Titanic Title Match
Have you ever been to a wrestling match? Not the high school gym class wrestling, but the Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson kind of match. Two skilled athletes go head to head in the ring. They feed off the cheers of the crowd, trying to out perform and out maneuver each other.
Epic takedowns.
Amazing flips.
Everything an action-hungry audience desires.
Take that, multiply it by several hundred tons, and you get Legendary Entertainment’s Godzilla vs. Kong.
From the marketing to the final product, Godzilla vs. Kong was packaged as a heavy weight title match between two of the most popular movie monsters, Godzilla and King Kong. I grew up on the old “man in a suit” Godzilla movies and have been quite pleased with Legendary’s take on the atomic dinosaur.
Now, if you’re planning on watching this film (which I highly recommend you do), maybe hold off on reading the rest of this review until afterward, because there will be SPOILERS AHEAD.
With two colossal characters mixing it up, the story dynamics had to be up to par. I won’t deny this film had some inconsistencies and shortcomings. For example, they confirmed Hollow Earth theory at the end of the previous movie, Godzilla: King of the Monsters, but people all of a sudden claim it’s a hoax in this movie. There was also the part where Godzilla blasts a hole from Hong Kong to Hollow Earth and Kong uses that to travel to the final fight location. It, admittedly, felt kind of odd for a Point-A-to-Point-B route.
That being said, Godzilla vs. Kong did deliver on its narrative. You can see that in each titan and their respective human companions.
Many critics claim that the human element is the weakest when it comes to monster movies of this sort. I can understand that. Often times, they are merely canon fodder and collateral damage while the monsters wreck everything.
However, the humans in Godzilla vs. Kong drove the story forward, each in their own way.
First, let’s look at Team Kong.
Kong is the Face in this matchup, the hero fighter. Although he has grown to Godzilla’s size, he is still the underdog in combat experience and capabilities. However, for a non-human character, he exhibited some incredible growth. We got to witness him learn, adapt, and make and utilize tools. The part where he revealed his knowledge of sign language blew my mind.
The human members of Team Kong were made up of Nathan Lind, Ilene Andrews, and Jia. Nathan, a discredited scientist, has been tasked by Apex CEO Walter Simmons to find a mysterious energy source deep in Hollow Earth, and his plan to do so is to use Kong to lead them to it. Ilene, a Monarch scientist, is in charge of Kong’s care and containment. Jia, a young deaf girl, is the last of the Iwi natives that lived with Kong on Skull Island and the only person capable of communicating with him.
Although Kong is the face of the team, and the movie, it’s the humans that get the ball rolling. I could argue that Kong isn’t even the protagonist, if not for the fact that he has a very subtle “Call of Destiny” imposed on him. At the least, I would settle for an “ensemble cast,” but I’d still contest Kong being the lead.
Left to his own devices, Kong would not have sought out Godzilla nor look for a way to stop him. He reacted to changes more so than pursuing something. Searching for a solution was dependent on the humans. Nathan’s idea to use Kong’s homing instincts started the journey, after he was given a chance to change his current situation. Ilene’s directions kept them on the safest path possible. Jia’s intuitive, almost supernatural, senses kept Kong calm and alerted them to danger. It was their intertwining wants and desires that kept things moving, even if those weren’t the reasons we came to watch the movie.
Next, we look at Team Godzilla.
Godzilla’s attack on Apex’s facility is the film’s Inciting Incident. His mysterious aggression sets the world on edge. Unlike the previous two films, Godzilla displays a much more bestial ferocity in his behavior.
As a Godzilla fan myself, I would have loved for him to be the hero character in this story. However, I will admit that Legendary did an excellent job portraying Godzilla as the antagonist, or, to keep the wrestling terms going, the Heel. He was a terrifying force to be reckoned with. Watching him reminded me that in his original iteration, Godzilla was the villain, the embodiment of wrath for Japan’s actions during World War II. Godzilla is in top form here, and despite what Kong fans say, Big G won 2 out of their 3 matches.
Although no one traveled with him as closely as Kong, Godzilla also had humans on his team: Madison Russell, Josh Valentine, and Bernie Hayes. Madison, a returning character from King of the Monsters, is one of the few people who believes there is a specific reason behind Godzilla’s rampage, while others are quick to assume that he has simply changed. She enlists the help of Bernie, a conspiracy theorist and undercover whistleblower at Apex, to help her track down the cause. Josh, whom I kept calling Tap Water in my head because I forgot his name until the end of the film, was dragged into the search as Madison’s ride and the audience’s comedic relief.
