'Godzilla vs. Kong' brings me back to the movies
But this visit was a mixed bag.
Last night, I went back to the movies. For real.
I’ve written before about how we rented a theater for my son’s birthday for him and his friends to watch The Karate Kid. And a few weeks back, during a visit to a local museum, we checked out one of their 45-minute nature docs on IMAX. But it always felt like the return came with an asterisk. While it was good to see things on the big screen again, what I missed was the experience of sitting in a theater on opening weekend, taking in something new and thrilling with others.
Godzilla vs. Kong seemed like it might fit that description. While the film is available on HBO Max, something seemed innately wrong about seeing two giant monsters fighting from the comfort of my living room. If anything seemed like a must to see on the biggest screen in the loudest theater, this was it. My son was interested in the movie, so I asked if he wanted to go. We ordered tickets from our local AMC and made an evening of it.
We’ll get to the movie in a second, but first I wanted to say a few things about the experience itself.
I mentioned this when I wrote about our Karate Kid experience, but there’s definitely a palpable change in theaters now as opposed to the “before times.” There’s a bare bones feeling to the whole affair, a kind of half-assery to the experience that implies that while the pre-show bumpers are welcoming you back, the staff kind of wishes you’d stay the hell away. Some of this is just the necessity of safety measures. Concession shelves are empty because you’re not supposed to touch anything. There are taped “X’s” on the floor to facilitate social distancing. Before entering the lobby, you have to wait in line to fill out all your contact information in case there’s a COVID outbreak and they have to do tracing. Add to that the muted tone of the whole place because everyone’s excited chatter is taking place under cloth masks.
That’s all fine; it’s the cost of doing business these days. But there was a shrugged-off nature to other things that were at odds with the commitment to health and safety first. Counters were dirty, strewn with popcorn and wrappers. The concession staff was lackadaisical; we had pre-ordered our popcorns, but it took us about five tries for the staff member to figure out what was going on. And while the signs urged social distance, a glimpse at the concession lines showed that it wasn’t really being too enforced (this is why we pre-ordered snacks).
I’m not going to make too fine a point of it. I probably noticed it more because I was looking forward to returning to the movies and it wasn’t the pristine, magical experience I wanted to be. And while the surliness of some of the staff was noticeable, I’m learning to be lenient toward anyone who has to come to work with the public during these times. I imagine it’s stressful to have to come back to work and risk your life for people who just want to stare at lights on a screen. I’ll cut them some slack. And I’ll also acknowledge that the big-chain theatrical experience had been going downhill well before the pandemic; when I next go the movies, my hope is to frequent one of our local arthouses, and I’m confident things are a bit better there.
There was one other experience, though, that did put a damper on the entire night. If you follow me on Facebook or Twitter, I’ve already written about it there, so I’ll try to keep it short. My son and I took our seats, and there were two guys in the row in back of us. Two twentysomething white guys, one wearing a camouflage neck gaiter and the other kind of stringy, wearing a cartoon T-shirt. I’m not someone who gets “vibes” from people, but these dudes were giving off vibes. When we got in, they had the flashlights on their phones on, doing something; not exactly looking at the ground searching for something, but examining something in their hands. Throughout the first 45 minutes of the movie, they randomly left the theater, returned, and then left again, sometimes within two minutes of each other. At one point, the guy in the cartoon T-shirt returned, acknowledged his friend and then just stared up at the audience for several minutes. During a bathroom run, I saw one of them leave and re-enter the theater.
I’m not, by nature, a paranoid person. But this quickly turned from a distraction into a red flag, one my son picked up on, whispering to me “those guys are suspicious.” I agreed and the two of us walked out to the restroom. As we did, I watched the guys leave the theater complex again. I asked my son if he was okay. “What if one of them has a gun,” my son asked. My mind had already been flashing to recent events in Boulder, Atlanta and Washington, although I didn’t tell him that. We walked out and I flagged a manager down and told her my concerns. She said she’d also noticed them hanging around. She said she’d approach them if they came back in.
My son and I went back in to finish the movie, although we did grab our stuff and move to the back of the theater where we could sit by an upper-level exit. I spent the last half of the movie alternating my view between the screen and the theater entrance. The guys never did come back. And sure, it very well could have been that they just had been high and wandering around, trying to enjoy the light show. But our culture has given us reason to be wary of these types of situations, so I’m glad I said something. And to their credit, management handled it great. They assured us they were on it and, after the show, the manager gave us free passes to compensate for the distraction. But I’m kind of pissed that just as I was getting over the fear of the pandemic (I’ve had one of my two vaccination shots), I was plunged back into other uniquely American fears.
