"KING KONG VS GODZILLA"
As awesome and epic as the idea and film sounds, it also sounds like a really stupid idea as well. I say that because as much as King Kong will remain as America's Godzilla, King Kong is sadly no match for Godzilla at all. I mean Godzilla can breathe fire with his atomic breath; and is made out of radioactivity which makes Godzilla indestructible to bombs, missiles, and gun fire! King Kong on the other hand is really just a giant ape with no special powers that can easily be killed by bombs, missiles, and gun fire. So when you think about it, there's really no contest, Godzilla can kick King Kong's ass as easily as it could kick the ass of the 1998 American giant monster that carries Godzilla's name! Things can't sound any worse when you find out that King Kong is going to be a guy in a rubber suit, since it would be extremely difficult if not impossible to have a guy in a rubber suit fight against a Stop-Motion and robotic giant monster; and if they make Godzilla in Stop-Motion, it would feel as out of place as having a guy dressed up as King Kong, which of course is what the film is going with in King Kong's case since Toho is under complete control of the film, and...oh man, it just seems like an epic mess! As awful as the idea sounds, while giving me a bit of hope that it will be epic and awesome, is this crossover an epic win or an epic fail; ON WITH THE REVIEW!
A hot headed boss who hates the low ratings of a show that his company is sponsoring sends two men to go to a small tropical Island to find a giant monster that a scientist just told him about and bring it back to the city so that he can make money off of it. The two men that are sent to the Island discover that the giant monster that lives on the Island is none other than the famous giant ape himself King Kong. Meanwhile an American submarine gets caught in an Ice berg and accidentally unleashes the famous giant monster that's been frozen in the Ice berg since its last appearance, Godzilla. The two monsters break loose destroying the city and come face to face in one of the most highly anticipated giant monster movie brawls of all time.
When the film started, despite going in with a mixed emotion of how the film and brawl is going to turn out, the opening credits sequence began to hype me up as we see them appear in outer space and hear music that sounds gigantic and epic along with that choir. Despite feeling very iffy about this crossover, the start of the film started to raise my expectations high. After the credits, we see the earth and hear a narration that sounds just as epic and big as the music is, and after a few seconds of hearing this epic narration, the film quickly reveals that what we're actually looking at is a failing science show hosted by a comically lame science host, which pisses off the person that's sponsoring the show. That opening sequence alone shows you that this film isn't really aiming for a dark, dramatic, and epic crossover battle; it's actually a crossover that's done more for fun and is not meant to be taken seriously. In fact, the film carries more of a comedic tone that can be found in films starring Abbott and Costello or The Marx Brothers, than it carries a lighthearted family friendly tone that the film "Mothra" had. I mean the majority of human characters in this film act as cartoony as the famous comedy stars that I just mentioned, instead of having that balance of comedy and drama that the film "Mothra" had. However despite that the film’s tone is the total opposite of what I was expecting, and despite that the majority of characters in the film are comical and over the top, they are still really fun to watch, as well as the characters themselves being likable. But while being entertaining and likable, they're honestly not that memorable especially when comparing them to the comically light hearted characters in "Mothra". The only character that really stands out is the hot headed boss Mr.Tako (Ichiro Arishima) who's so fun and over the top that he steals every scene that he's in. He's even more memorable than the mood swinging boss in "Mothra", that's how fun and entertaining he is. The comical acting in the film is good and doesn't reach the level of pure over the top annoyance as you would think it would. The only bad actors in the film are the American soldiers in the submarine who are not funny and sound way to rehearsed when it comes to delivering their lines.
Despite how over the top comical that the film intends itself to be, the stuff that we enjoy from a Godzilla flick still remains. Godzilla's entrance in the film is way better than his entrance in "Godzilla Raids Again". Instead of showing Godzilla right away like in his previous appearance, we feel the evidence of Godzilla awakening from the Iceberg as the Submarine shakes and catch fire, and once we hear Godzilla's roar, that's when we know that Godzilla has officially awoken from his hibernation and is ready to kick some ass. A few scenes later, when we finally do see Godzilla, we immediately get total chaos of Godzilla destroying a military base, which is indeed awesome. Yes the military base that Godzilla destroys still looks like a model that's not up to scale, but the model does look convincing in a few shots; and seeing Godzilla destroy the base as he uses his atomic breath as the spikes on his back light up is still awesome to watch. When it comes to changes in terms of Godzilla and his design, this film does indeed have its share. The first noticeable change is instead of Godzilla being in black and white like in its last two films, Godzilla's in color, who not only looks great in color but this is the first time that we see Godzilla breathe out his trademark blue atomic breath, which does look cooler than the smoke effect for his atomic breath in the previous two films that he was in. Godzilla also looks a lot different than he did in its last movie since this film was made as a comedy that kids could see and as a result the people behind the film and the suit took away Godzilla’s ears; made the center dorsal fin bigger than the side dorsal fins; made the head longer, as well as giving Godzilla bigger eye pupils and a slight frown to the side of his mouth instead keeping his silly buck teeth from "Godzilla Raids Again"; he now has three toes instead of four; and the body is bigger than the last two suits. Godzilla's roar was also given a higher pitch, instead making it sounding as dark and eerie as it sounded in the last two films and would be Godzilla's roar for the rest of the Showa series. Despite that I prefer the dark and eerie Godzilla in the previous films (By previous films, I really mean the first film) it's still a cool design and the costume does look better compared to Godzilla's design in the last film. When it comes to continuity with this monster, I really wish that film was its own spin-off, instead of being a sequel to the previous movie because Godzilla being attracted to light in this film is completely ignored; and the idea that the people don't believe in finding a giant monster on a tropical island is really stupid since in the previous film with Godzilla, Godzilla and Anguirus were found on a tropical Island. I know these are different characters and that this is a new city, but considering that two giant monsters attacked a city in Japan you'd think that this would be at least a nation wide story. Also as much as I praise the new and improved design for Godzilla, this Godzilla is still considered to be the same Godzilla from "Godzilla Raids Again". However, I'm seriously nitpicking because those aren't my problems with the movie.
