Tag: Kaylee Hottle

Cinema Dispatch: Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire

~ Matt Vetrano ~ Leave a comment

Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire and all the images you see in this review are owned by Warner Bros. Pictures

Directed by Adam Wingard

We’re five movies deep into the Monsterverse, plus one TV series I haven’t bothered to watch yet, and excepting Kong: Skull Island, none of them have left much of an impression on me. A bit of an odd thing to say when it comes to movies about giant monsters getting into fist fights, but something’s always felt missing that kept me from engaging with it beyond a very rudimentary level, and it seems unlikely that we’ll be pulling things back to see what can be fixed when they can just go bigger with each movie. Then again, we’ve come quite far since the dreary days of Gareth Edwards’s Godzilla feature, and if nothing else the addition of a robot arm for Kong and pink highlights for Godzilla show that they aren’t afraid to escalate the goofiness which could be just enough to get me back on board. Will the pieces finally fall into place in this latest monster mash, or has this franchise simply left me behind without even glancing in the rearview mirror? Let’s find out!!

With the discovery of the Hollow Earth, the world has somehow managed to keep on trucking with Godzilla on the surface to bash any monsters that start giving humanity funny looks, and Kong enjoying an early retirement in the Hollow Earth; chilling under waterfalls and basking in whatever the equivalent of sunlight is in the Earth’s core. Still, retirement can be a lonely thing for the last of one’s kind, and Kong can only talk to his awesome warrior axe so many times before it gets weird. Thankfully, the Hollow Earth is like an ogre in that it has many layers, and he stumbles into the home of a race of giant apes like himself. Before we can throw Kong a family reunion, however, it seems these apes are not too friendly towards the big guy and something about their reemergence has put Godzilla into butt-kicking mode as he powers himself up for whatever happens next. What are these apes up to in their own little corner of the world, and will it spell doom for the surface world? Can Kong show these apes a path towards peace, or will he be forced to take them down alongside his frenemy Godzilla? Seriously, who had the foresight to make Kong a power glove? What, did they think he’d have to win an arm wrestling tournament to save humanity!?

“Pound it, bro”
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Cinema Dispatch: Godzilla vs. Kong

~ Matt Vetrano ~ Leave a comment
This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is gvkcd0.jpg

Godzilla vs. Kong and all the images you see in this review are owned by Warner Bros Pictures

Directed by Adam Wingard

It’s no secret that I was not a fan of King of the Monsters which was particularly surprising to me as I always get a kick out of seeing giant monster movies!  There was just too much pretention and import without enough depth or butt kicking fight scenes to justify how lethargic much of it was, but if there was anything about the movie that caught my interest (aside from them using the Blue Oyster Cult song for the credits), it was the promise of seeing Godzilla and the King Kong from Kong: Skull Island lace up the gloves and duke it out in a battle to end all battles!  Well the one thing that giant monsters were not able to overcome was the Pandemic as this got pushed back for several months, but the day has finally arrived and they even put it on HBO Max to boot!  Is this the titanic clash between two legendary movie monsters we’ve all been waiting for, or is this a bigger letdown than Batman v Superman?  Let’s find out!!

Following the events of Godzilla: King of the Monsters, Monarch has decided that instead of leaving Kong alone on his mysterious island that is probably not even on Godzilla’s radar, they’ll capture him, chain him up, and put him in a fake jungle so that… I guess he and Godzilla don’t have a punch up.  It seems that Kong himself wasn’t consulted on this as he’s constantly wrecking up his cage and has to be restrained whenever he’s out of it, but in any case, along with that there’s a new Super Science company in town named Apex run by some dude named Walter (Demián Bichir) who believes that there’s some sort of Unobtanium-like SUPER OIL that requires drilling even deeper into the Earth to get.  How deep?  Well so deep that apparently you empty out into a whole new world which is where the monsters they’ve been dealing with are actually from.  A rag tag team of scientists are assembled to try and prove this Hollow Earth theory and since they’ve already got a giant monster under lock and key, they can use his… something something science babble to help them find the entrance to the Hollow Earth and make perhaps the greatest discovery in all of human history!  Said team is made up of some geologist dude (Alexander Skarsgård), Kong’s caretaker (Rebecca Hall), her adopted daughter (Kaylee Hottle), and Walter’s very annoyed daughter (Eiza González) along with like five or six nameless army dudes. Now all this however assumes that Godzilla, the supposed protector of Earth, doesn’t come in and wreck Apex/Monarch’s plans, but hey I guess if they’ve got Kong on hand anyway, why not let him punch the giant lizard a few times along the way?  Oh, and Millie Bobby Brown is back on a Goonies adventure to discover the secrets of Apex along with a nerd (Julian Dennison) and a conspiracy theorist (Brian Tyree Henry) who has no problem dragged teenagers along on a life threatening adventure.  Then again, Rebecca Hall has someone even younger tagging along with her, so either way there seems to be way too many irresponsible grown-ups running around here.  Will Apex and Monarch be able to find the hidden entrance to the Hollow Earth and perhaps find some answers about Kong as well?  What does Apex want with this new energy source, and could Godzilla’s recent aggression towards them be somehow connected?  Am I the only one picturing a better movie where the giant ape and the giant lizard just say SCREW this and work together to destroy everyone involved with this ridiculous venture!?

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“Join me, brother! These humans care NOTHING for our kind!” “I would, but… your face… is so… PUNCHABLE!!”
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Cinema Dispatch: Trailer Talk (Godzilla vs Kong)

~ Matt Vetrano ~ Leave a comment

Godzilla vs Kong and all the images you see in this trailer talk are owned by Warner Bros Pictures

Directed by Adam Wingard

Warner Bros’ bold move to release their movies on streaming the same day as theaters is going to be one of the more interesting stories of 2021, and this film is probably going to be the one indicate its direction.  Sure they gave us Wonder Woman 1984, but that had been delayed so long and theaters were still staying closed for the foreseeable future that it almost felt like WB throwing the world a bone or perhaps even a Christmas present.  A present that was pretty wonky and not nearly as its predecessor, but I guess it’s the thought that counts.  This one is a bit different because the vaccine means that people are going to try and get back to a normal life; some faster than others while the responsibility of such actions remains… dubious at best.  I’m HOPING things get fixed before the Summer, but I’m guessing there’s going to be more than enough people out there saying it’s already fixed today.  So with that said, this movie is one that COULD conceivably be delayed for a full theater release without waiting too long, but WB is committed to this strategy and we’ll have to see how it pays off for them; if releasing these big blockbusters on streaming will build up HBO Max enough to offset the costs, or if they are just throwing money down the drain because they couldn’t wait for a safer time to release.  As interesting as all that is though, we’re here to talk about the trailer that they released so let’s take a look at it!

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My biggest fear going into this is that I was NOT a fan of Godzilla: King of the Monsters and that this would be a continuation of that.  I found the whole thing rather insufferable with just how much the overwrought drama weighed down the monster fighting action of which there was already a dearth of.  Oh sure, you can go back to the Japanese Godzilla films and point out how much human drama was in THOSE, but first I wouldn’t say they were SPECTACULAR either, and second they didn’t have a bloated runtime dragging things down even more.  Twenty minutes of Kaiju action in a ninety minute movie is better than twenty-five minutes of Kaiju action in a hundred and thirty minute movie; especially when the action itself is obscured by so much bad weather.  Frankly the giant dudes in costumes brawling in full day light may not have looked the best but had a lot more charm than King of the Monsters. 

TEAM KONG, ALL THE WAY!!
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