WThey can all agree that the constraints that Covid brought with them reinforced all the things we had previously taken for granted. Some miss their loved ones. Some miss the pulsating mass of hot strangers on an unplanned outing. I? It turns out I’m apparently missing the face of a massive gorilla bumping a radioactive sea monster in the middle of its dumb face.
Of course, I did not know this until I watched the trailer for Godzilla vs Kong. Apparently Godzilla vs Kong is the biggest end of a long pregnant plan; a film universe where we are introduced to the first, most iconic creatures in film history, and then sigh in awe as they train each other. To enjoy Godzilla vs Kong, you should apparently take a quick look at Godzilla of 2014, Kong: Skull Island of 2017 and Godzilla: King of the Monsters of 2019. But you are not going to do that because the background story of this movie is completely contained in the title of three words. It’s a movie about King Kong punching Godzilla.
And honestly, I can not wait. No really. In terms of filmmaking, the past year has been a total no-brainer. I have managed to see only two films in theater over the past twelve months; one was Proxima, a sad French drama about motherhood. And the other was Tenet. Tenet, for crying out loud. A movie that committed the double sins of being too incomprehensible to stay awake and too noisy to sleep through. Tenet was advertised as nothing more than the savior of the theatrical film experience, which would have been very good except for the fact that it was not very good.
Now imagine that Godzilla vs Kong Tenet took his place. Imagine that the cinema’s escape plan was a movie where a 120-meter prehistoric allegory for nuclear destruction knocks the atomic beam out of its mouth by a gorilla that looks like a skyscraper in the air like a medieval battlefield. No, really think so. Because I sincerely believe that a film like this would not only have kept the cinemas open, but also forced the coronavirus into a terrified refuge.
I exaggerate, but not much. After the year we all had, watching the trailer of Godzilla vs Kong was like a massage. It felt like someone had lifted your brain from the top of your skull and carefully dipped it into a nice hot bath. ‘I know things were tough,’ he apparently said, ‘but here’s a movie about two giant idiots whaling each other for reasons not even important. Here is nothing to worry about. We have it ”.
They need to put that trailer on the Headspace app. There is something so relaxing about how utterly, unapologetically stupid it is. To see King Kong jump off an exploding boat, like auditioning for a Steven Seagal movie from the 1990s. To hear Rebecca Hall say, ‘I made a promise to protect her, and I think Kong did the same thing somehow’. To see the photo where someone pasted the newspaper headline ‘Monarch stumped on Godzilla’s motives’ on a map of the world is an idea. To hear the excited chorus on the soundtrack, reminiscent of Ligeti’s Requiem, and think “Bog off, this is a movie about a monkey fight”. The whole thing is perfect.
Admittedly, the movie itself can be awful. It may mistakenly assume that people want to see a movie rich in mythology and well-drawn characters, while King Kong wants to hit Godzilla in the mouth for two hours. This can be complicated by an overly complicated plot, such as Godzilla: King of the Monsters, when King Kong only wants to slap God in the mouth for two hours. It can have identifiable scenes and motivations if King Kong just slaps Godzilla in the mouth for two hours. Any of this would be a crying disgrace.
Because that’s what cinema is for. It’s not about important character pieces or even tent pole juggernauts. It’s about silly, mediocre, like in March released monster movies, that you’re only going to watch because it’s raining and nothing else is going on. It’s about leaving all your expectations at the door and still hating it. It’s about the experience of being a collective jerk with the realization that someone actually made this mess. I’m not kidding. I miss it. And as such, Godzilla vs Kong made me more excited than any movie I can remember.