whole lot of fun. If Godzilla 2014 paralleled the sombre tone of the original 1954 movie, and King of the Monsters channeled the mix of grounded human action and epic monster fights from the 60s, then Godzilla vs Kong drinks from the well of madness that was the Godzilla movies of the 70s. We're deep in the realm of Crazy Movie Science (TM) here.

In Rampage, The Rock teamed up with a giant gorilla. GvK goes one further, essentially splicing the two together to turn Kong into an action hero who goes off on his own adventure with a bunch of humans in tow. Thankfully, Warner have finally got the message that people want to be able to see the monster fights, so most of the action scenes take place in daylight and clear weather, and the one night-time fight is lit up with so much neon that it looks like an 80s cyberpunk poster. Unlike Batman v Superman, GvK delivers on the promise of its title with two epic battles between its stars, plus plenty of other action besides. Hong Kong gets absolutely wrecked. 😆 👍

As for the human side of the equation, it's good enough. There aren't any particularly interesting characters, but they move the story along at a fair clip, and the humour is decent this time (the less said about what passed for jokes in King of the Monsters, the better). For a modern blockbuster of this scale, it's surprisingly lean, clocking in at a mere 105 minutes by the time the credits roll. Consequently, the plot hurtles along on a narrow rail, not taking the various twists and turns (or bloat) that you would expect from similar movies of the last decade. I suspect that such scenes exist, but didn't make the final edit, eg. there's a character called Serizawa who I presume is the son of Ken Watanabe's character from the previous movies, but we never find out anything about him. This is cut to be a popcorn-munching action fest, and in that aim it succeeds.
 
I managed to strongarm myself into renting Godzilla vs. Kong for the £16 asking price and I wasn't disappointed. Well, saying that, it's clearly a film that would benefit a lot from being seen on the big screen and if any film should have been kept behind a few weeks more / released during the brief reprieve last Autumn then it should have been this one. Anyway, it's a very enjoyable romp and I largely agree with Dai's assessment above. Having watched it straight after a double bill of Godzilla 2014 and King of the Monsters, I don't quite understand why this is getting better critical notices than the middle entry which I think managed to effectively balance the human drama with it's kaiju action and got actual good performances out of its human cast in the process.

Godzilla vs. Kong does not succeed on that front. Alexander Skarsgard is kind of the lead, but he's kind of just there. It definitely feels like a lot was left on the cutting room floor. Millie Bobby Brown reprises her role from KotM but seems to be playing an entirely different character, which I suppose can be explained away by puberty but she also doesn't play it particularly well and her line delivery is just dreadful. Not all of it is bad - the best performance comes from Kaylee Hottle, a young deaf actress who plays a character who develops a special bond with Kong. Which leads me onto my next criticism of the film - the focus of the plot is most definitely on Kong rather than Godzilla and Kong's character is actually developed fairly well and you feel empathy with him as the audience. Godzilla? Godzilla is there. He does his stomping and shouting. But the film shows no real recognition of him being a character in his own right.

I think this is the weakest entry in the so-called MonsterVerse so far, but it is still a great kaiju movie with some terrific set pieces. Let's face it, if you look at the Godzilla franchise as a whole it's hardly known for it's great acting or great plots. There are, of course, some exceptions, but I don't think it would be terribly fair of me to criticise it on this point. But I think King of the Monsters deserved better.

If Criterion and/or Arrow are listening, Heisei and Millennium box sets pretty please.
 
Yami said:
Having watched it straight after a double bill of Godzilla 2014 and King of the Monsters, I don't quite understand why this is getting better critical notices than the middle entry which I think managed to effectively balance the human drama with it's kaiju action and got actual good performances out of its human cast in the process.
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It's a bit odd, isn't it. My best guess is that GvK does a better job of making the monsters the stars, and gets the human characters out of their way once they start fighting. KotM kept cutting back to people running around on the ground every other shot, but GvK separates out its monster rampages from its monster fights a bit, and keeps the camera trained on the monsters during the fights, which makes them more satisfying. I think critics are also easily swayed by popcorn movies that make them laugh, and resent ones that don't. That latter point is the only reason I can think why even the weakest Marvel movies tend to get better reviews than the best DC ones.
 
I don't know, I think ya get the personalities of Mothra, Ghidorah and Rodan fairly well in KotM. I think it being mainly focused around the family in KotM (and a few side characters) helped, plus Charles Dance stood out more than the obvious villains in GvK.

Kong definitely felt like the core of GvK, and I think thats why Millie Bobby Brown's character and story felt soo superfluous. She was a side character tied to other side characters.
 
I loved this film. For a "versus" movie it delivered spectacularly.

I think my favorite monsterverse movie might still be Kong: Skull Island but for pure action this has all of them beat. Only concern is the introduction of the sci-fi elements (which are a consequence of Mechagodzilla really) and if the Monsterverse does continue I am hoping it goes back to being more grounded again, with just letting this movie be a one off crazython.
 
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