Unlike Team Kong, where the humans were the driving force, Godzilla was very much so the spearhead of his team. He had some sort of goal in mind, while Madison and company merely followed his trail. Although not as dynamic as Team Kong’s human characters, they did become our window to see what happened behind the scenes at Apex.
Again, the humans in this story were the main driving force for the narrative. While we waited anxiously for the titans to clash, the pride, desires, and hubris of their human companions brought them together.
This is most evident with the surprise third titan team: Team Mechagodzilla.
Although I did my best to not watch the trailers to avoid spoilers (looking at you, Iron Man 3), I did hear rumors about Mechagodzilla. Thankfully, his appearance within the movie was not a major spoiler. The moment I saw that robotic eye in the first Apex facility attack, I knew exactly what they were constructing. His presence was built up over time, allowing him a proper reveal.
It makes sense that they would include him in this movie. Aside from being a classic Godzilla villain, he becomes the common enemy. It’s a classic story trope where two bitter rivals must set aside their differences to take on an even greater threat. It was the best choice to keep Godzilla diehards and Kong fans happy. Neither of their favorite monsters die, and they even get a team-up fight.
Like the other Titan teams, Mechagodzilla had three key human companions: Walter Simmons, his daughter Maia, and Ren Serizawa. Walter had visions of grandeur, that he could make humanity the “apex species” again. To do so, he had Mechagodzilla built. Although she traveled with Team Kong, Maia was her father’s liaison. She had a couple of sympathetic moments, but she ultimately focused on satisfying daddy dearest.
Ren was, unfortunately, an underutilized character. For those who remember, Ishiro Serizawa was a Monarch researcher from the previous two Godzilla movies who dedicated his life to researching titans and gave his life to save Godzilla’s. The relation between Ishiro and Ren is never mentioned in the movie. We can only assume that Ren may be Ishiro’s son. If that’s the case, why would he work for Apex, the company bent on destroying the creature his father sacrificed so much to save? Perhaps he harbors a grudge toward Godzilla for stealing his father away? It would have been a great moment to actually see rather than infer. Who knows? Maybe we’ll get it in a deleted scene.
Each group’s stories intersected in the final confrontation. Godzilla swam out to Hong Kong to seek out the threat he sensed. Mechagodzilla broke out of containment and rampaged because of his programming. Kong jumped from Hollow Earth to Hong Kong because…ancient rivalry? It was talked about a lot in the beginning, but didn’t really feel important as things went on. My best guess: revenge match for his previous defeat.
While the titans went and did their thing, the human storylines coalesced and proved integral to the story’s progression. Team Mechagodzilla caused the whole mess, so they had to be there to suffer for their actions. Team Kong jump-started Kong’s heart after he suffered cardiac arrest in his second loss against Godzilla, saving his life in time for the last battle.
I’ve heard some people say that out of all the human characters, the humans in Team Godzilla were the least necessary, that their inclusion did not amount to much. However, their presence was necessary. If we did not see events through their eyes, Mechagodzilla’s appearance would have been sudden and out of left field. We got the full revelation through them.
Additionally, if not for the humans of Team Godzilla, the fight against Mechagodzilla would have been lost.
In story writing, there is a character archetype called the Fifth Business. This is a side character that, if not for them, the final conclusion would not have played out the way it did. Gollum from The Lord of the Rings is one example of the Fifth Business. If he had not followed the hobbits and bitten off Frodo’s finger, the ring would have never fallen into the lava and Sauron would have slaughtered everyone.
Team Godzilla’s interference in the Apex facility solidified them as the Fifth Business. To be exact, the single character that acted as the Fifth Business was Tap Water--I mean, Josh Valentine. He had a moment where he tried to hack the Apex mainframe. We all thought this was his moment to graduate from comedic dead weight to the small hero we needed, only to find out his “programming background” consisted of an HTML course at summer camp. However, when Bernie pulled out a flask of alcohol as a sign of “it’s all over,” Josh grabbed it and poured its contents on the controls, causing it to short circuit and sever Mechagodzilla’s connection long enough for Kong to get the upper hand.
Yes, we all watched Godzilla vs. Kong for the giant monster fights, but if not for the human characters, we never would have gotten those fights. Godzilla and Kong may have been the super powered ships, but the humans were the rudders that steered the plot where it needed to go. They may be “weak” by monster movie standards, but they held a different strength that made this movie good.