Why Godzilla vs. Kong Should Be Nominated for Best Visual Effects
When it comes to watching movies, I enjoy watching a story that is well crafted with good acting, directing, and a story that engages me throughout it. I believe that every movie should fulfill a specific purpose, such as wanting to laugh during a comedy or being terrified during a horror movie. However, there are also times when you should be able to watch a film that can be nothing but dumb fun. Movies considered “popcorn movies” would be like superhero movies or disaster movies. For me, I enjoy watching movies with giant monsters fighting each other.
I am a fan of the Godzilla and King Kong movies, so I was excited to see the Godzilla vs. Kong movie that came out earlier this year. Needless to say, I enjoyed the film despite some of the slightly annoying characters. Watching Kong and Godzilla teaming up to fight Mecha-Godzilla is a kind of fun that can only be experienced in a theatre. As I’ve learned more about visual effects, the more I appreciate the work put in. With the amount of work put into the movie, I was shocked that it didn’t get nominated for best visual effects.
The current nominations for best visual effects are Spider-Man: No Way Home, Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, No Time To Die, Free Guy, and Dune. Out of those movies, I can confidently say Godzilla vs. Kong has better effects than films like Free Guy or No Time to Die.
The scale in which the effects are used is on a far greater scale than those films, and the effects were more crucial to the film’s success than in No Time to Die. The draw of a giant monster fight movie is the monsters’ effects; people want to see them destroy entire cities. If those effects aren’t convincing, then it won’t take long for the audience to walk out of the theatre. The audience will most likely mock a Bond movie with bad effects, but it’ll only be a small stain on the overall experience if their story was engaging. I don’t think I’ve ever heard someone walk out of the theatre of a Godzilla movie and talk about how emotional the plot was or how attached they were to the characters.
Godzilla vs. Kong also finds a way to make certain shots look gorgeous. For example, during the sea battle, they chose to set it during sunset, so the entire set-piece is bathed in a beautiful orange glow. The Hong Kong fight scene also uses an excellent neon color scheme reflecting off of Godzilla and King Kong. Watching the breakdowns for the visual effects also amazed me, given how much detail they needed to add for those larger city shots. I would argue that Godzilla vs. Kong was snubbed at this year’s Academy Awards because not only do I think that it should have been nominated, I think that it has an excellent chance to win. Of course, it would have had some good competition with Spider-Man: No Way Home and Shang-Chi being nominated, but given the scale of the effects and how critical they were to the film’s success, I think Godzilla vs. Kong deserved to at least be nominated.