I really enjoyed Godzilla Vs. Kong. Clear, legible action, true to the characters, and Kong himself is so expressively animated that they felt comfortable making him, not than the ants scurrying around beneath him, the emotional core of the story.
So very much this. Loved how hard the movie worked to make us sympathize with Kong, from his morning routine, to his expressions of sadness and contentment, to him getting PO'd at
Godzilla wrecking his nice new apartment. He feels powerful and weighty but also tired and
heavy, in a way previous Kongs (or, Hulks) haven't.
However, I did feel
disappointed that he didn't actually find any more of his kind. As above ground as below it, he's always the last surviving member of his family, even if he has a whole world to roam around in rather than a small, dying island.
The funniest thing to me was the film going out of its way to show a pilot safely ejecting from his plane when it was snatched out of the sky, while showing immense scenes of wanton destruction where millions would have been killed during the fight in Hong Kong.
Especially since that pilot would've been killed right away by the depth charge blasts, or by falling into flaming wreckage, or simply by being stranded when the surviving fleet shut down to make G go away. And the entire crews of, what, four, five destroyers? And a whole aircraft carrier? Were just wiped out in instants.
They did mention a cursory "The city's being evacuated" right before the battle, presumably in a "The island in BvS is uninhabited" kind of offhand justification, but that doesn't work when you have lots of followup scenes where the streets are still filled with people fleeing the disaster.
I did enjoy the movie, though! It went utterly bonkers sci-fi/fantasy,
was happy that they actually noticed and at least tried to solve the issue of gravity inversion that most "hollow Earth" fiction just sidesteps, and was giddy at how Legendary Mechagodzilla combined traits from the Showa, Heisei, and Millennium MGs. I'm deeply intrigued by the ancient connection between the original underground ape kingdom and Godzilla, to the point they had a whole circle of axes specifically tied to G's power. What are they made of? Do they summon him, or does he wake them up? Were they created from an older, even greater Godzilla? I just love how many storytelling possibilities they open when their plot purpose was just "give Kong a weapon so he doesn't die instantly from Goji's atomic breath."
As underdeveloped as the human cast was, Kong's escorts didn't bother me too much, and they served the simple purposes they were meant to. But whenever we cut to Madison and Bernie and the other kid, I just groaned.
That other kid was intensely annoying and his only purpose was to wreck the computer at the end, which Madison or Bernie himself could have figured out just as easily (and would have fulfilled that arc of Bernie's character.) I'm also always deeply uncomfortable when conspiracy theorists are made heroic figures, because they always, always, pepper their legitimate plot-related conspiracies with real-life ones in a way that gives them equal credence.
I actually didn't know Demian Bichir was in this so I laughed with surprise at his inclusion. Glad to see him eat the set with as much gusto as Kong slurping down flying snakes. I would have liked a little more thematic or narrative connection between
Ren Serizawa and his father, though. On the one hand, giving the appropriate level of depth to that relationship would've taken time away from either the monster fisticuffs or the exposition from Madison's squad (not altogether a bad thing, mind) but on the other, if you're going to make the anti-G villain the son of the man who sacrificed himself for G, at least make a note of it. Also not exactly a good look to have the only Asian character in the film cast as a duplicitous villain with barely any lines until his brain gets fried by Ghidorah's.
Also, did the ending feel a bit too abrupt to anyone? I was expecting the usual news clippings and "where are they now" teases from previous Monsterverse films, but it was just a very janky cut-to-black and rolling credits.
I neglected to mention the best part of the film--Kaylee Hottle (Jia) is the best actor these movies have had and she deserves an award.