Godzilla vs. Kong
The biggest movie of the year – to date – flexes its CGI muscles to a point of severe
indigestion.
IMAX to the max
For movie
buffs distraught by the twelve-month delay of Jurassic World: Dominion, help is at hand. In spite of the pandemic,
Warner Bros. has seen fit to release its $200m monster epic simultaneously in some
hardtop outlets and on their streaming platform HBO Max. Which seems a terrible
error. If any film deserves to be seen on the big screen, IMAX and the like, it
is Godzilla vs. Kong, perhaps the
biggest movie ever made. If one is into big, of course. But the trouble with
big is that it can be so massively huge that it obliterates any human perspective,
so that it’s merely gargantuan for the sake of it. All bang and no emotional
currency. For those who can, catch it at a cinema in Beijing or New York.
In fact, Godzilla vs. Kong is so enormous that it
is not just a sequel to the humungous Godzilla:
King of the Monsters (2019), but to Kong:
Skull Island (2017) as well: two giants for your buck. It has always seemed
easier to identify with Kong, as he’s closer to us in the food chain, while
Godzilla lives on the bottom of the sea, is covered with scales and has halitosis
like nobody’s business. In a valiant attempt to blur the line between good and
evil, Godzilla has been given an ambiguous makeover, so that we forgive him for
destroying large swathes of Hong Kong real estate. If Hong Kong hasn’t had enough
trouble of late, it has now been earmarked as the gladiatorial arena in a mammoth
battle of egos, testosterone and confusion. This on its own would be fine,
except for the fluctuating dimensions of the two beasts. Back in the day
(1933), the sight of King Kong clinging to the top of the Empire State Building
became as iconic an image as the Washington Monument. Now he is pitted against
Godzilla, who can submerge an entire US Navy fleet with the flick of his tail. Still,
with the legerdemain of current CGI, anything is possible: except, of course,
an iota of credibility.
Adam
Wingard's Godzilla vs. Kong starts
with a swing, as Kong wakes up from a deep sleep and, to the accompaniment of Bobby
Vinton’s ‘Over the Mountain; Across the Sea’ yawns, stretches, scratches his
bottom, takes a shower under a waterfall and greets another day in Paradise
(aka Skull Island). He also has a quiet moment of communion with the adorable Jia
(eight-year-old deaf actress Kaylee Hottle), an indigenous orphan of the island.
At the moment it’s all the rage for big Hollywood films to feature young mute
girls, as witnessed in The Midnight Sky
and News of the World. Indeed, Kaylee
Hottle is about the only satisfying element in this strident cacophony of
computer effects. There are good actors galore, but with barely time to
register a look of horror or mutter a platitude, their drama school training
would appear to be for nought. Only Oscar nominee Demián Bichir – as your
standard-issue, liquor-swilling egomaniacal billionaire – has a decent line in
the din of pyrotechnics. When he meets unconventional
geologist-cum-cartographer Nathan Lind (Alexander Skarsgård), he smirks: “I
love crazy ideas. They make me rich.” Otherwise the dialogue is reduced to such
inanities as “What the hell is that?” and “Wow”.
But back to
Kong. After his morning ablutions, the ape fashions a spear from a large tree
and hurls it at the sky, where it breaks through the artificial canopy and
lodges in a gantry. It’s a neat Truman
Show moment - and is all downhill from there. What follows is a convoluted
story involving a myriad of disposable characters where nefarious scientists
and members of the military decide to pit Kong against Godzilla, as the latter
seems to have turned nasty. But has he? And can Kong overcome the giant reptile’s
fiery halitosis? Do we care? Frankly, it’s a mess, my dear, a nonsensical
firework display of testosteronic braggadocio and about as sexy as a glorified dog
fight. Whereas the Jurassic Park
films are imbued with a basic logic – and even a degree of human credibility – Godzilla vs. Kong courts quantum physics
and a video game aesthetic with the finesse of a bad peyote trip. At the time
of writing, Jurassic World: Dominion
is due to open June 10.
JAMES CAMERON-WILSON
Cast: Alexander Skarsgård, Millie Bobby
Brown, Rebecca Hall, Brian Tyree Henry, Shun Oguri, Eiza González, Julian
Dennison, Lance Reddick, Kyle Chandler, Demián Bichir, Hakeem Kae-Kazim, Kaylee Hottle.
Dir Adam Wingard, Pro Thomas Tull, Jon Jashni, Brian Rogers, Mary Parent. Alex Garcia
and Eric McLeod, Screenplay Eric
Pearson and Max Borenstein, from a 'story' by Terry Rossio, Michael Dougherty
and Zach Shields, Ph Ben Seresin, Pro Des Thomas S. Hammock and Owen
Paterson, Ed Josh Schaeffer, Music Tom Holkenborg (aka Junkie XL), Costumes Ann Foley, Sound Jason W. Jennings, Creature
designer Tom Woodruff Jr, Dialect
coach Gabrielle Rogers.
Legendary Pictures/Warner Bros.-Warner Bros.
113 mins. USA/Australia/Canada/India. 2021. Rel: 1 April 2021. Cert. 12A.