I finally got around to watching Godzilla vs. Kong. I have wanted to see this movie since it was announced years ago. When it came out it was during the pandemic, and I was not ready to go back to the movie theater at that time. I also did not want to pay for HBO MAX so I could see the movie. I already had other streaming services and honestly, I was not willing to pay for another one just so I could see this movie or any of the movies that came out that year.

All prior movies, Godzilla, Kong: Skull Island, and Godzilla: King of the Monsters all lead up to this. Was it worth the wait? I would say yes. I enjoyed the movie. It had great effects, and it is impressive what they could accomplish with the movie. This movie has the same challenges that Alien vs. Predator had in the sense that the main battle is between creatures. Freddie vs. Jason is a monster movie but it had actors play both roles. Alien vs. Predator used actors for the predators and puppeteers for the aliens. Godzilla vs. Kong are completely CGI characters which would make it even more challenging. As far as I know no one was wearing a body suit to portray either character the way Andy Serkis did for the role of Gollum in Lord of the Rings. Even Benedict Cumberbatch put on a suit for playing the dragon Smaug in The Hobbit movies. Godzilla vs. Kong appeared effortless when it came to their battle scenes. Kong is a lot bigger now than when we last saw him in Kong: Skull Island. Both Godzilla and Kong looked realistic. Something else that is impressive is this movie had a lot of heart in it and a lot of the heart comes from Kong and his bond he has with a little girl Jia played by Kaylee Hottle. It is always impressive for films or television when the audience can get emotional over CGI creatures.

There are some returning characters from Godzilla: King of the Monsters with both Kyle Chandler and Millie Bobby Brown reprising their roles as Mark Russell and Madison Russell respectively. The rest of the cast includes Alexander Skarsgard, Rebecca Hall, Brian Tyree Henry, Eiza Gonzalez, Julian Dennison, Lance Reddick, and Demian Bichir. The main event of this movie is Godzilla and Kong, and the movie achieves that. The cast does a good job in the roles they have. Some were more involved than others. Without spoiling too much, there was basically two storylines. One group of characters involved with Kong while the other group was involved with Godzilla. That was pretty much the main group of characters and there is never really any interaction between both sets.

Even though this is the conclusion so to speak of the MonsterVerse. All prior films lead up to this, it is not really necessary to watch the other films. I have seen all of the other films, but this movie does not really acknowledge much of the prior films other than the obvious between the title characters. That should not be much of a surprise since most of the human characters never continued past their respective movies. None of the cast from Godzilla is in this one. Kong: Skull Island is the same thing. This one only has Kyle Chandler and Millie Bobby Brown from Godzilla: King of the Monsters. A sequel has been announced and has filmed already. The cast is mostly a new group with Rebecca Hall, Kaylee Hottle, and Brian Tyree Henry being the only ones reprising their roles from this movie. Not much is known on the sequel other than it will follow the events of this one. The film is currently set to release on March 15, 2024.

The movie was visually stunning. I don’t know what it was about this movie particularly, but I was impressed with the cinematography of this one. It looked great. I do wish I had gotten to see this on the big screen, but it was still impressive watching it at home.

Minor spoilers.

One nitpick I do have is that it felt that Godzilla was not in the movie as much. It seemed a lot of the screentime went to Kong. Given the title is Godzilla vs. Kong, I had expected them to have equal screen time. More story also seemed dedicated to Kong in this one. Maybe the sequel will lean more toward Godzilla. Also, to be fair, Godzilla had two solo movies whereas Kong only had one and he was much younger than since Kong: Skull Island was set in 1973 while the Godzilla movies were set in the present.

Godzilla vs. Kong is a fun clash of the titans movie and it accomplishes what it set out to do. It also had the added bonus of having heart and beautiful visuals. I am excited to see what will happen next.