My main problem with the movie is Toho's attempt at creating
King Kong. You know how America
never gets a Godzilla film right (Even with the new one, despite coming close); Toho's
attempt at creating King Kong is pretty much the equivalent of that. Alright,
before I start bashing the crap out of this monster, there are a few things that
I liked from Toho's attempt at creating King Kong. They did bring the spirit of
the original "King Kong" by capturing a bit of Kong's personality by
being a savage animal and yet still being a gentle and confused creature at the same time. The on-screen rivalry that King Kong has with Godzilla is quite interesting, as Godzilla plays out as a
bully, while King Kong plays out as the cowering weakling that tries his best to
stand-up to Godzilla. Yeah I know that we've seen King Kong bravely fight against
giant creatures in the original film, as well as in this film, but considering
that Godzilla is an indestructible monster made of nuclear radiation that can
breathe fire, while the other creatures that King Kong has faced are regular
giant reptilian creatures that don't have some kind of special superpower like
Godzilla has; it does seem fitting that King Kong would be terrified by Godzilla. I also
do like the film's little nods to the original classic of "King
Kong". However, aside from having a bit of Kong's personality; an
interesting rivalry between Kong and Godzilla; and giving us a few nice little
nods to the original film; Toho's representation of King Kong pretty much sucks.
First of all, the rubber suit looks ridiculously silly. I mean it's so silly
looking that it looks like a badly made costume that you can get at a cheap
party store. Even the puppetry for its facial expressions looks silly. It's
almost like all the money and love and affection when it came into making the suits
for both monsters went towards their monster Godzilla, and just used the
cheapest and quickest way to create a monster that Toho knows that they
couldn't do as well as the Americans did with their classic giant monster.
Another problem that I have with Toho's adaptation of King Kong is instead of
just making King Kong as indestructible and big as Godzilla is and has to
think of a way to destroy Godzilla with his brains and ape-like ability and
instincts; the film decides to give King Kong the power to consume electricity and
use it against Godzilla. The effect is kind of cool and entertaining to
watch, but a major part of me feels insulted by this fact. How King Kong is able to get
this ability makes no sense, and just seems like a last minute loop hole that
the writers just lazily came up with to make this crossover a fair fight, instead of
just doing the things that I just mentioned earlier. I don't mind the changes
of making King Kong indestructible and making him up to size with Godzilla, but
giving King Kong the power of electricity is just pushing it, especially when considering the fact that electricity doesn't hurt Godzilla as
evidenced in the first film and yet it somehow does in this film. To make a long
story short of why this power was used, the film was originally going to be
about King Kong fighting a giant Frankenstein monster created by Dr.
Frankenstein that had different animal parts sewn together, but was dropped and
had the Frankenstein monster replaced with Godzilla. However, since electricity gives the the Frankenstein monster powers (Which seems fitting since he was awaken by electricity), they decided to give the power to
King Kong to make it a fair fight. I know this is Toho's
version of King Kong since it doesn't at all connect with the 1933 classic
(Which pretty much doesn't make this crossover seem legit, since this isn't thee
King Kong that Godzilla's fighting against) but it just seems like an out of place power to give to this iconic giant
ape whether its America's version or Toho's version.
Aside from Kong's laughable design, the effects are decent and have indeed gotten slightly better compared to the effects in “Mothra”. Granted, the city still does look like a model with the monsters not up to size and scale; and yes the matting effects still show their blue lines, but with that said, you can tell the effects team are not taking a step backwards (aside from the Kong suit) and are trying the best they can to work with these effects, and in some scenes the effects do work. Some times the models and the monsters destroying the models are close to being as being up to size and scale like in the first Godzilla film; and there are very few scenes where you do see the blue lines around the people for the blue screen effects, hell, some times they even show the blue screen scenes so quickly that you won't have time to notice the lines, when in “Mothra” you could easily catch the effect in a wink of an eye. The scenes of the monsters causing destruction and chaos as the army tries to find ways to kill Godzilla but fail, are as cool, campy, and entertaining as you would find them to be. My favorite sequence when it comes to effects and action actually isn't the fight between King Kong and Godzilla; it actually has to be the scene when a random giant octopus attacks the natives. As out of nowhere as that scene is, as well as being disappointing that we don't see other giant creatures on the Island like in the original "King Kong" film; the blue screen effect; the acting; the models; the music; the suspense; the sound effects; the action; the stop-motion; and the use of a live slimy octopus that looks like its actually attacking, all makes for a really fun fight sequence, leading up to King Kong's first appearance to finish the battle, and then gets comically wasted by drinking barrels of red berry juice that knock him out as the natives play a lullaby for him...ok that moment was beyond silly, but the fight before that moment is enjoyable. It's nowhere near as cool and epic as say the fight against giant squid in Disney's "20,000 Leagues Under The Sea", because it is cheesy, and silly, but still one of the best parts of the movie.
