Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10
Cast: Alexander Skarsgård, Millie Bobby Brown, Rebecca Hall, Brian Tyree Henry, Shun Oguri, Eliza González, Julian Dennison, Lance Reddick, Kyle Chandler, Demián Bichir, Kaylee Hottle, Hakeem Kae-Kazim, Ronny Chieng, John Pirruccello, Chris Chalk.
When Titans collide it is either a simple case of love or hate for the audiences who cannot but help pick a side, cheer on the winner, take cheap pot shots and boo with bravado the expected loser; this is hard enough to convey with any appropriate meaning when it is two boxers slugging it out in the ring, their signature moves keenly studied and reported, the grudges they bare against each other, but when you transfer that sense of toxic, animalistic brutality to a wider, less human shape, you can end up with a Battle Royale that you cannot keep your eyes from watching, and your heart from pumping with excitement.
Godzilla and King Kong, arguably two of cinemas biggest monster hitters, have come a long way since their first appearances on screen, and whilst the technology has evolved to make them particularly more physically imposing, they still require the belief of the audience to make them larger than life itself.
That belief first appeared in the early 60s, when Toho Studios held all the aces when it came to the monster spectacle, and when there was no other person who could arguably be seen to hold a candle to the great director Ishirō Honda. Times have changed, storytelling has become more complex, and the world is a place of possible reality when it comes to the monsters we have unleashed upon our own minds, the creations, the mutations, the metamorphosis of a toxic landscape…it is no wonder that audiences will always love the large, atomic fire breathing lizard and the oversized ape in their separate films.
When Titans collide, there is normally only one winner, but in the magnificent slug fest that is Godzilla vs. Kong there is not just one beast that walks tall at the end of the day, there is a multitude; for cinema was the exact reason why films such as this were created, and whilst there is a plot, a unifying purpose and concepts that don’t just stop at the celluloid door, what comes across with delightful brutality is the mythos behind the two creations, one of Japanese origins, and the other of Hollywood manifestation, and how they show the phenomenon of agreement, of how two very different studio ethics can be brought together, and judging by this film, work in harmony.
It bodes well for the Monster Universe being created that this film brings together two of the biggest nightmares for humanity, one of an evolutionary strand that has gone unchecked in its own natural habitat, and one that whilst is a throwback to a time when Earth trembled under a very different kind of beast, is still rooted in the mind of humanity’s desire to cause damage to its own environment; and by doing so perhaps the audience and fan alike will be treated to the darker side of imagination.
The human actors for once take very much a back seat in this giant affair, and whilst performers such as Milie Bobby Brown, Julian Dennison and Bryan Tyree Henry all add to the overall film, it is the monsters, the realisation of nightmares, that hold the screen up high, and that in all honesty is perfectly acceptable for any Titan to be treated like a god.
Ian D. Hall