Blu Tuesday is a weekly column where we review the newest Blu-ray and 4K releases, along with a brief rundown of the included bonus material, to determine whether they’re worth buying, renting or skipping.
Pick of the Week: “Godzilla vs. Kong”
“Godzilla vs. Kong” was meant to be the thrilling culmination of the MonsterVerse saga that began back in 2014 with Gareth Edwards’ “Godzilla,” but while it contains plenty of great monster action, the rest of the movie is a dud. The human characters are incredibly lame and largely pointless — so much so that you could remove entire subplots (for instance, the group of Godzilla truthers played by Millie Bobby Brown, Brian Tyree Henry and Julian Dennison) and the story would still make sense. The battles themselves are admittedly pretty cool, but Godzilla has an unfair advantage in every environment, which makes the winner a foregone conclusion even before the two titans’ climactic face-off. Fortunately for fans of Kong, the giant ape is the more interesting character, and so he’s given a lot more screen time than his counterpart. It doesn’t compensate for the ridiculousness that surrounds the entire narrative, but when combined with the fun, monster-sized action and excellent visual effects work, it makes “Godzilla vs. Kong” just a little more palatable.
Extras include an audio commentary by director Adam Wingard, a trio of featurettes on the history of the film’s monsters, a behind-the-scenes look at the major set pieces and more. FINAL VERDICT: RENT
Also Out This Week:
“Voyagers” — Writer/director Neil Burger’s sci-fi thriller imagines what would happen if you crammed a bunch of super-smart, socially awkward teenagers onto a spaceship together on a mission to save humanity with no adult supervision. It’s basically “Lord of the Flies” in space, except none of it makes any sense. The young astronauts, who were genetically engineered specifically for this mission, are supposed to be the best of the best, yet every decision they make is completely illogical and based purely on raw emotion. (Did any of these kids receive a psych evaluation before being shot into the cold emptiness of space?) Fionn Whitehead once again shows his lack of depth as an actor, while Lily Depp-Rose proves that she’s not much of an actor at all. Despite the flat performances, the main culprit is the script itself, which is so annoyingly stupid that it makes you question how this movie was ever greenlit at all. Extras include a series of production featurettes and a tour of the film’s spaceship. FINAL VERDICT: SKIP
Disclosure: Bullz-Eye was provided a copy of the above titles for review purposes.
