I SAW ONSLAUGHT

Imagine a divorced, PTSD, Army sniper, living with her daughter in a trailer park, only to face a trio of Frankenstein-ish super soldiers, who flee a military facility to kill, kill, kill. This is the premise of Adam (Godzilla x Kong/You're Next/The Guest) Wingard's thunderous, IMAX offering, Onslaught. 

Celeste is the downtrodden protagonist, played by Adria (Morbius/Man of Tomorrow) Arjona, and her daughter is Daisy, played Blake Kennedy. The larger-than-life (and death) leader of the mutated soldiers is the Butcher, played by Alex "Poatan" Periera, who's accompanied by Crybaby, played by Tyler Hall, and Cockroach, played by Dave Campbell. (They invoke an unrelenting, Jason/Michael/Leatherface trios-team dynamic.) Dan Stevens is their mad geneticist/creator, Dr. Hans Kammler (a grandson of a WWII, National Socialist honcho), whose wife, Rebecca Hall's Hanna, acts like a kinky Lady MacBeth/ersatz Eva Braun. Michael Biehn's Baylor adds to the mayhem as an enigmatic bureaucrat and is joined by Drew Starkey's Cyrus, a quirky, clean-up man; Reginal VelJohnson's Josiah, a resolute, Vietnam vet; Eric Wareheim's quarrelsome but decent Kovacks; and Jacob Scipio's Griffin, Celeste's steady-headed, ex-spouse. All in all, the ensemble is agreeable, even when disagreeable, making the over-the-top scenario feel grounded (more or less). 

Simon Barrett's screenplay does right by the premise (bolstered by Wingard's Carpenter-esque, The Fog/Assault on Precinct 13-inspired emulations and offbeat, pop-song seasonings). The structure is tight and unpretentious, relying on a survivalist thread, which references George A. Romero's zombie flicks, plus the Jurassic, Terminator and Alien sagas. 

In this respect, Celeste is reminiscent of Lori Cardille's Sarah Bowman from Day of the Dead, Scarlett Johansson's Zora Bennett from Jurassic World Rebirth, Linda Hamilton's Sarah Connor from the Terminator movies, and Sigourney Weaver's perennial Ellen Ripley of Alien fame. 

Arjona's Celeste is also beautiful and even though she's never dolled up, she remains magnetic throughout the madness, which may diminish her character's gritty, heroic endeavors, but hey, in my book, glamour (even if bloodied up) is always welcome. If Arjona is there to resume a little, old-time, easy-on-the-eyes charm, I endorse the move a hundredfold. (I also suspect Arjona wouldn't appreciate the compliment, but that's another story for another time.) 

On the arguable, negative end, Onslaught, is quite derivative, borrowing blaring nuggets from the Outpost franchise, Overlord, Shock Waves, Frankenstein's Army, Flesh Feast, They Saved Hitler's Brain and The Frozen Dead. It's Nazi horror, even if it bypasses the label, and like the aforementioned examples, the premise at least conveys evil's extremes, though all the while slanted like a Brightburn-ish Captain America redux or more so, The Winter Soldier. And then there's that obvious-as-hell Universal Soldier nod, joined by similar, conceptional elements evident in Haley HeavyMetal's Friday the 13th-meets-Blade Runner, fan feature, Neon Fear, and well, I could go on and  on. 

I don't know if early September was the best time for A24 to release this one. I think it would have secured a bigger audience closer to Halloween, but there's nothing wrong with it being an early-bird enticer to get audiences set for the autumnal chill. Besides, if one digs bullet-blasting, action-monster movies, this one should please, no matter the day, night, month or season. 

Monster Team-up Reflection: I saw Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire

Toho Studios planned to sequelize King Kong vs Godzilla. Such fell to the wayside, but that hasn't stopped Legendary Films from continuing their clashes.  

Director Adam (V/H/S) Wingard's Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire, which he wrote with Terry Rossio, Jeremy Slater and Simon Barrett, picks up where Wingard's Godzilla vs Kong left off, introducing a new calamity that forces the titular duo to rejoin.  

The renewed team-up occurs due to an orangutan-like Skar King being stirred from the deep depths of Hollow Earth. He was a bastard in prehistoric times when he ruled a boundless, creature-feature empire, and for having been imprisoned over the vast "eons," has grown much surlier. Shimo is his coerced "pet," an icy sort of ankylosaurus/stegosaurus, who Skar uses to seize control. 

Godzilla and Kong must prevent the mounting assault, with the great ape gaining more screen time than his finned costar. Their quest for victory comprises a thunderous path, albeit with a generous sum of sweetness shoehorned in, thanks to Kong's feisty, adopted son. 

For continuity, several of the previous chapter's cast return: Rebecca (Iron Man 3) Hall's Ilene Andrews, Brian Tyree Henry's Bernie Hayes and Kaylee Hottle's Jai. Dan Stevens joins the group as a dynamic veterinarian named Trapper, capable of mending monster wounds. Though these humans play an important role in the adventure, they take an understandable back seat to tale's Titans, in particular the cyborg-gloved Kong, who the humans nudge to squash the adversity.

