“Godzilla vs Kong” was released in theaters and on HBO Max on March 31st. “Godzilla vs Kong” is the 4th film in Legendary Studios and Warner Bros’s ‘Monsterverse’ coming after 2014’s “Godzilla”, 2017’s “Kong: Skull Island”,  and 2019’s “Godzilla: King of Monsters”. The movie was originally scheduled to be released in March of 2020, but due to the global Covid-19 pandemic, the movie was pushed back along with other prominent Warner Bros. releases like “Wonder Woman 1984”, “Dune”, and “The Batman”. When Warner Bros announced back in December of last year that all of their new releases would be shoveled onto HBO Max, “Godzilla vs Kong” was one of many to be included in that list.

Now as for the movie itself, you pretty much get exactly what you’d expect from your typical ‘Monsterverse’ movies. Big monsters battling it out destroying everything in their wake, and I, for one, am here for it. The visuals in “Godzilla vs Kong” are top-notch as one would expect from a big-budget blockbuster like this. And while I only got to experience the movie at home on my couch, it still works well enough to where it isn’t necessary to watch it in the theaters. The fights between all the kaiju look stunning, and the action and storytelling do a very good job of keeping the audience engaged throughout the whole film. My main complaint, however, and this is a very typical complaint when discussing all the ‘Monsterverse’ movies is the human characters. I still don’t care about any of the human characters, and no one else does either, We still spend way too much time on human characters that we’re not emotionally invested in and are annoyed by. Now of course this is not the kind of movie you watch when you want to watch a character-driven story and think deeply about the inner workings of the world the characters live in and how they grow and develop. No. You want to see big monsters punch each other in the face and destroy stuff, and for the most part that is what you get in the movie. The character that gets the most development is actually Kong himself. We learn a lot about his history, as well as the history of his species. The majority of the movie follows Kong, which unfortunately results in Godzilla being side-lined for most of the movie. “Godzilla vs Kong” almost serves as a sequel to “Kong: Skull Island” featuring Godzilla. Despite the movie’s setbacks, it still manages to be a fun and engaging experience that all ages are likely to enjoy. Is it going to win an Oscar? No, but it will keep you entertained and will make your inner fanboy/fangirl go crazy, especially if you were a fan of the cheesy 1960s “King Kong vs Godzilla” like myself. It is unclear what will happen with Warner Bros.’ ‘Monsterverse’, but the ending of “Godzilla vs Kong” points to possible sequels and spinoffs and can possibly create a new cinematic universe going forward.