On the one hand, I suppose you could argue that Legendary’s “MonsterVerse” was a success simply by virtue of existing. While other studios rushed to copy Marvel’s success of a cinematic universe, no one was really able to pull it off. You would get these bizarre kinds of half-starts like King Arthur: Legend of the Sword and Robin Hood or your movie would be plagued by production problems like the DCEU or the attempt would simply flop outright like the Dark Universe. Technically, Godzilla, Kong: Skull Island, Godzilla: King of the Monsters all lead up to Godzilla vs. Kong, so the MonsterVerse does meet the definition of cinematic universe.
But was it any good? I’d argue that it was a series of missed opportunities that relied too heavily on IP and CGI mayhem rather than the unglamorous but necessary work of creating good stories featuring captivating characters. Every film took a director who had previously made an exciting low-budget feature and then had them technically add “personality” without really letting them be storytellers who could flesh out a continuing narrative. Instead, Gareth Edwards, who previously did the shoestring indie Monsters, made a somber Godzilla that still couldn’t figure out who its hero should be. Jordan Vogt-Roberts, who helmed the lively and effervescent The King of Summer added a lot of 1970s Apocalypse Now stylings to Kong: Skull Island, but even he admitted that he didn’t know why Tom Hiddleston and Brie Larson were in his movie. Michael Dougherty made one of the great horror films of the 21st century with Trick ‘r Treat, and his Godzilla: King of the Monsters is completely anonymous. And while You’re Next helmer Adam Wingard added a nice neon sheen to Godzilla vs. Kong, there was hardly anything daring or interesting about the movie.
And perhaps Legendary wanted it this way with directors who had garnered some acclaim with smaller projects but didn’t have enough clout to push back against whatever the studio wanted. But what exactly did Legendary want? What was its goal other than using the Godzilla and King Kong IP to make big monster movies filled with CGI spectacle? Maybe at some point that was deemed good enough for Legendary and distributor Warner Bros., but movies today have no shortage of spectacle. Every summer blockbuster is packed to the brim with CGI, and Legendary’s solution was to simply cover their films with a thin layer of acclaimed filmmakers and actors while never paying much attention to the nuts and bolts of good storytelling presumably because they assumed an audience that shows up for movie stars and monster fights don’t care about narrative and character arcs, which is really selling the audience short.
It would be like going into Alien and Aliens and assuming that the audience doesn’t really care about the human characters; they just want those brutal, eye-catching xenomorphs. The xenomorphs have a lot of flavor! They’re one of the most memorable monsters in cinema history! But what makes you care about those stories is Ellen Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) and what she’s going through. Even Prometheus and Alien: Covenant are wise enough to know that without Ripley you still need a compelling character, so they brought David (Michael Fassbender) into the mix. We can argue about how successful that makes the film overall, but there’s an understanding that without some serious tether to a person rather than a creature, the audience will lose interest.
Rather than letting the audience get invested in its characters, MonsterVerse was all about the monsters at the expense of the people. That’s why there’s zero cost in moving Kyle Chandler from the heroic protagonist of Godzilla: King of the Monsters to a guy with maybe seven lines of dialogue in Godzilla vs. Kong. That’s why it doesn’t matter that not a single character from 2014’s Godzilla made it to the culmination of this story other than Godzilla, who is frankly kind of sidelined by Kong in Godzilla vs. Kong. That’s why Godzilla: King of the Monsters doesn’t really make it a point to note that Joe Morton is playing an older Dr. Houston Brooks, who was played by Corey Hawkins in Kong: Skull Island. All of these people are interchangeable and the connection between the movies is purely superficial.
Legendary had an opportunity to do something sneaky and clever with their MonsterVerse by handing the reins over to a single vision, or perhaps a group of thoughtful producers that could map out an interconnected story centered around these two beasts. Instead, it looks like they simply went film-to-film without ever investing in a single vision, character, or plot that would make the MonsterVerse feel like an endeavor worth undertaking. Instead, it’s really just two Godzilla movies, one Kong movie, and a movie where Godzilla and Kong are in the same movie. There’s nothing special about that, and it was even done before way back in 1962, so it’s not like Legendary was creating a fresh concept here.
Instead of feeling like the culmination of a gargantuan effort, Godzilla vs. Kong plays like the last sad gasp of the MonsterVerse. For those looking for nothing more than giant monsters smashing into each other, you’ve got it, but you also had it in 2018’s Rampage, a film has largely been forgotten. Godzilla and King Kong are iconic characters whose best stories have good characters paired with thoughtful subtext. Legendary chose to discard all that and the result has been four films that may have had varying levels of success but none really standing as much more than studio product resting on CGI and IP. I suppose it’s nice to see Godzilla fight Kong as much as it’s nice to see any kind of CGI spectacle designed to dazzle the audience, but as a story worth telling and a universe worth building, the MonsterVerse ended up as a shallow crater on the blockbuster landscape.