Review: Godzilla vs Kong [2021]; Kaijū FC Fight Night 3 (Spoiler Free!)

— Cᴏɴᴛᴇɴᴛ Iɴᴅᴇx —

SPOILER LEVELS at NEGLIGIBLE

Hello-hello and chatter-chatter!
Let’s face it. You KNEW we’d be back for this! This is probably the one thing you can always count on us for! Our King is definitely a benevolent King. He unites us all and gets us to be the best versions of ourselves! Gets us back to reviewing and all (and oh, there’s a surprise waiting for everyone in a few days)!

Also, since we didn’t have any previews leading up to the film this time around, how ’bout we do one real quick? Just for old times’ sake, eh?

CLICK HERE TO SKIP THE INTRO
(Only if you have to.)

The Azure-Winged Magpie: 🎤(ಠ ◡ ಠ^✿)^!
Oh-ho-ho… it’s time. Oh, it’s time alright…

Birdies, humans, vegetables, and delicious fishies, this is the MAIN. EVENT. OF. THE. EVENING!

Tonight’s Main Event is brought to you by Legendary and Warner Bros., and is (mostly) based on characters and stories by Toho! Three rounds for the Undisputed MONSTERVERSE King of the Monsters World Heavyweight Championship! Your judges tonight are… me! the Azure-Winged Magpie! (No. seriously. It’s just me. I’m the only one here who’s seen it. Anyway! Moooving on!)

And now… for the moment MonsterVerse and kaijū fans in attendance and all around the world have been waiting for, iiit’s…
TIIIME!

Introducing the challenger! IIIn the Red Corner (I know, but hey)… standing 102 metres tall, weighing in at approximately 100,000 tons+, with a professional MonsterVerse record of one win and one loss, fighting out of Skull Island… he is the Guardian of Skull Island, the eater of Skullcrawler sashimi… affectionately dubbed “MONKE” by fans all around the world…

KOOONG!

Now, introducing the CHAMPION! Fighting out of the Blue Corner… standing at 119.8 metres tall and weighing in at 100,000 tons+, with a professional MonsterVerse record of five wins, no losses, and two draws, fighting out of the oceans and the ancient subsurface tunnels of the planet Earth, the REIGNING, DEFENDING, UNDIIISPUTED KING OF THE MONSTERS…

His August Majesty, His Holy Nuclear Scaliness, His Death-Kisser of MUTOs, the Last and Only of His Name, the King of the Monsters and the Kaijū… God-King GOJIRA!

Cue the entrance music!

HERE WE GO!

First, let me get this ooone thing outta my system…

^{🙈  … *POW!*}  ᕕ(◔◡◔^✿)^!

Okay, so I definitely had a favourite coming into Fight Night, but who doesn’t? And guess what? It didn’t affect my watching of this one at all. I’m here to watch the big fight and I didn’t care who won or lost (not that the film was spoiled to me like a year ago had anything to do with it…)

The MonsterVerse has always had this one criticism. The human characters aren’t done too well. And that trend kinda continues that tradition, but it’s also the first film that pokes a huge dent in the criticism. I’ve been saying for a long, long, long time that it doesn’t matter how well the human characters are done, because the kaijū are characters too. And Godzilla vs. Kong really makes the kaijū stand out as characters. For the first time in a long time, The King’s looked vulnerable, Kong’s more of a character than all the characters (not looking at you, Cranston, or you, Kaylee) in the MonsterVerse put together. And I got to repeat my (or ours, if I can speak for the team) earlier question: who really cares about the human characters? Now now, I get it. Some of you do, especially people who’re new to the world of kaijū. But let me put it this way… when you’re actually watching the human characters in Godzilla vs. Kong, you always want to cut back to the amazing, OTT action sequences going on between the ‘Titans’. The humans are there to do what they’ve always been there to do. They give us exposits. They run around all helpless. They do all these things that give us a foot in the door when it comes to the story (and waste a lot of time doing it), but you could cut the lot of them out (apart from a certain group I’m not allowed to talk about right now, but they’re mentioned in the promotionals) and this film would’ve still worked. Heck, it could’ve actually been better. Godzilla 2014 was called the “first post-human” film ever, and none of us on the team agreed with that, but these films have slowly been getting there over time. Hell, all films have been getting there over time. Most of the ‘big’ characters we see on screen these days are usually CGI fests with someone underneath, so what if our main characters are now a giant Nuclear Lizard (I apologise, oh King) and a giant Ape? Kong acts better than most actors in things nowadays, and you can tell what he’s thinking just by his adorable furry face.

