Sooo.... Honeymoon phase aside... I nigh loved everything about this movie. I loved the fact that I could catch it before work, yet still have plenty of time afterwards, without feeling like I was rushed. It’s a very tight and lazer focused film, and the little bit of downtime that is there is still interesting enough to have held my attention. The human cast reminded me a lot of Skull Island’s: Colorful, entertaining, if a bit hollow (pun intended?) when it came to a few of them. The cinematography was absolutely stellar, A+ work, with everything being vibrant and colorful without ever resorting to filters; it’s super crisp.
As for Godzilla and Kong themselves... Jesus did they do a perfect job with both of them. Kong was incredibly well humanized, and you felt his emotions and what he was thinking, even when there wasn’t any dialogue nor characters helping out. I genuinely felt sympathetic for the giant ape Titan
Godzilla was a goddamn force of nature, a vengeful, yet misunderstood god who wasn’t taking shit from anyone here. He’s scary intelligent, and chock full of personality. There are plenty of moments where I was just gawking at how perfectly framed his shots were. Plenty of close ups on both of the Titans, but Godzilla in particular was shot in ways that we’ve never seen before in the MV. Just like Kong, it was very easy to tell what he was thinking and feeling, those beautiful eyes and amazing facial expressions doing great work for the big G.
The fight scenes were chef’s kiss good, and there were barely, barely any cut aways to the human cast. When there were, they lasted for a few seconds, before the movie shoved the main stars right back in your face.
If it feels like I’m gushing, it’s because I am, lol. I’m genuinely not trying to sound biased, but right now, and likely every time that I watch GvK, there really won’t be anything that necessarily bugs me. It’s not a perfect movie, but damn if it isn’t a great one, and whatever flaws that are present are incredibly minute for me. Which makes me happy, because it’s doing so damn well for itself in terms of numbers, reviews, RT aggregates, etc. The future is bright for the Monsterverse, which is good, because with what this movie personally brings to the table, there is a lot more that they can do, and places they can go.
Oh, and the beginning... I, in a thousand years was not expecting that... At all. It was a good start, definitely gave me a nice giggle.