Godzilla vs Kong Review Round-Up

The Hollywood Reporter

"The cast of Godzilla vs. Kong shows commendable inclusivity for a major studio movie. But pity the talented actors who had to spend the majority of their time standing around gawping at green screens, either in stunned silence or mouthing countless variations on "Oh, my God" shock and awe. Despite an undernourished thread connecting key characters by their experience of loss, seldom have the human figures and their interplay been as peripheral to the headline action in a popcorn blockbuster. The good news is that even if the convoluted kaiju mythology tends to trip over itself in a plot that only barely makes sense, the Monsterverse face-off delivers plenty of visceral excitement." - The Hollywood Reporter

Forbes

"There's little narrative or artistic reason for Godzilla Vs. Kong to exist, save for that it was already in the pipeline when Kong of the Monsters bombed and that the MonsterVerse was launched on an explicit promise of eventually watching King Kong go 12 rounds with Godzilla. There's still something almost quaint and old-fashioned in how this chapter makes no real effort to set up sequels or spin-offs. It's an excessively simple movie, especially in its rousing second half, and it works as a Saturday matinee treat, a relic of a time before films like this were A+ mega-budget tentpoles. My kids are big fans of the previous MonsterVerse movies, and they enjoyed this one too. Godzilla Vs. Kong isn't as poetic as Godzilla or as character-rich as Skull Island, but it gets the job done as straight-up IMAX-friendly rock-n-roll." - Forbes

Entertainment Weekly

"There's enough CG detail to give Kong a kind of mesmerizing hyper-realness in every cowlick and cracked fingernail, and a beautiful little deaf girl (Kaylee Hottle) to help him communicate what's in his heart, via the miracle of sign language. She's been orphaned, and maybe he has too — though we never learn much more about his loneliness except that he does not care for ankle manacles, and is soothed by the sounds of soft-FM in the mornings. If you want a great monster movie that's actually also about people — how they think and talk and feel when they're more than just screaming kaiju chum in the water — try 2017's Colossal, currently streaming on Hulu. If not, maybe Godzilla vs. Kong's brawling lizard-brain shock and awe is exactly the void you came for." - Entertainment Weekly

Slash Film

"I think the secret to Godzilla vs. Kong's success is its ability to realize how stupid this all is. The seriousness in Godzilla and Godzilla: King of the Monsters has been completely jettisoned to make room for moments like the one where Kong rips another monster's head off and then eats the goo inside, or like when Godzilla blasts his atomic breath straight into the ground until he literally burroughs into the center of the Earth. Godzilla vs. Kong is a film without pretensions. It knows exactly what it wants to do, and what it wants to do is have monsters smash buildings while they're throwing punches at each other. It's finally what this franchise has been building towards: a movie about monsters, not humans." - Slash Film

IndieWire

"Legendary Entertainment's MonsterVerse isn't messing around: Seven years and four films in, the franchise is already delivering the sort of massive battle royale that might take other series decades to create. Adam Wingard's "Godzilla vs. Kong" takes two of cinema's most beloved overgrown villains (with hearts of gold, kinda) and pits them against each other in a bombastic franchise entry unafraid to crib liberally from the best bits of each film that came before, while also establishing its own distinct vibe." - IndieWire

Roger Ebert

""Godzilla vs. Kong" is a crowd-pleasing, smash-'em-up monster flick and a straight-up action picture par excellence. It is a fairy tale and a science-fiction exploration film, a Western, a pro wrestling extravaganza, a conspiracy thriller, a Frankenstein movie, a heartwarming drama about animals and their human pals, and, in spots, a voluptuously wacky spectacle that plays as if the creation sequence in "The Tree of Life" had been subcontracted to the makers of "Yellow Submarine." It has rainstorms and explosions and into-the-wormhole light shows, giant mammals and reptiles and amphibians and insects and beasts that might be hybrids of one or more of the animal kingdoms, with some zombie, robot, or demon thrown in. It dares to dream big and be goofy and sincere as it does it. And yet, for an over-scaled and incident-packed tentpole flick, "Godzilla vs. Kong" stays light on its feet, like its co-leading man, a skyscraper-sized primate who bounds through jungles, tropical and concrete, like an astronaut skipping on the moon. It might be the best studio film so far this year. If it isn't, it's for damn sure the most fun." - Roger Ebert

Digital Spy

"Godzilla vs Kong was announced back in 2015 as the culmination of the first arc of the MonsterVerse, having established the two titans in their own movies.

It's finally stomping onto our screens (albeit our TV screens in the UK) after being hit with the same delays as other blockbusters in this past year. But was the battle of the titans worth the wait?

If you're tuning into Godzilla vs Kong to see the two massive titans beat the living hell out of each other (and why wouldn't you?), the answer is an absolute yes. The movie isn't without its issues, but in terms of delivering on the carnage promised, you'd be hard-pressed to find a fan that won't be satisfied." - Digital Spy