The World Is Big Enough for Two Godzillas
‘Godzilla x Kong’ is nothing like ‘Godzilla Minus One,’ and that’s okay.
In 1954, Godzilla was a terrifying depiction of atomic power represented by a large reptile rampaging his way through Japan. However, by 1963, Toho, the studio behind Godzilla, realized that people wouldn’t constantly turn out for movies that seriously bummed them out. So how to reconcile the problem of Godzilla-the-Destroyer with a need for uplift? They reinvented him as a brawler and then as a heroic entity. By 1964, Godzilla was already teaming up with former foes to battle monstrous space aliens. The rest of the Showa Era films (1954 - 1975) were basically variations on this concept that allowed Godzilla to rampage, but in service to the greater good of protecting humanity.
Last year’s Godzilla Minus One took the character back to his roots with a human-driven story with the monster standing in for trauma and pain. Far from a heroic savior, the Godzilla of Godzilla Minus One was a return for the horrifying entity that our heroes would risk everything to defeat. It’s a great movie, but that’s not all Godzilla can be. Even if you want to argue it’s an American/Japanese divide (as this Polygon article does, although I think it kind of breezes past large chunks of Godzilla’s history), the fact remains that Godzilla is not just one kind of character, and hasn’t been for some time. That’s why I have no problem riding with his heroic iteration in Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire.
If you’re familiar with the Showa Era Godzilla, you’ll see that’s where director Adam Wingard puts his allegiance—big, monster wrestling fights with lots of destruction and little concern towards plot details or character development. It’s been a strange journey for this “MonsterVerse” that Legendary (the series’ production company) put together where Gareth Edwards’ 2014 Godzilla feints at trying to the bridge the gap between a serious Godzilla and a monster-fighting Godzilla, but by the time you’ve reached this sequel, they’re fully in their monsters-rasslin’ mode. It’s nice to feature acclaimed actors like Rebecca Hall, Dan Stevens, and Oscar-nominee Brian Tyree Henry, but they’re simply here to class up the joint (and doing a solid job of it). The characters with the two clearest arcs are Kong and Jia (Kaylee Hottle), the deaf girl from Godzilla vs. Kong who can communicate with Kong via sign language. They’re both looking for a place to belong, and wouldn’t you know it, it’s even deeper in The Hollow Earth (Hollower Earth?).
What I admire about Godzilla x Kong is that Wingard knows what kind of movie he’s making here, which feels like a stew of his various interests ranging from not only kaiju movies but also anime and 1980s adventure flicks and music. I suppose the film works on how you appraise the motives of the players involved. No one really has ownership here, so nothing is treated as too precious. A franchise like this is like a lease, and everyone involved here can try to make the place their own, but no one wants to get too attached. So while it’s nice seeing Terry Rossio (Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl), Simon Barrett (You’re Next), and Jeremy Slater (Moon Knight) credited as screenwriters, everything about Godzilla x Kong screams that this is work-for-hire. This is a blockbuster made on factory-settings even if Wingard has a stamp that’s distinctive from other directors in the series.
Under these conditions, you’re not going to get the thoughtful pathos of a Godzilla Minus One. Instead, you’ll get a movie where Kong gets a mecha-glove for more powerful punching, and Godzilla’s atomic energy is now pink because he’s more powerful (This Barbie is Godzilla). The whole movie is based around monster fights, and if you check it on an IMAX screen with the speakers turned up, you’ll have fun with it. Even viewing Godzilla vs. Kong at home in March 2021 because of the pandemic, I knew it was meant to be seen on a massive screen. And the big pummeling works because Godzilla and Kong have personalities in a way that, by comparison, a lot of Transformers characters don’t.
That’s not to say that Godzilla x Kong is a great movie, but by the same token, it would be like saying that I’m not going to eat a cheeseburger unless it’s a gourmet cheeseburger. Sometimes you want fast food—not memorable, but easy and tasty, and there’s room for that at the multiplex when it’s done well. There’s not a shred of the emotional weight of Godzilla Minus One in Godzilla x Kong, but there is Godzilla using The Coliseum like a dog bed, and that’s good enough for me.
