[Like I mentioned in my previous post, here’s my incomplete Godzilla vs Kong review! The further along it gets, the more unfinished it is, but I wanted to share what I had before signing off. After the review I’ll cap it off with a mess of closing thoughts. Enjoy!]
Godzilla vs. Kong is the movie I have been waiting for since I was a little boy. Not necessarily this version of the movie, but a big budget, high-profile rematch between my two favorite monsters of all time. I love these two big mean fuckers on their own, but together? That’s pure movie magic. Totally audacious, unhinged imagination let loose and exploding on screens all over the planet.
The more I learned about filmmaking and the more I paid attention to the film industry growing up, the more I came to believe that Godzilla and King Kong would never meet again on the big screen. Even when Legendary announced their plans to build towards this movie, I had my doubts. A single MonsterVerse flop could easily kill the plan, a global plague could even more easily kill the plan. And yet!! And yet here I am, reviewing the movie I’ve hoped for and daydreamed for my whole life and spent over half my life convinced I would never get to see. Not only that, but the rest of the world at large (not just the kaiju fan community!) seems genuinely stoked! True randos were cooking up funny tweets and fan art and speculating about plot details in the lead-up to its release! I told a friend that the release of Godzilla vs. Kong felt like Monster Christmas, he agreed!
Godzilla vs. Kong, currently the capstone on Legendary Pictures’ ambitious MonsterVerse cinematic universe, has its problems, large and small… but it also delivers all the big, crazy, colorful, joyful, thrilling, scary, gross, and awe-inspiring fun you could ask for in the greatest monster prize fight rematch in history. Just the fact that there’s now a mega-budget, (relative) smash-hit Hollywood blockbuster that has a title starting with “Godzilla vs.” is incredibly exciting. The fact that said title ends with “Kong”?! I’m freaking the fuck out over here, gang. I will be for a long time 🤣
This won’t be one of my usual reviews. Partly because I’m probably incapable of being objective about this movie (I have pretty bad recency bias on a good day, let alone for a movie I’ve daydreamed about since I was 6), but also because I want to talk about where I’ve been lately, the new kaiju boom we’re living in, and how I’m thinking about some major changes when it comes to my writing and this website. I’ve also been jonesing for an excuse to look back on what this site, the kaiju fandom, and the monsters themselves have really meant to me all this time–MONSTERS CONQUER THE WORLD was always a deeply personal project, and these last couple years especially have taught me a lot about myself and why these big stompy bastards matter so much to me.
So this might be a sort-of kind-of a farewell post? Or at least saying farewell to the super in-depth kaiju reviews? Who knows, I might feel completely differently in the near future and find myself re-inspired to get back to the big meaty reviews! I’m not in a position to guarantee anything right now–so instead I want to just go with the flow and see where it takes me. Deep down I’ve been itching to pivot away from writing about other peoples’ creations and start writing my own stuff (I’ve threatened friends and family with fan-fic for years), and that’s at least some part of why I’ve had such a hard time getting out reviews the last couple years. Of course I can’t just WALK AWAY when there’s so much kaiju kontent to review, so for this big funky mega-post I will also do micro-reviews of every “Main Monster’s” filmography. For me that means Godzilla, Kong, Gamera, and Ultraman, and probably a few other odds and ends in there too [Had to ditch this, sorry. Maybe someday!]. This is a weird one and a big one and a personal one, so hoist up your glowing nuke-ax, buckle into your H.E.A.V. and grab a barf bag because we’re atomic breath-ing all the way down to the Hollow fuckin’ Earth!
So the monthly reviews haven’t exactly been uh, monthly in a while, have they? A solid six months of the hiatus (starting last July) I can pin on getting, struggling with, and moving on from a job that was not a good fit. The months after that are on me: adjusting to a new job, trying to make time for my people, balancing my other creative endeavors, and wrangling my stupid trash brain all left me without the normal level of chutzpah (and just, you know, time) I need to crank out reviews for your brain and eyeballs.
graciously hosted a stream of Godzilla: City on the Edge of Battle and Godzilla: The Planet Eater. Powering through them both on my own wasn’t something I looked forward to, but knocking ’em out with a bud was a pretty fuckin’ fun afternoon. It also helps that the movies genuinely get progressively better!
MONSTERS CONQUER THE WORLD 