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    Movie Review

    Godzilla vs. Kong offers monstrous destruction but little humanity

    Alex Bentley
    Mar 30, 2021 | 1:17 pm
    Godzilla vs. Kong offers monstrous destruction but little humanity
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    The return of the Godzilla franchise from American filmmakers has been a mixed bag so far. 2014’s Godzilla pulsed with energy and a good story, while 2019’s Godzilla: King of the Monsters had an incoherent plot and action sequences. That movie, along with 2017’s Kong: Skull Island, set up the ultimate monster face-off, Godzilla vs. Kong.

     

    In many ways, the new film borrows from the best and worst impulses of the previous two Godzilla movies. On the bad side, there is just way too much going on with the plot and too many characters to track. There’s Bernie Hayes (Brian Tyree Henry), a conspiracy-loving podcaster who works for Apex Cybernetics, a mysterious company led by the nefarious Walter Simmons (Demián Bichir) whose headquarters Godzilla attacks early in the film. There’s Madison Russell (Millie Bobby Brown), one of only two returning characters, who joins forces with Bernie to investigate Apex, along with her friend Josh (Julian Dennison).

     

    On the Kong side, there’s scientist Ilene Andrews (Rebecca Hall), who lives on Skull Island to study the great ape and keep him under control. Her daughter, Jia (Kaylee Hottle), is deaf and has forged a connection with Kong through sign language. After the Godzilla attack, kaiju researcher Nathan Lind (Alexander Skarsgård) is convinced by Simmons to approach Andrews and persuade her to let Kong out of captivity to save the world from Godzilla’s destruction, a quest that involves concepts like the “Hollow Earth” and “gravitational inversion.”

     

    On the plus side, the filmmakers, led by director Adam Wingard, know what audiences have come to see — Godzilla and King Kong in action — and they don’t make us wait long to see them. The first look at Kong comes two minutes in, first look at Godzilla comes 10 minutes in, and they return to each regularly throughout the film, bringing lots of chest beating, roars, and destruction with them.

     

    Just like King of the Monsters, there’s almost no point in trying to figure out the human-level plot mechanics. All you really need to know is that Godzilla, who saved humanity from other kaiju in the previous film, is now being viewed as evil by many, and Kong is the only one who can make things right again. They only directly clash a few times throughout the film, but each one is thrilling and, thankfully, not muddled by fast-moving action where it’s difficult to understand what’s happening.

     

    The filmmakers attempt to keep things grounded by showing Kong’s connection with Jia, a technique that mostly works. It’s not as easy to relate to Godzilla, but they throw in a few scenes that show it as more than just a mindless monster. Unfortunately, that all goes out the window in the climactic sequence, in which innumerable buildings get destroyed, likely causing the deaths of thousands of people. The destruction is to be expected to a certain degree, but the way it’s presented, with no introspection about the human toll, comes off as callous and shallow entertainment.

     

    The film is obviously CGI-heavy, but the filmmakers seem to have gone a hybrid route in how it’s employed. The look of the monsters is high-tech and detailed, but there appears to be an homage to the lo-fi method of the original Godzilla movies, as many buildings look like practical models being smashed. Given that they’re being ruined by the CGI monsters, it’s surely just smoke and mirrors, but it’s a fun concept nonetheless.

     

    Most of the acting in the film is, shall we say, not subtle. For instance, Henry, who’s been great in the FX show Atlanta and almost everything else he’s been in, is reduced to wild rants that don’t do him any favors. Only Hall and Hottle are allowed to be low-key, and it’s the reason that they wind up being the heart of the film.

     

     Godzilla vs. Kong is far from a good movie, but it’s actually an improvement over the abominable King of the Monsters. For moviegoers who are starved for blockbuster entertainment, it does the trick as long as you’re willing to leave your brain and most of your humanity at the door.

     

    ---

     

    Godzilla vs. Kong debuts in theaters and on HBO Max on March 31.

    Godzilla and King Kong in Godzilla vs. King Kong.

    Godzilla and King Kong in Godzilla vs. Kong
      
    Photo courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures and Legendary Pictures
    Godzilla and King Kong in Godzilla vs. King Kong.
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    Movie Review

    Lazy 'I Know What You Did Last Summer' remake hooks nothing but nostalgia

    Alex Bentley
    Jul 17, 2025 | 1:45 pm
    Sarah Pidgeon, Madelyn Cline and Chase Sui Wonders in I Know What You Did Last Summer
    Photo by Brook Rushton
    Sarah Pidgeon, Madelyn Cline and Chase Sui Wonders in I Know What You Did Last Summer.

    When the original I Know What You Did Last Summer came out in 1997, it was riding the coattails of Scream, which came out in 1996. Like that film, it featured hot young actors of the time, albeit with a story that was much more standard than the inventive Scream. Still, it made enough of an impact for some studio executive to think it was worth reviving nearly 30 years later with its own legacy-quel.

    In the new I Know What You Did Last Summer, a group of five high school friends - Danica (Madelyn Cline), Ava (Chase Sui Wonders), Milo (Jonah Hauer-King), Teddy (Tyriq Withers), and Stevie (Sarah Pidgeon) - have reunited at the engagement party for Danica and Teddy on the 4th of July. While on an impromptu trip to watch fireworks on a twisty road in the nearby hills, Teddy goofs off in the middle of the road, causing a truck to swerve and drive off the cliff.

    A year later, having sworn to each other to not speak of the accident to anybody, they start getting stalked by a mysterious person in a fisherman’s slicker carrying a hook. With Teddy’s rich father, Grant (Billy Campbell), actively trying to cover up what his son did (as well as the fallout), it’s up to the group to figure out who is coming after them and how to stop that person.

    Written and directed by Jennifer Kaytin Robinson, and co-written by Sam Lansky, the film doesn’t try to reinvent the wheel; in fact, it barely builds something that can roll. It might just be the laziest and most incompetent attempt to capitalize on an existing piece of intellectual property. There is almost zero effort put into establishing a connection between the members of the friend group, making them feel like strangers for the entire film.

    It doesn’t help that the young male actors in the film - which grows to include Wyatt (Joshua Orpin), a new fiance for Danica - serve no purpose other than to be generically good-looking. The most impactful of the men in the film is the returning Freddie Prinze, Jr., who - along with Jennifer Love Hewitt - has his old character from the first two films shoehorned into the new story. The filmmakers undercut any good feelings from their return by giving them hardly anything to do and then having Hewitt deliver the line, “Nostalgia is overrated.”

    The film as a whole never has a sense of momentum. The inciting incident is so tame - they even attempt to save the driver before the truck goes off the cliff - that the guilt they feel and the anger of the person going after them doesn’t feel warranted. Once the attacks start, it is shocking at how low-energy the sequences are, providing no sense of suspense or thrills. The filmmakers resort to the lamest of horror movie tropes, turning the film into a paint-by-numbers affair.

    Cline (one of the stars of Netflix’s Outer Banks) and Wonders (The Studio on Apple TV+, Bodies Bodies Bodies) are the clear stars of the film, but their characters are made into inert scream queens, negating any acting talent they possess. Hauer-King, Withers, and Pidgeon don’t bring anything interesting to their characters, existing merely to have someone else for the killer to go after.

    Even the worst films can have some kind of redeeming value if you look hard enough, but the only thing I Know What You Did Last Summer has to offer is that it becomes so comically bad by the end that you can’t help but laugh at its ineptitude. Both fans of the original and fans of horror movies in general will feel cheated by the experience.

    ---

    I Know What You Did Last Summer opens in theaters on July 18.

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