Recommendations
I was stunned-yet-not-stunned by this The Present Age story about a GLAAD and Media Matters study that found The New York Times, while writing quite a lot about anti-trans bills, doesn’t really consult any trans people in their reporting. This is an issue that’s not exclusive to NYT (when was the last time you saw a trans pundit on cable news?), but it does highlight how mainstream media organizations tend to view trans issues in the abstract rather than a community facing obstacles and ostracization.
Over in physical media, In case you hadn’t heard, Martin Scorsese’s The Departed arrives on 4K in about a month. The Departed is a tricky movie because of where it exists in Oscar history and Scorsese’s filmography, which is to say that we know it’s not among Scorsese’s top-tier movies like Goodfellas and Raging Bull, which both lost Best Picture and Best Director, but that doesn’t make The Departed bad. If anything, it’s incredibly entertaining. Remove the Oscar discussion, and you have Scorsese with an incredible cast (I think this is low-key one of Matt Damon’s best performances), a crackling script (how have we not gotten a movie comprised of just Alec Baldwin and Mark Wahlberg bantering?), and people saying “microprocessors” with the heaviest Boston accent possible. Did it “deserve” to win Best Picture? Debatable! But it’s still a great movie, and you should pre-order it now.
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What I’m Watching
Lynne Littman’s 1983 drama Testament has been on my to-watch list for a little over two decades now (I first heard of it around 2003), and I finally decided to bite the bullet and watch it since it’s leaving Criterion Channel at the end of the month. Why the delay? Because it’s about a suburban family slowly dying during nuclear fallout, so it’s not exactly a “fun” watch. Unlike The Day After or Threads (both horrifying in their own way), Testament doesn’t take place near the impact of the bomb, but instead shows how the radiation sickness and loss of civilization wears away at a single family. It is one of the saddest movies I have ever seen, but it’s also incredibly powerful. Watch it and then take a walk outside (something I could not do because it’s pollen season).
In lighter viewing, I’m really enjoying X-Men ’97 on Disney+. They’ve hit the sweet spot of the original show’s corniness and melodrama that somehow works masterfully. While I’ll admit that it’s slightly more mature in its visuals (this week’s episode, “Fire Made Flesh,” features some visuals and innuendos that simply would not have flown on network television in the 90s), it still feels true to the source material.
My wife and I have also started watching Shōgun, which really grabs you right out the gate. I love how fully they’ve invested in not only the production design, but also keeping the Japanese language intact while making the Europeans speak English so as an English-speaking viewer, you really feel that you’re the outsider here (as it should be; part of the conflict here is about Japan’s restricted borders in the 1600s). Speaking of English-speaking characters, I’m liking Cosmo Jarvis, but there is clearly a Tom Hardy factory out there that produces these growly British guys (see also Logan Marshall-Green).
What I’m Reading
Last week I had a dream that I was reading an incredibly dense book I couldn’t finish. In a related story, I have less than a hundred pages to go in Before the Storm, a book I’ve been reading since the start of February. Part of me wishes I was a faster or more disciplined reader. Like if I could force myself to read 50 pages of this book a day, I’d have been done in about ten days. Instead, I’m kind of crawling to the finish even though I think this is a good, well-written book. Anyway, I’m curious if any of my readers have a similar experience where they enjoy the act of reading and they enjoy what they’re reading, but they also find that they’re not tearing through their books.
What I’m Hearing
I must have been on a mission to bum myself out on Tuesday because in addition to watching Testament, I also listened to the first episode of Lost Patients, a podcast series about our broken mental health care system where those suffering from psychosis consistently fall through the cracks to where they bounce around psychiatric facilities, rehab facilities, prisons, and homelessness. The reporting is incredibly good in the first episode, but yeah, I was not in the best of spirits at the end of the day.
What I’m Playing
I discovered you can pet the adorable baby chocobo in Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, so I think every other 2024 video game can hang it up. We have our Game of the Year.