After the successful American revivals of Godzilla in the big-budget monster mash spectacles of Godzilla (2014) and Godzilla: King of the Monsters (2019), which reimagined the nuclear-spawn lizard king of Japanese cinema as an elemental "Alpha Titan" protecting Earth from other giant monsters, and King Kong in Kong: Skull Island (2017), it was inevitable that the two would meet in a giant monster battle. It was even foreshadowed in a post-credit scene in Kong: Skull Island that sets up an interconnected "Monsterverse."
The two worlds collide in Godzilla vs. Kong (2021), which opens with a seemingly unprovoked attack by Godzilla on Pensacola, Florida, and continues on to transport Kong from his secret preserve on Kong Island (chained to an aircraft carrier, echoing the 1976 King Kong), bringing on a monster battle on the high seas.
The rather complicated plot involves hollow earth theory, a nefarious corporation with an underground high-speed rail spanning the globe, a team of conspiracy theorists, and a new take on the giant Mecha-Godzilla robot of the Japanese franchise. The human characters (played by Rebecca Hall, Alexander Skarsgård, Millie Bobby Brown, Demián Bichir, and others) play second fiddle to the screen giants and the film builds to the promised clash of the titans in the climax.
If the human characters are lacking, the CGI artists give Kong a personality and Godzilla a kind of elemental majesty, and those qualities help define the epic battle scenes. Director Adam Wingard, graduating from low-budget horror films to a big-budget monster movie, makes sure that the action is big, easy to follow, and dramatic (where the murky King of the Monsters fails).
The film was made to be seen on the big screen but most people in the U.S. saw it on cable where it was released on HBO Max the same day it opened in theaters in the midst of the Covid pandemic. The silliness of the plot and the logical gaps are more apparent on the small screen, where the spectacle isn't as overwhelming, but it is still fun to watch and brings the tetralogy to a satisfying conclusion. At least until another installment is unleashed.
All of the violence is in the monster battles and there's no sex, human violence, or explicit foul language. The official PG-13 rating is for "intense sequences of creature violence/destruction and brief language." Both DVD and Blu-ray editions include ten featurettes covering the history and legacy of the two iconic screen creatures and special effects on three key battle sequences (running about 70 minutes all told). The Blu-ray also includes a feature-length commentary track from director Adam Wingard. Recommended.