Of course the actual highlight of the movie that everybody went to see the film for is the climatic fight between both monsters. After laughing hysterically at a knocked out King Kong that's being lifted up by giant balloons that make him look like a lifeless puppet on strings; once he wakes up and Godzilla and King Kong come face to face that's when things get real. Despite that Godzilla is not attacking thee King Kong since the film doesn't follow any of the continuity to the classic King Kong film; and the fact that King Kong is using its out of place power that really shouldn't have any effect on Godzilla; it's still an awesome fight carrying the perfect amount of hilarious campy cheese, while also sucking you into awesome factor of seeing these two monsters brawl and destroy stuff. I won’t spoil or talk about anything that goes on during this fight, you just have to see it for yourself.
Even though my last paragraph clearly states that you should check out this film for the films final fight, that doesn't mean I think it’s the epic crossover between these two iconic giant monsters that I was hoping for, because it isn't. This giant monster crossover film is really a joke instead of being as exciting, epic, dramatic, and adventurous as you would hope it would be, it's just an over the top comedy involving these two giant monsters with Toho adapting Americas giant monster almost as bad as when America tries to adapt Toho’s giant monster. I know America did a better job with Godzilla in the 2014 Godzilla flick, but that's because Toho helped with the project and keep in mind, just because we got the monster right with Toho's help, that doesn't excuse the dull and boring characters; the weak and boring looking opponents that Godzilla has to fight; and those fake-out to the action scenes that really piss me off; but I digress. Getting back on topic with Toho's failed attempt at creating their own King Kong, while I'm not sure if this is the worst take on King Kong in all of film history since there are a few elements to the monster that I do consider to be good, as well as being plenty of other "King Kong" films that I haven't seen yet; I honestly don't know how anything can make King Kong any worse than he is here due to that laughably horrendous rubber suit; that out of character power that the film gives King Kong that’s lazily written in; and the fact that the King Kong that Godzilla is facing is not really the King Kong from the 1933 classic that should have somehow got resurrected. But as big of a let down as this film is, it was still a fun and entertaining film that actually did carry a few cool elements. The comical characters and atmosphere that this film has is a lot of fun; the effects and action sequences, especially the climatic fight at the end with King Kong and Godzilla are both cool and campy fun entertainment; and the updates to Godzilla in this film are awesome, despite that he’s no longer intended to be a horrifying giant monster. The film maybe a bad giant monster crossover that's not as epic as many of us hoped it would be, nor having Godzilla face the actual King Kong; but it really does deliver as a highly enjoyable entertaining movie, which for me is good enough for me to recommend this movie.
RATING 3/5
Before I end this review, I just want to say in this day and age of remakes, much like how many fans of the film feel (Including James Rolfe), I’m one of those people who do feel like that this film needs a remake. If we can have Toho focus on using and creating Godzilla for the remake, and have America do the same thing with King Kong the crossover would actually feel legit and would be so much better than giving both monsters to one studio. What would also be great is instead of doing another “King Kong” remake to build up “King Kong” for this epic match, they should bring back the "King Kong" from Peter Jackson's successful remake with Andy Serkis reprising his role as Kong, and somehow find a creative and plausible way to bring back this great giant monster back from the dead after so many decades. When they do decide to make a remake, I honestly hope they at the very least have King Kong use his actual skills and brains to fight Godzilla, than giving it an out of place superpower. I also hope that when that day comes when the film gets remade, they give the film an epic and adventurous feel with some horror, drama, and comedy, instead of being a flat out comical giant monster flick. Seriously, if the remake does everything that I just mentioned, as well as getting good actors to play memorable characters; thoughtful writing that’s not half-assed; cool special effects; excellent build-up that hypes you up; and action sequences that don’t immediately cut away to something else before they can start with the action; this could be an awesome movie and major summer blockbuster. I'm also interested in seeing Toho create "King Kong VS Frankenstein" as the original film was intended to be with an American studio helping Toho with getting King Kong right, like how Toho helped America get Godzilla right in the 2014 film, even though it was only Godzilla itself that the 2014 film succeeded with. I’m probably just dreaming and that a day for a remake or an attempt at making what “King Kong VS Godzilla” was originally going to be may never ever come in my time, or may not be at all the way how I envisioned it, but I can dream can’t I?
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