Monsterverse series

  • Godzilla vs. Kong (2021)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, August 2021) We’re now up to four movies in the modern “monsterverse,” and a pattern is already clear: odd entries disappointing, even entries better than expected. Godzilla was OK without being good; Kong: Skull Island was surprisingly well-done; Godzilla: King of the Monsters was an overstuffed disappointment but here is Godzilla vs. Kong to make up for it. Arguably the climax to the series, this entry has King Kong and Godzilla squaring off around the planet, then briefly teaming up to take on an even worse threat. I was rather amused at the willingness of the film to go for wild world-building all the way to a hollow planetary core, although that amusement was tempered by the bad decision to make conspiracy theorists the heroes of one subplot. Still, it takes a special kind of audacity to have Kong and Godzilla square off on the deck of an aircraft carrier, as if it was a too-little surfboard on which to fight. Director Adam Wingard is a long way from the modest horror films that first made his reputation, but he’s up to the task of orchestrating a modern special-effects spectacle: by the time the two titular monsters and their foe duke it out in brightly-lit Hong Kong, it’s clear that he’s making a play for the ultimate kaiju fight sequence. The flip side of that success is that the film becomes duller the longer it stays away from the monsters. I enjoy seeing Rebecca Hall in anything, even as a walking exposition device, but Godzilla vs. Kong makes some curiously bad choices when it comes to its human characters. We don’t need conspiracy podcasters as heroes, considering how many problems we’re already having in clinging to the truth. Most other characters are vapid or insipid — although the chief antagonist has a few solid motivations in his favour. I’m also not quite as happy with the delirious nature of the film’s inventions: everything seems to be taking place in an alternate reality with inconsistent fantasy science with antigravity reactors, planetary tunnels, a hollow planet on one side, and a giant ape strapped to a ship on the other. But then again— trying to find too much scientific plausibility in a film designed to have King Kong and Godzilla bash each other is expecting too much. We should just be happy that Godzilla vs. Kong exists and somehow holds together. I’m not sure where they can go after this, though. But that’s their job, not mine.

  • Godzilla: King of the Monsters (2019)

    Godzilla: King of the Monsters (2019)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, January 2020) That new Monsterverse series is really going in all directions. I was lukewarm on the Godzilla reboot, more enthusiastic about Kong Island, and am back to tepid positivity about Godzilla: King of the Monsters. This sequel goes for volume rather than quantity, leaving viewers exhausted by the end of it. Holding little back from the kaiju bestiary, it also multiplies the characters (most of them played by known actors) and goes for several set-pieces from the beginning of the film onward. It’s big-budget blockbuster filmmaking all right, but there’s an argument that it’s too much, goes on for too long and features too much stuff. It’s as if we skipped a movie between Godzilla and this—although you can argue that Godzilla: King of the Monsters is merely a step up to the Kong versus Godzilla film that the coda sets up. It’s not too clear where things are going otherwise—as much as I enjoy bits and pieces of the “Monarch” mythology being set up here in an attempt to make kaijus credible to twenty-first century audiences, it’s also clear that a lot of stuff is being made up as the films accumulate—it looks as if we’re going to explore the hollow earth next, which may or may not work. Acting-wise, the highlight is Bradley Whitford’s character, while Vera Farmiga as a mad scientist is not something I was expecting. On a happier note, Boston is the city that gets trashed this time around (including the John Hancock building): while I do like Boston a lot, it’s one of the few cities that could be improved by wiping it clean and redoing the street plan. That happy thought aside, Godzilla: King of the Monsters may end up being made stronger or weaker on the basis of its follow-up: a good development of the ideas here may rehabilitate it somewhat, while a bad one could make the film seem even less significant. And so it goes with those new franchises desperately downplaying the individual film aspect—you never know what you’re going to get, except in those cases where they get so bad that audiences stop flocking to them.