I wrote recently that a key mistake that Godzilla movies tend to make is underestimating the importance of the human characters. Godzilla works best not as a character but as a metaphor, and you need those human characters to carry forward the importance of whatever the movie is about with the monster brawls and destruction as the icing on the cake. The movies falter when they’re all icing, and sadly, Adam Wingard’s Godzilla vs. Kong is such a film. Despite a cast comprised of great actors, they exist solely to move the plot along so that we can get Godzilla fighting Kong. To be fair, the film does what it says on the tin, and if you’re in it solely for monster brawls, you’ll get your money’s worth (or the value of your HBO Max subscription, although the film likely benefits from a theatrical experience, so see it on the big screen if you’ve been vaccinated). But Godzilla vs. Kong is another example of how thin a film can be when it offers nothing but CGI spectacle and cares about little else.

Picking up three years after the events of Godzilla: King of the Monsters, the world was at peace until Godzilla, seemingly unprovoked, attacked a facility belonging to Apex Cybernetics, a futuristic and powerful company that’s never been mentioned in these movies until now. Seeing Godzilla as a threat, Apex recruits Hollow Earth scientist Dr. Nathan Lind (Alexander Skarsgård) to team up with Kong researcher Ilene Andrews (Rebecca Hall) and her ward Jia (Kaylee Hottle), who can communicate with Kong, to have the big ape lead them into the Hollow Earth where they can find an energy source powerful enough to defend against Godzilla. Meanwhile, Madison Russell (Millie Bobby Brown) has gotten really into a conspiracy podcast from Apex employee Bernie Hayes (Brian Tyree Henry), who believes that his company is up to no good and seeks to expose it. Madison brings in her friend Josh (Julian Dennison) for the ride and they team up with Bernie to find out what Apex is planning.

You could be forgiven if you forget these characters’ names in the middle of watching the movie. You could also be forgiven for forgetting basic plot points like, “Wait, why do they need Kong to go into the Hollow Earth?” Godzilla vs. Kong is a movie you forget as you’re watching it because it’s wholly uninterested with elements that typically make us invest in a movie like character or clever plotting or theme or anything beyond splashy VFX leading to the big monster brawl. Obviously, people who watch a movie called “Godzilla vs. Kong” are coming to see that attraction, but that only makes up less than a quarter of the film’s runtime. Everything else is simply table-setting and exposition to move the characters and various monsters to where they need to be. For example, when the characters reach the Hollow Earth, it should be a big moment for Lind since it’s the culmination of his life’s work, and it doesn’t even register. It’s more important for Kong to smash some creature because that’s what the audience wants to see, and so the people don’t matter.

And maybe I’m asking for the wrong thing from a movie called “Godzilla vs. Kong”, but humans are the lifeline for the audience, and without that, you no longer buy into the situation. Godzilla and Kong are reduced to giant CGI creations smashing into each other just as in the weaker Godzilla movies you lose interest and are reminded that you’re only watching people in rubber suits smashing into each other. A good story creates our suspension of disbelief, but Godzilla vs. Kong is only interested in CGI destruction, which puts it on par with any Transformers movie with maybe a slightly more coherent plot.

The film tries to feint towards having character development with multiple leads having lost people close to them. Madison lost her mother, Nathan lost his brother, Jia lost her parents, and Bernie lost his wife. This kind of relates to how Kong is looking for a family too, but this is the seed of an idea that never gets developed because it’s more important to rush the characters to their next set piece or plot discovery. The film never takes a break to argue why you should care about these characters and perhaps the only one who gets any worthwhile attention is Kong.

Do not go into this movie thinking that Godzilla and Kong are weighted equally. Godzilla vs. Kong is really more of a Kong: Skull Island sequel than a sequel to the Godzilla movies, and that makes sense if only because Kong is a more expressive creation. He’s humanoid, mammalian, and can manage complex facial expressions while Godzilla is simply a big reptile. The story is really Kong’s journey, and while he doesn’t really change much on that journey, you’re meant to sympathize with him while Godzilla mostly rampages in an indifferent manner. If you’re a Godzilla fan, that may bum you out, but I guess the logic is that Godzilla already received two movies while Kong only had one.

But even talking about “sequels”, there’s nothing coherent about Warner Bros. and Legendary’s Monsterverse. Rather than using characters to anchor it across the movies, they rested solely on IP and the result is that you can’t really remember what happens in these movies other than monsters smashing stuff. I saw Godzilla: King of the Monstersless than two years ago and could not tell you a single thing that happened in that movie. I saw Godzilla vs. Kong less than two days ago and I’m struggling to remember anything that happened. Everything that’s remotely memorable comes from the monster fights, and even that’s pretty fleeting because they’re set pieces not rooted in anything other than CGI mayhem.

Godzilla vs. Kong is the most cynical of blockbusters because it believes you as a viewer demand nothing more than nostalgia mixed with CGI spectacle. You take the IP of Godzilla and Kong (two names that people recognize even if they’ve never seen a single one of the previous movies), you no longer worry about the subtext and fears these characters originally represented, and you just set them loose to smash against each other in the name of blockbuster destruction. And while this isn’t new, there’s something particularly disheartening watching directors like Gareth Edwards, Jordan Vogt-Roberts, Michael Dougherty, and now Wingard, throw themselves into something so utterly disposable where the only winners are AT&T shareholders solemnly nodding at their investment. Obviously, all blockbusters are built on commerce whether they turn out to be good movies or not. Warner Bros. didn’t make films like Mad Max: Fury Road or Harry Potter out of the goodness of their hearts. They did it to make money, and that’s fine. But rarely is it so transparent and lazy as the empty spectacle and mindless destruction presented in Godzilla vs. Kong. The audience, the cast, and these chonky bois deserve better.

Rating: D-