Siegel™’s review published on Letterboxd:
in IMAX
A fitting conclusion to an absolute mess of a series, in that the modern Monsterverse has always been a hollow representation of the legendary beasts and their cultural impact, acknowledging their enriching roots and historical impact while also awkwardly ignoring all that and focusing entirely on their penchant for wanton destruction. This somewhat conclusive installment is essentially two completely separate movies - one for Kong that recalls his roots through a relationship with a young girl, and one that does the same for Godzilla with a cartoonish critique of corporate greed - and then there's a third movie in here that combines the two into a massive clash of the titans with a(n ultimately irrelevant) claim of ancient rivalry.
But once you accept the fact that this is the biggest, dumbest, loudest action blockbuster one could possibly conceive, there's a lot to enjoy - but not quite enough. In a movie titled Godzilla vs Kong, I can safely promise that nobody showed up for anything other than to see big fat lizard fighting big fat monke, but apart from so much of the focus being side quests and establishing narrative, the actual fights themselves have two major issues: firstly, there's an insane amount of close-ups in a terribly misguided attempt to add style (and emotionality? can't possibly be, right? RIGHT?), effectively removing the sense of scope far too often; and secondly, all the best moments were in the trailer, meaning that at any given moment throughout I'd either already seen it before, or it was side plot that I didn't care about. I know that's the fault of marketing, but goddamn it really killed the experience.
__________________________
SPOILERS SPOILERS
And another fault of marketing: the tagline "one will fall" and the constant promises of a clear winner proved false. Fucking hollywood, can't commit to their shit. We all predicted they would fight a bit and then team up against some other monstrosity, and we were all right.
