Godzilla
Okay, I watched this several days ago, and honestly didn’t have much to say about it. I enjoyed it, but I found it pretty perfunctory. The most interesting aspect to me was the backstory of the 1950s nuclear tests secretly being attempts to kill Godzilla - fun worldbuilding!
The characters are pretty generic, buoyed by good performances from Elizabeth Olsen and Bryan Cranston, in particular. Ken Watanabe gets the instant classic “let them fight.” Unfortunately, I didn’t care much for Ford, or Aaron Taylor-Johnson’s portrayal of him.
It was fine! I enjoyed it! But not a lot to chew on long-term.
Kong: Skull Island
This one, on the other hand, was a hoot. The movie has personality to spare, taking full advantage of its Vietnam-era setting, from the character archetypes in play to the musical choices. That setting also gives it a little more thematic weight, as the Americans showing up and bombing the crap out of Skull Island sets the film’s events into motion.
Kudos to the filmmakers for daring to set a number of the action pieces in daylight - a confident move.
Both movies have a good thoroughline of the MUTOs being fairly amoral, not necessarily “good” or “evil.” Between the two Hero Monsters, Kong comes off as smarter and more empathetic, while Godzilla is more of a force of nature.
My biggest complaint? It took me about 20 minutes to figure out why the movie looked so weird before I concluded that it must have been filmed with 3D in mind. I really hate that.
I can see that - I’m a big fan of the 1933 film, and enjoyed the 1976 and 2005 versions well enough. But I didn’t have any expectations that this movie would bear any resemblance to those. Taken as its own thing, I thought it was fun. And if you have to build a Cinematic Universe, you’re going to need some kind of point of origin for all of these monsters.