In truth, Kong doesn't need much nudging and nor does Godzilla, for their sense of duty is innate, leaving them to mimic Batman and Superman or Captain America and Ironman on a save-the-day stint. New Empire is, therefore, more of a special-effects-laden, comic-book tale than one of conscientious contemplation, with broad strokes of Planet of the Apes and Quest for Fire, padded by classic rock. On this basis, for all the grim demolition it delivers, New Empire rolls with mish-mashed levity. And why not? As Toho taught us, there's nothing wrong with fun for fun's sake, in particular when combative colossuses participate. 

With this said, New Empire smacks of Ishiro Honda's sprightly, Cain-and-Abel War of the Gargantuas (or on a more fundamental level, Willis O'Brien's founding concept, King Kong vs Frankenstein/Prometheus), where two hairy behemoths slug it out. New Empire also inserts aspects of Destroy All Monsters (with a noted, though overused, Titan cameoing toward the end), so that it's quite possible a follow-up might mirror that beloved free-for-all. Then again, wee Kong is sure a cutie (just as he was in 1933), and a marginal offshoot could come even sooner. 

No matter which way it turns, there are no doubt sequels in the works, but it all lies on New Empire's box-office tally to decide if and when they're made.

I saw Godzilla vs Kong...

Ishiro Honda's King Kong vs Godzilla is a childhood favorite, and so despite its men-in-floppy-costumed confinement, a re-imaging was going to be hard to embrace in my sentimental estimation. 

I also feared that the WB/Legendary Films Monsterverse Godzilla vs Kong would play it safe, with mushy attributes, dense double talk and maybe even a superfluous role from the overused Mothra, just to remind us how important a feminine touch is for Cancel Culture action movies. (Gosh, does such a contradiction exist? Oh, yeah, there's that Harry Potter thing.)

However, I'm pleased to report that this new clash of the titans is brutal and virile, an unapologetic triumph on all Hong Kong-crushing counts. 

Scripted by Max Borenstein and Eric Pearson and directed by Adam (You're Next) Wingard, Godzilla vs Kong follows all those insinuations found in its trailers (as well those based on fanboy speculation), with Godzilla acting as a misguided aggressor and Kong performing as Earth's potential savior, even if temporarily contained and not always allowed to finish his fights. As expected, Mechagodzilla (for the record, a knock-off of Toho's mighty Mecha-Kong) intercedes in the titanic collision, much like Doomsday in Batman v Superman, securing an earthquaking alliance against the mega-robot's reckless, Apex puppeteers. 

The Mechagodzilla component is a welcome, if not necessary one, even though the mean machine has been overused as much as Toho's mammoth moth. At least Gojira's steely counterpart prompts callous battles, no matter the movie or its particular quality. The automaton's inclusion in this instance is no different and may be Mechagodzilla's most fulfilling appearance.  

Though the monsters (and there are several) are the focus (thank God), the cast of mortals grants respectable filler: Millie Bobby (Stranger Things) Brown as Madison Russell (reprising her Godzilla King of the Monsters '19 role); Kyle Chandler as Mark Russell (also reprising his King of the Monsters role; while having been a significant costar in Peter Jackson's Kong '05); Rebecca Hall as Irene Andrews (Kong's earnest cheerleader); Alexander (Legend of Tarzan) Skarsgard as Dr. Nathan Lind (a former Monarch geologist and ridiculed, Hollow Earth scholar at Denham University of Theoretical Science); Kaylee Hottle as the pacifying Jia; Demian Birshir as the shady Walter Simmons; Erza Gonzalez as his snarky daughter, Maia; Shun Ogun as cybernetic whiz Ren Serizawa; Brian Tyree Henry as conspiracy-theorist Bernie Hayes; Julian Dennison as nurturing nerd Josh Valentine; in addition to other keen characters and players. 

To amp up the supplemental rumble, Tom Holkenborg (aka Junkie XL)'s score is a huge presence onto itself, charging the monster-brawl sequences with the same Wagnerian (if not Ifukube) roll that he gave Zack Snyder's Justice League and Mad Max: Fury Road.  

There's nothing profound about this Monsterverse chapter (not even its prehistoric backstory), which is a big reason why I dig it. Unlike the convoluted Godzilla King of the Monsters '19, Godzilla vs Kong steps in sync with the unpretentious Kong: Skull Island and the rambunctious Rampage. In other words, it doesn't have to justify itself with an overabundance of climate crap. Shoot, I'll even give its propagandist CNN insert a pass, simply because the film lets its overriding chips fall where they will. 

If cinemas were open to the extent they were prior to the pandemic paranoia, Godzilla vs Kong would be a record-breaking smash. Let's hope its limited, theatrical release and HBO-Max setup is just as successful in its own intimate right, and from there we get that big-budget Destroy All Monsters redux we've been long promised.