Godzilla vs. Kong
Directed by Adam Wingard
Godzilla vs. Kong is “the kind of movie that makes you forget about everything else in your life while you’re watching it,” said Richard Roeper in the Chicago Sun-Times. “Incredibly loud” and “fantastically mindless,” it brings together the two greatest movie monsters of all time for a series of gargantuan battles that—for anyone ready to return to the multiplex this week—are best seen in a theater with an oversize screen and a “teeth-rattling” sound system. When this “wonderfully escapist spectacle” debuted overseas last week, it earned $122 million to smash the previous box-office record for a movie that has opened during the pandemic. “The unseriousness of it all is signaled from the start,” said Jessica Kiang in the Los Angeles Times. We first see King Kong awaken on Skull Island, scratch his butt, and take a waterfall shower while a classic doo-wop single plays. Trouble begins when his rival, Godzilla, attacks a facility in Florida operated by a shady conglomerate. Soon a team is scrambling to dispatch Kong by ship to battle the giant radioactive reptile, and “things only get more outlandish from there,” said Katie Rife in AVClub.com. For a monster movie, “Godzilla vs. Kong has a lot of characters (too many, really) and a whole lot of plot, much of which will make you sound batty if you try to explain it aloud.” But at least it’s never serious. “There may be a moral somewhere in Godzilla vs. Kong about hubris and greed, but really, this movie knows you came to see monsters punch each other. And monsters punching each other you shall get.” (In theaters or streaming at HBO Max)