The 568th film I have seen in theaters…

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An ancient evil tries to conquer the Earth with a new Ice Age. Who you gonna call to stop him? Wait…Is this almost the same plot as the last movie I saw: Ghostbusters Frozen Empire? Yes it is. This time however, we call Godzilla and Kong rather than Paul Rudd and Bill Murray.

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This is another “Kong” movie. Godzilla may get top billing but make no mistake: Kong is the star. I am actually ok with this. You can get more emotion from Kong than ‘Zilla. The power glove was stupid as hell, but in a good way. That said, Godzilla was done right here. He remains the protector of the Earth version.

Rebecca Hall, Haylee Hottle, and Brian Tyree Henry return as Ilene, Jia, and Bernie from the previous entry. They were the better human subplot of that film, so this works for me. Dan Stevens joins the action as Kaiju veterinarian Trapper. I really liked the human stuff in this one. The ancient magic crystal lost civilization angle was pure pseudoscience nonsense and fit perfectly into this story.

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Was this a stupid movie? Hell yeah. Particularly when compared to Godzilla-0. That movie was a thoughtful rumination on war, grief, loss, and guilt that happened to have Godzilla in it. This is a movie about what happens when a giant monkey with a power glove must punch other monkeys while his lizard friend blasts them with his atomic breath. All that said, was I smiling ear to ear for a large portion of this movie? Fuck yes I was. This was top tier popcorn nonsense. These films can be intelligent, emotionally scarring, and scary or silly, fun and entertaining trash. This movie knows what end of that spectrum it is on. Building on the tone of the last couple films, GxK turns it up to 11. A must see on the big screen.

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7/10

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