King Kong vs. Godzilla

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by Terickel

by Terickel

I often feel like I'm weird because I never liked King Kong (until Skull Island in the 'Monsterverse') and it comes from a really shallow place. Kid me, and really just to a lesser extent adult me, did not care to see Dinosaurs get hurt or killed so Kong offended me quite a bit as a young one and I only re-watched that original King Kong about a year ago. I never saw the 70′s one, I know I saw King Kong Escapes but don't remember a lot about it, and I really did not like the 2005 movie. Hell, the amount Kong came up online was always a bit of an annoyance.

All that's just to help any readers that might come across this imagine the grudge I held I against this movie. If the recent Godzilla vs Kong hadn't avenged this error I might not have re-watched this even in the Criterion Collection. I'm kidding. A little.

I watched both versions, English and Japanese that is on different nights, and overall it's a decent movie, certainly an improvement on Godzilla Raids Again. I might have my issues, but I won't try and pretend that they didn't do a good job or anything like that.

It's sad that none of the inhabitants of Kong's Island whether it's unnamed, Skull, or Faroh never really get... let's just say a complex or well-rounded portrayal. Old 30′s default racism, depicted as utterly feral in 2005, weird mutes in 2017 or just Japanese actors in skin darkening stuff in this movie. Weirdly I think the native population actually comes off the most human in this movie? They have other jobs, some stand out as individual characters with a bit of their own personality. They don't get killed off en-masse here either. Not really that big a thing I suppose but it did stand out to me.

Watching it again reminded me of how Godzilla had Kong beat in round 2 until the lightning conveniently started, which I'm sure contributed to my youthful frustration with the movie. Seriously, this and the Minilla clip show movie were the only ones I would pass on watching when I got the chance back when I was younger.

Anyway, yeah, grudge buried, it's now an option for viewing. We can just pretend it was a polite exchange where each country let the other country's monster win in the crossover. If nothing else, at least the part where Kong tries to roll and just ends up smacking his head into a giant rock.