But you know what? Even that couldn’t totally ruin the experience for me. Because I saw a giant ape smash a giant lizard on a giant screen, and it was everything I’ve been missing for the last year.
I’m not the world’s biggest Godzilla or King Kong fan. I think the original King Kong is one of the great movie magic tricks, and there’s an undeniable eerie power to the original Gojira. I’ve dabbled in and out of the various series. I endured Roland Emmerich’s 1998 hunk of junk, and was quite taken with Peter Jackson’s visually impressive but oh-so-long Kong remake in 2005. In the current monsterverse, I really enjoyed Gareth Edwards’ 2015 Godzilla as a piece of spectacle, even if the human characters were nonentities. And oddly...that’s it. For whatever reason, I never caught up with Kong: Skull Island, even though I dug the visuals in its trailers, like the cast, and was a big fan of director Jordan Vogt Roberts’ The Kings of Summer. Likewise, I was impressed with Michael Dogherty’s visual prowess on the holiday horror films Trick R Treat and Krampus, and thought the trailers for Godzilla: King of the Monsters showed some potentially amazing treatments for these icons. But the bad reviews and worse box office caused me to shrug it off and never get around to it.
I wasn’t really worried that my lack of familiarity with the monsterverse would hamper my enjoyment of Godzilla vs. Kong, whose appeal is summed up in its title. I actually don’t know if any of the characters from Skull Island, aside from Kong, show up in this movie at all. And while I know that Millie Bobby Brown and Kyle Chandler’s characters are from King of the Monsters, I don’t get the sense that there’s anything particularly mysterious or important about them that has a bearing on this movie.
In Godzilla vs. Kong, Godzilla has returned after three years and started rampaging again. Brown’s character thinks he’s being provoked and teams up with a paranoid podcaster (Brian Tyree Henry) and her friend (Julian Dennison) to uncover the corporate mystery as to why this is happening. Meanwhile, Alexander Skarsgard’s scientist is recruited to find the mysterious Hollow Earth, where it’s assumed Godzilla and the other titans have come from (I imagine this is unpacked more in the previous films). He tracks down Rebecca Hall’s “Kong whisperer,” who is studying the ape in a remote location alongside her daughter, who can communicate with Kong via sign language.
None of this matters, but it’s all essential toward moving the story along between monster melees. The main problem with Gareth Edwards’ Godzilla wasn’t that the characters were so thin; that’s kind of the way it shakes out in these movies. Rather, it was the dourness with which they tore into every sequence. Here, in a movie that includes mysterious inner-earth worlds, flying tanks and underground tunnels that transport people from the U.S. to Hong Kong in five seconds flat, everyone plays it a bit lighter. Everyone knows just how silly the concept is, but no one also leans too far into camp (well, maybe Henry). Sure the whole subplot with the podcaster is extraneous and could easily be cut. But for the most part, the human characters are fine entry points into the larger, louder story.
After a year of watching movies on TV, I had a blast re-experiencing the spectacle of blockbuster filmmaking. The two monsters are, of course, the main draw here and, in many ways, the main characters. And I appreciate how much personality is given to Kong and Godzilla, from the way Kong collapses in exhaustion after a fight to the subtle looks of annoyance and surprise that flash on Godzilla’s face in the midst of the skyscraper-pulverizing fights. Any other year, I might be rolling my eyes at yet another clash of CGI titans. But last night, I just enjoyed the sheer enormity and scale of it all. Lights flashed, the theater shook, the audience cheered. God, I missed this.
Director Adam Wingard has proven in films like You’re Next and The Guest hat he knows how to work an audience, and he delivers pure joy in many of the big matchups that he throws together. Edwards’ film, while grand, tended to sink under the weight of its pretensions, and I think I’ve always preferred a good King Kong movie because they lean into pulp adventure rather than existential angst. Wingard balances the tones, knowing when to lean into a gorgeous slow-motion shot of the icons towering over their landscapes, but also when we just want to see King Kong hope across aircraft characters or Godzilla smash an entire glass building. When he reveals a third foe in the final act, the film totally gives itself over to the Royal Rumble nature of the whole enterprise and becomes a gleefully silly, loud and fun affair. It helped that I was watching this all with a 9-year-old boy, who kept leaning over to whisper stuff like “I think Godzilla’s going to win” or “wow, I think Kong is the king of the monsters now.”
Listen, we got to a point where these movies were the only part of people’s cinematic diets, and I’m sure once the pandemic’s over we’ll return to blockbuster over-saturation. But in spite of all the drawbacks we experienced last night, I had moments where I was able to lose myself in the sheer joy of the spectacle and experience just a bit of that magic that captured me as a kid watching these big, stupid movies. It had been a long time. And while Godzilla vs. Kong ain’t exactly art, it it exactly the type of giant bit of filmmaking that I had missed over the year.