And a lot of that has to do with how drop-dead gorgeous this film is. I’ve always hated CGI cause I’m real good at picking the bad bits out and this film… outside of some lighting choices that are all neon (and mostly green) and just kind of look a bit out of place to me, this film is GORGEOUS. This one falls into this halfway area between CGI videogame fest and live action film (a lot like Endgame, but actually better) that works SO much that it’s insane. It’s like the film’s a videogame which has one engine for the CGI cinematics and one for the humans, but you can’t really put your finger on where the switch happens. Not to say it’s all good, since like I said, some lighting choices really pursed me off, some scenes were a little ‘too’ colourful, and the design of this one character just doesn’t feel… right to me.

I’m guessing that last bit’s a bit of an unpopular opinion already. If you’ve been spoiled in toyland, you’ll know what I’m on about, but I didn’t really like the design of this one ‘titan’ that shows up at some point in the film. The scenes with it are great, and everything works, but I just can’t get myself to actually like what it looks like when it’s on its own. It does have a few cool scenes though. It’s the kind of thing I can look past since it does what it’s supposed to do in the story.

The sound is just as good. The OSTs in these films have always been pretty good, and this one’s right at the top. Junkie XL’s been turning out banger after banger for a few years now, and it doesn’t look like he’s about to stop. I didn’t actually know if I was going to get to watch GvK early, so I was actually working on a review for another recent film featuring the man (coming as soon as I get over what I just watched), and he’s just… yeah. He’s one of the best right now.

Apart from that one ‘titan’ I mentioned, all of the titans look great, and they move great. And speaking of movement…

These two have never moved like this before. This is the entire reason I had the MMA gimmick up top. Where Godzilla: King of the Monsters was a big slugfest between giant monsters who were kinda pushing the limits of physics, this one is just…

(ʘ っ ʘ^✿)^…?!

I mean, take a look at the first few seconds of this and imagine these two repeating it. Faster.than.it.happened.IRL Their fights are brutal, in-your-face, and everything we’ve ever wanted. Their fight makes the big KG vs King fight from the last film look tame by comparison (although I guess if you add in wings and gravity beams and whatnot things have to look different). There’s a lot of… close contact (I guess that’s the best way to put it) and it doesn’t throw off what the King does off by a lot. These two’ve been working out, and it shows. Their ‘argument’ scenes are also funny, but fit the moments and I’m still scratching my head about how it all worked out in the end.

Is it the best film ever? No. Is it better than Godzilla: King of the Monsters? Yeah. I loved that film, and not a lot of other people did, but this one is hands-down the best break the MonsterVerse could’ve ever had. Landing as the first blockbuster post-COVID (even though we’re still in it, and you still need to be careful), this one’s in pole position to pick up the big bucks and made a huge impression at the box office, because it is actually good.

I mean, yeah, it’s dumb, but it’s as dumb as Endgame is, or would’ve been if it was the fourth film Marvel ever made. We live in a world of dumb cinema and we might as well embrace them because they’re offering the flipside of what cinema’s supposed to be: entertainment. This is fanservice (there are some nifty references in this one. Electricity go BRR), effects, and a workable story (although the hoomans drag it down a bit) packed into one hell of a fighting tournament, and it deserves the eyeballs it gets. The MonsterVerse’s stuck to its guns part and it’s the best thing they could’ve done.

Since I’m not giving out spoilers today, I’m going to cap myself off at that. I have a lot to say about the film, and because I know a certain ‘other someone’ on the team’s got something going on with the King soon, maybe we’ll hear more in the future. But up until we’re allowed to talk about what we want to talk about… I’ll leave you all with my…

FINAL RATINGS

The Azure-Winged Magpie: 9/10

I’ll chatter to you lot soon! Watch this space!

MINOR UPDATE: tfw your funny joke on Reddit ends up getting picked up… lol

— Azure-Winged Magpie up! Up! ^{And Awayyy! *BONK!*}

Here’s one of the official posters!