When a major element of your plot rips off Transformers: Age of Extinction, you have failed as a movie. 

     Godzilla vs. Kong was released in 2021 and directed by Adam Wingard. The film stars Millie Bobby Brown as Madison Russell, Alexander Skarsgård as Nathan Lind, and Rebecca Hall as Ilene Andrews. Three years after the events of Godzilla: King of the Monsters, our main heroes must find out why Godzilla, known as trying to keep nature in balance, is on a rampage throughout the world. 

     Most of the cast members struggle to make simple lines of dialogue believable, or compelling. It would not be surprising if it was revealed that each scene was done in one take, and no one ever once looked at the daily’s to see what could be fixed. All of the characters are dull, and while they all have motivation for their individual actions, they’re some of the most forgettable characters within the past decade of film. 

     This film continues a trend in seemingly every Monsterverse movie: don’t focus on the one interesting character in the film. Here, that reign belongs to Kyle Chandler’s Mark Russell. For the few seconds he’s in the film, he is the only one that gives a good performance. However, Russell is entirely re-written to be a complete idiot, and the script throws away all of his development from the previous film. 

     The movie gives most of its screen time to Kong, in terms of monsters, and tries to give him a character. This attempt fails miserably. He does not learn or change over the course of the film. Throughout the film, Kong takes orders from a 5-8-year-old girl. There is no reason ever given for this. 

     This might be one of the worst scripts in Hollywood history, straight up. There are just as many plot holes here as something as useless as Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom. Oh boy. With a rewatch, there might even be more. Many reviews for the film have stated something along the lines of, “This film knows what it is.” Just because a movie knows what it is doesn’t make it good. 

     The script has very little originality, taking elements from Batman vs Superman: Dawn of Justice, Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom, Godzilla: King of the Monsters, and as previously stated, Transformers: Age of Extinction. 

     There is a subplot in the film, where at one point, Madison Russell and her colleagues casually walk into the wrecked and heavily guarded Apex facility. Which by the way, the company Apex is a huge part of this film, and has never been in any other Godzilla film. It’s just in the film so there can be unrealistic technology that can get people around quickly. This subplot itself exists so that the film can introduce another monster threat and has the human character help ‘weaken’ in the final battle. The way they do this is the dumbest and laziest way you could have possibly written this scene. 

     Other than one or two lines of dialogue, there is never a clear reason as to why Godzilla and Kong actually fight. Also, in every other Monsterverse film, the two leads win fights in individual movies by killing their opponents. Here, when the title fight goes down, the “winner” just walks away for no other reason than if one of the monsters actually died, there would be no room for a sequel. 

     They fight more than once and each time, the outcome is nothing more than bad screenwriting. For example, their first fight ends because they turn the power to a ship off, and somehow that tells Godzilla to go away. 

     The visuals are competent, the film’s large budget is clear. The problem arises in the third act, when some of the monster’s movements are simply unnatural, taking you out of what could be epic moments. 

     The film’s unclear overuse of neon lighting does nothing for the story, and after so long hurts your eyes. 

     The music is underwhelming and confusingly used. For example, in one part of the film Kong shows up, but they play Godzilla’s theme for some reason. Adam Wingard’s directing is nothing special, but at least he did put most of the fight scenes within frame. 

     Without spoilers, it’s hard to truly express how disappointing this film was. Any moment that could be fun is torn down by the dull characters, terrible writing, and the fact that Godzilla is shown to be so powerful he can literally shoot his atomic breath through the center of the earth, but somehow struggles to fight Kong. It’s shocking they didn’t delay the film’s March 31 release date by one day, because Godzilla vs. Kong is nothing but a joke. 

[My Grade for Godzilla vs. Kong is an F]