Godzilla vs. Kong is now in theaters and on HBO Max.
The Digest
Where to find me online this week
Nobody review: There wasn’t a newsletter last week because life got a bit busy and then my wife and I took a weekend away for our anniversary. But I did want to take a moment and highlight my review of the new Bob Odenkirk action movie, which is a very weird sentence to write. Nobody is a John Wick rip-off, although I don’t know if you can quite use that term since the film comes from its writer and one of its producers. Odenkirk acquits himself well as an everyman who’s forced to delve back into his killer past after his family is threatened. It’s a bone-crushing, well-choreographed bit of smash-em-up action, leavened with a good dose of dark humor. What other movie will show you both Odenkirk and Christopher Lloyd dispatching Russian goons with a shotgun? My review at Far From Hollywood.
Seeing and Believing podcast: I’ve long been a fan of the website Christ and Pop Culture; in fact, one of the pieces of writing I’m most proud of appeared on that site a few years back. And I’m a fan of their Seeing and Believing podcast, which always features great conversations about the intersection of pop culture and faith. So I was honored and excited when co-host Kevin asked if I’d be willing to guest to talk about Zack Snyder’s Justice League. I had a blast talking about the film. And while I don’t think it made me more of a fan of Snyder’s work, it did reiterate that sometimes the movies I enjoy talking about most aren’t necessarily the ones that are best made. Give it a listen.
Chrisicisms
The pop culture I’m consuming this week
The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains by Nicholas Carr: It’s easy to jump on and decry social media and smartphones as the worst things in our society. But what if the problem goes even deeper? Carr’s book is a smart and engaging look at how the very nature of the internet and how we consume content could be detrimental to how we think and how our brains function. For someone who spends at least 10 hours a day connected to the internet in some form, this was a terrifying and illuminating read. Carr goes deep, delving not only into the history of written communication and its effects on our brains, but also on how neuroplasticity is affected by all our hypertexting and constant distraction. It’s a sobering look at the potential detriments of the internet, and all the more terrifying when you consider Carr wrote his first edition of this book in 2010, before smartphones and social media had become so omnipresent.
Q: Into the Storm (HBO): This ongoing, six-part documentary series delves into the history of QAnon and how it’s helped shape current events. I’m two episodes in (I believe three have been released) and it’s a bit of a frustrating watch, to be honest. The show is a bit too ambitious for its good, trying to examine QAnon’s impact on our politics and discourse but also trying to wrap its arms around the tensions and in-fightings on the various “Chan” websites that Q sprung from. The show’s a bit unwieldy, and meeting some of the men and women who help further these ideas makes you long for a good, cleansing shower. But the show’s never boring, and its ungainliness hints at the immensity of the problem.
The Pickle and Boot Shop podcast: My Cross.Culture.Critic. Co-host Joe Yerke started another podcast this week, and from the moment I heard about it, I knew it was going to be worth tuning into. Joe, former frontman for the Christian ska/punk group The Insyderz, co-hosts this weekly show with Reese Roper, the lead singer of Five Iron Frenzy. And the result is a very funny two hours of immature banter, weird jokes and stories about their experiences in the whirlpool that is Christian culture. I laughed very hard listening to the first episode, which is no surprise; doing a show with Joe for so many years, I’ve learned no one gives better banter than him. Reese is a tad more reserved, but they balance each other out nicely. I’m excited for them to have this very strange, very funny platform. Find it on iTunes and Spotify, and become a Pateron.
The Falcon and the Winter Soldier (Disney+): I linked to my review of the pilot in the last newsletter, in which I thought the show was a step back from WandaVision but still very much a fun, engaging Marvel show. Three episodes in, my views are a tad more tempered. When Anthony Mackie and Sebastian Stan are cracking wise, it’s a lot of fun. But the show, particularly the latest episode, just seems to be a Marvel-glossed retread of generic action shows. It’s not bad: I think the show’s attempts to look at white privilege and how someone like Wyatt Russell’s John Walker is more readily accepted as the next Captain America while Falcon struggles is really an interesting take for the Marvel universe. The show’s action sequences are regularly fun, and the cameos from throughout the MCU are always intriguing. But the show’s plotting is a bit leaden, it’s hard to keep track of the various alliances, and the whole thing feels like something that other shows have just done better. There’s still time for future episodes to turn things around, and maybe I’m just a bit soured because this week’s episode was particularly rough. But this doesn’t feel much different from what Marvel previously did for Netflix.
That’s it this week! We’ll be back next week!