Battle Royale

 As the COVID quarantine threatens to extend endlessly, one thing I am beginning to miss is big new action movies. So many have been scheduled into the misty future or put on Yet Another Streaming Service that I don't want to pay for. Thank goodness, Godzilla vs. Kong (2021) came around.

It starts in the jungle with a pretty little Asian girl (Kaylee Hottle) meeting with an angry Kong. It seems she can communicate with it by sign language (the character and actor are deaf). I felt like she was going to be a replacement for Millie Bobby Brown, but wait.

Brown has been listening to a lot of podcasts by investigative caster and nutcase Brian Tyree Henry. He has infiltrated the Apex company because he suspects they are up to something with the monsters. And then Godzilla, who has been quiet up to now, attacks their facility, letting Henry get a look at some kind of machine. 

It turns out that they are investigating the Hollow Earth as the home of the monsters. They hire Alexander Skarsgard to investigate, although he is considered a mad scientist. His plan is to let Kong lead them to the Hollow Earth. For this, he needs to work with Kong-Whisperer Rebecca Hall, Hottle mother. Together, they will dope up Kong and put him on a ship for the Antarctic.

Meanwhile, Brown and her buddy Julian Dennison (Hunt for the Wilderpeople) are helping Henry infiltrate the Apex plant, and accidentally get shipped to the Hong Kong office. There, they discover Apex's secret: MechaGodzilla! (Oh, sorry if that's a spoiler.)

There's a GvK fight on the high-seas, with Godzilla the champion. There is some Kong v misc. monsters in the Hollow Earth. Then Godzilla and MechaGodzilla mess up Hong Kong for a while, and Kong joins in to defeat MechaG. So, Godzilla wins, but lets Kong rule Hollow Earth, while he (she? I forget if this version lays eggs) rules the world above. And so there is peace in the monsterverse - for now.

But when it was all over, I was kind of nonplussed. Sure the fights and explosions were mostly fun. The fight in Hong Kong looked a little miniaturish - they kept knocking down skyscrapers trimmed in neon. But I assume that was an homage to the original movies. My big problem was that it was overstuffed with stuff - the Apex had at least two major villains with backstories that I only got from reading Wikipedia after the fact. The Skarsgard/Hallsections were kind of interesting, because they were reasonably realistic scientists, not action heroes. Although it was pretty funny to find out that the crackpot Hollow Earth theorists had a major military base and some futuristic Tron cars. 

The Henry/Brown/Dennison parts were the most fun - Henry buys into every imaginable conspiracy theory and gets one right more or less by accident. Brown is smart, warm and fearless, and Dennison does the standard wacky, reluctant friend thing very well. But my favorite part may have been Hottle, a solemn, wise, silent presence. I wanted to see more of her. Maybe she could meet up with the tiny girls who summon Mothra.