The review embargo for Godzilla Vs. Kong has now lifted, and the majority of critics who were given the opportunity to see the movie early have weighed in with their takes on Legendary's latest Monster-Verse installment.
Several reviews were posted online last week, and while they were mostly mixed/negative, this latest round of reactions seems to be a lot more positive - although most fully acknowledge that the movie is dumber than a bag of hammers.
THR - who, yet again, cares not one iota about spoilers - praised the action spectacle and Junkie XL's core, but felt that "With the exception of the roles played by bad-boy Bichir, the consistently amusing Henry and newcomer Hottle, who comes from an all-Deaf family, the underwritten human characters tend to fade into the background. But the draw is the heavyweight bout of the title, so few will be complaining."
IGN also liked GVK, giving it a "Good" 7 out of 10, and calling it "a Saturday afternoon matinee gussied up with elaborate effects. And it’s made all the better for wholeheartedly embracing that."
/Film, meanwhile, calls GVK the "silliest entry in the series," but praises it for abandoning any attempts to make its human characters interesting and relatable to focus on the monster mayhem. "The franchise is no longer trying to be Jaws – it’s trying to be one of the Jaws sequels."
The Playlist was more critical, giving the movie a C grade - though they do point out that "Not everything is a loss. Wingard does have a flair for scale and epic fight scenes, and his penchant for visual color panache and pulsing synthy musical taste is on display (some of it looks a little Prometheus at times)."
Collider was not a fan, writing that "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 site gave the movie a D-.
Right now, Godzilla vs. Kong is sitting at a very respectable 79% on Rotten Tomatoes, so keep an eye on that score as it'll no doubt continue to fluctuate as more reviews are added.
We didn't manage to get our paws on early screeners, but we'll be posting out reviews on April 1st.
“Legends collide as these mythic adversaries meet in a spectacular battle for the ages, with the fate of the world hanging in the balance. Kong and his protectors undertake a perilous journey to find his true home, and with them is Jia, a young orphaned girl with whom he has formed a unique and powerful bond. But they unexpectedly find themselves in the path of an enraged Godzilla, cutting a swath of destruction across the globe. The epic clash between the two titans—instigated by unseen forces—is only the beginning of the mystery that lies deep within the core of the Earth.”
Starring Alexander Skarsgard, Millie Bobby Brown, Rebecca Hall, Eiza González, Julian Dennison, Shun Oguri, Jessica Henwick and Brian Tyree Henry, Godzilla Vs. Kong pits the two famous monsters against each other in an epic battle.
Eric Pearson (Thor: Ragnarok) and Max Borenstein (The Terror) wrote the screenplay, with Adam Wingard on board as director. The movie is set for release in theaters and on HBO Max on March 31.