Fun
Frisky
Nostalgic
Intense
Adventurous
Choked Up
Curious
Romantic
Weird
You may have heard that Godzilla and King Kong are currently duking it out on HBO Max and in movie theaters worldwide — and not for the first time. King Kong vs. Godzilla was a turning point in the ongoing Godzilla series back in 1963, and now Godzilla vs. Kong brings to a head the four-movie MonsterVerse series (and seems to have enticed plenty of people back into movie theaters in the process).
Nearly 60 years after their first match-up, the cinematic landscape is a little different; in 2021, a monster-mashing crossover is par for the course. If anything, releasing four MonsterVerse movies in seven years represents an act of restraint, as far as Marvel-aping franchise-building goes. But earlier this century, another pair of high-profile monster-versus-monster movies attempted to bring back several moribund franchises at once, at a time when “cinematic universes” were just known as “movies with a ton of decreasingly successful sequels.” As it happens, both 2003’s Freddy vs. Jason and 2004’s Alien vs. Predator are also currently streaming on HBO Max alongside their supersized cousins, making for a brisk, sometimes delightful, and slightly exhausting triple feature.
More than most would-be title matches, Godzilla vs. Kong has history on its side. The 1963 Kong bout was followed by plenty more sequels, wherein the classic monster scraps (and sometimes teams up) with an array of imaginative foes. (The original 1954 Godzilla, of course, is a more somber affair that less resembles a pro wrestling match.) Newer monster-versus movies harken back to that tradition while simultaneously feeling slightly unnatural in their attempt to serve two different monsters; unlike many of the old Godzilla movies, they aren’t able to offer either side a home-field advantage. Despite the junkiness of many Nightmare on Elm Street and Friday the 13th sequels, these two series do have their own distinct identities, and a movie like Freddy vs. Jason has to figure out how to reconcile dream-logic grotesquerie with a deathless, gore-hounding Halloween knockoff.
Freddy vs. Jason finds common ground in the campiness of late-series entries from both franchises, which the movie merges into a self-awareness bordering on self-parody. The way the movie winks at its splatters of blood and presentations of obligatory nudity feels like Freddy Krueger engineering a Jason Voorhees movie, a fair enough approach given Freddy’s experience as a director of darkly funny nightmares. Alien vs. Predator, meanwhile, takes a clear side. It more resembles the high-energy sci-fi cheesiness of the Predator movies than the atmospheric dread of the Alien series, even giving the Predators a heel-face turn that allows them to eventually serve as the lesser of two evils. Its connection to the Alien series is more metatextual: In the tradition of the first four movies each submitting to the vastly different styles of their directors, this one reflects the sensibility of writer-director Paul W.S. Anderson. Anderson has developed more of a critical following in the years since AVP, but even his detractors would have to acknowledge that his take on the Alien series—pitting them against another movie monster in a video game-like underground maze with a tough woman at its center—fits the aesthetic of his other projects like Mortal Kombat, Resident Evil, and the recent Monster Hunter.
The rotating director tactic has been adapted by MonsterVerse series, and if it doesn’t seem to have boosted a talent at the level of James Cameron or David Fincher, it has at least kept the series from forming an obvious house style. Adam Wingard’s Godzilla vs. Kong doesn’t much resemble the elegance of the 2014 Gareth Edwards version of Godzilla or the sun-cooked Vietnam references of the 2017 Jordan Vogt-Roberts Kong: Skull Island. Still, Wingard’s film can’t fully avoid taking a side, even within its own style. On the whole, it’s more Kong’s movie than Godzilla’s; Kong is the one, after all, who gets to jump into the movie’s elaborately, gloriously ridiculous Hollow Earth, the location from whence all of these gigantic monsters originate. Naturally, he finds a radioactive battle-axe there—after fighting some winged serpents and gazing at a field of gravity-defying rocks.
Those are the types of of bonkers additions missing from Freddy vs. Jason and Alien vs. Predator. Fun as they are, both of those movies are more fixated on reintroducing and employing their creatures’ trademarks (Freddy’s razor gloves; the xenomorph’s acid blood) so they can be employed in eventual armed conflict. They stage their showdowns with wrestling-world brio, but stick to no-frills settings like an abandoned Antarctic outpost and an abandoned construction site. Godzilla vs. Kong eventually smashes through the neon-highlighted skyline of Hong Kong, razing buildings with almost every punch. The movie is deeply silly and, at under two hours, not overlong. Visually, though, it’s big and bold.
This may be how the MonsterVerse attempts to muscle its way through the major contradiction at the center of the modern monster “versus” movie, between long-building fan clamor and the sweaty desperation that inspires the face-offs in the first place. From outside the monster-enthusiast bubble, a “versus” movie doesn’t promise years of Godzilla-style longevity. Freddy vs. Jason and Alien vs. Predator both notched their respective series’ highest grosses in years—yet they also failed to bring any of them fully back from the dead. Despite an open ending, Freddy and Jason never reteamed, and didn’t appear onscreen again until their respective remakes (neither of which inspired any sequels either—slasher sacrilege). Alien vs. Predator led to one lackluster sequel, easily the low point of both series. By the early 2010s, both the Aliens and the Predators had new installments of their own, which pointedly ignored their low-rent grudge matches (and in both cases, still failed to really launch new franchises).
Godzilla vs. Kong is different in that respect; the MonsterVerse folks surely think of this as their much-anticipated Avengers rather than their abrupt pivot to Batman v. Superman or, worse, their Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem. At the same time, the future of the MonsterVerse is hardly assured, in part by design. Warner Bros. made four of these things, long intending to bring them to a head with Godzilla vs. Kong, and one pleasure of this series is its refusal to endlessly tease. Godzilla vs. Kong has no postcredits scene; though its success may well inspire another round of monster-versus-monster action, it’s far from assured. No matter how iconic the monsters, bringing them together tends to feel like an endpoint. By the time a movie series reaches the playground-hypothetical phase of its existence, it’s probably close to the end. No longer drawing their own crowds, fearsome icons are forced to fight for the audience’s attention.
“By the time a movie series reaches the playground-hypothetical phase of its existence, it’s probably close to the end. No longer drawing their own crowds, fearsome icons are forced to fight for the audience’s attention.”
That could change now that playground hypotheticals have become a major part of Hollywood’s development strategy. (Endings, pointedly, are very much not.) But as with other team-ups and crossovers, defying the natural trajectory of these movies could turn them into strange imitators of themselves. In a way, monster “versus” movies work better as their own series of mercenary finales, scorching the earth and clearing the battlefield for the next contenders. I’d certainly watch another MonsterVerse movie. If that’s not in the cards, though, Godzilla vs. Kong sure does a great job scorching.
Jesse Hassenger is a writer living in Brooklyn. He’s a regular contributor to The A.V. Club, Polygon, and The Week, among others. He podcasts at www.sportsalcohol.com and tweets dumb jokes at @rockmarooned.
Watch Godzilla vs. Kong on HBO Max
