'Godzilla vs. Kong' turns the battle of 'alpha titans' into a C-level spectacle

Almost 60 years after they rumbled in a pretty awful 1962 movie -- featuring guys in monster suits destroying tiny models -- "Godzilla vs. Kong" reunite with all the wonders that modern special effects can offer and still don't much improve the results. After a lengthy buildup, this "thrilla" in the "MonsterVerse" -- for anyone with even modest expectations -- qualifies as a pretty sizable letdown.

To be fair, the movie was watched on a TV screen, which surely isn't the way that Warner Bros. (like CNN, a unit of WarnerMedia) and Legendary Pictures originally intended it. The film lands simultaneously on HBO Max and in theaters in the US -- having already roared out of the starting gate in some international markets -- but frankly, it's not like an Imax screen could fix the plot and dialogue in a script and story credited to five writers, directed by Adam Wingard.