Plot Holes In Godzilla Vs. Kong Everyone Ignored
Contains spoilers for Godzilla vs. Kong
If there's one thing that has remained the same for moviegoing audiences over the last several decades, it's that they just can't get enough of watching giant monsters terrorize humanity. King Kong was first introduced in 1933 while Godzilla made its theatrical debut later in the 1950s, and now audiences can see these two legends of the big screen claw, bite, and punch their way to dominance with Godzilla vs. Kong, which is now available to watch in theaters and on HBO Max.
It may not be the first time they've gone head-to-head. That honor belongs to 1962's King Kong vs. Godzilla, but it is the first time the creatures have been rendered in stunning CGI with battles where you can really feel the epic scope of their reputations. Some movies may focus on existential quandaries such as what it means to be human, but you don't have to worry about all of that "theme" nonsense here. The main attraction involves a lizard with atomic breath and an ape with an ax fighting each other, and for the most part, critics seem to like it that way.
Sure, there is technically a plot to move things along and to create reasons for the two titans to battle each other, but it's pretty secondary. As such, it perhaps should come as no surprise that there are moments that don't exactly make sense when you think about them for 10 seconds. You may have been too distracted by seeing Mechagodzilla in all its glory to notice these Godzilla vs. Kong plot holes the first time around, but luckily, we're here to overanalyze the film just for you.
Kong's unexplained growth spurt
The iteration of King Kong we see in the crossover was first introduced in 2017's Kong: Skull Island. This version of the character was the biggest audiences had ever seen to date, measuring an impressive 104 feet in height, via ScreenRant. That movie may been set in the 1970s, but Kong has gone through quite the growth spurt over the last 50 years. Materials from the film indicate that in Godzilla vs. Kong, the ape now measures at his tallest he's ever been on the big screen at 335 feet.
The series does try to offer an explanation for this with an old interview from producer Alex Garcia saying how Kong was an adolescent in Skull Island and that he'd be doing some growing between the two films. There's even a line in Skull Island where a character mentions how Kong's going to keep growing. However, that still doesn't explain the scene where we see the skeletons of Kong's parents, and they're roughly the same size as he is (100-odd feet).
It's possible his parents perished at relatively young ages after Kong was born, and that the ape had simply outlived them by the time the events of Godzilla vs. Kong take place. But even if he's the equivalent of a teenager initially, it still doesn't make sense that he'd triple in size simply going off of what animal species produce. It's not like 13-year-old humans who are 5-feet-tall suddenly become over 15 feet when they're in their 50s. It's definitely a jump and just seems like an attempt to get Kong to where he's on equal footing with Godzilla.
A conspiracy out in the open
While Dr. Ilene Andrews (Rebecca Hall) transports Kong to Antarctica, there's another human subplot where Madison (Millie Bobby Brown), from Godzilla: King of the Monsters, tries to get more information about Apex from a conspiracy theorist podcast host named Bernie (Brian Tyree Henry). Bernie has gone to great lengths to ensure his identity doesn't get out to the masses, but Madison is able to get some clues about who he is by... going to his website?
After about 10 seconds of research, Madison comes across an episode description where Bernie explains how he's able to avoid detection from Big Brother. For starters, it's probably not a good idea to let all of your tricks known if you really want to stay hidden. Secondly, there are two words that allow Madison to find him, namely "Chinatown" and "bleach." So what does she do? She and her buddy, Josh (Julian Dennison), travel to Chinatown where they go to various shops looking for someone who sells a lot of bleach. They find that person, and lo and behold, the teens are knocking on Bernie's door in no time.
It makes sense the podcaster would want to stay hidden. After all, he's revealing dark secrets about Apex, and as a powerful corporation, they could easily have him killed if they knew who he was. But that just makes it all the weirder that it was relatively easy to find him. If two kids could figure it out, then surely a huge, international company would have the resources to locate him.
The delayed Godzilla-versus-Kong ship fight
Back to the Kong plotline, Dr. Andrews puts together a crew to transport the big ape to Antarctica so that he can lead them to Hollow Earth with a potentially powerful energy source that could help in the humans' fight against the titans. The entire time they're worried about Godzilla finding Kong because the lizard would want to battle for supremacy over who gets to be the Alpha over Earth. As expected, Godzilla does, in fact, show up, and the two have an epic battle at sea. In the process, numerous boats and planes are destroyed, with a lot of lives presumably lost.
After Godzilla goes away, believing Kong is dead, they call in aerial support and have a ton of helicopters come to transport Kong the rest of the way. Wait... was that an option all along?
It's kind of like how people point out how in The Lord of the Rings, Frodo and Sam could've just taken the Eagles to Mordor instead of walking all the way. It's a well-known fact in this universe that Godzilla likes to hang out in the oceans, so why would they put a beast that directly challenges the lizard out in the open like that? Fuel would certainly be a factor, but there must have been some kind of flight path they could've taken that would've allowed all of the aircraft to charge up before continuing on the quest. At the very least, it seems like an option worth pursuing before placing Kong in the worst scenario imaginable.
Another route to Hollow Earth
Hollow Earth is a mythical place in the MonsterVerse where things are more primordial. It's the whole reason they take Kong to Antarctica in the first place because that's where a portal to this realm is located. Not only that, but the humans require specialized HEAVs so that they can survive the intense gravitational shifts involved with going from regular Earth to this new area. And then Godzilla just... atomic blasts his way to the center of the Earth with no problem.
After all the work of making sure they'd be able to take Kong to Hollow Earth, Godzilla just makes another tunnel in Hong Kong when he senses Mechagodzilla's presence. In a way, we understand why this was necessary. It would've taken up too much time to have Kong come out of the Antarctica portal and somehow make his way to China. This provides easy access so that the two titans can have their final battle in an efficient manner.
It just calls into question the sheer power of Godzilla's atomic breath. If he's able to plow through every single layer of the Earth, withstand intense gravitational changes, and break whatever geographical layers exist within Hollow Earth, then he's powerful on an intense scale we can't even begin to possibly fathom. Godzilla should've been able to melt Mechagodzilla right off the bat even if it had the same kind of atomic breath on its own.
A surplus of HEAVs
Early on in the film, we're told that in order for humans to survive the trip to Hollow Earth, they need to be inside a HEAV, which is a specialized vehicle that allows people inside to withstand the gravitational alterations. These are vehicles provided by Apex Cybernetics, which is also the company behind Mechagodzilla and all of the destruction it caused. We see three of these HEAVs initially. The first is destroyed pretty much immediately upon entry into Hollow Earth, and Kong crushes the second one with Maia Simmons (Eiza González) inside. The third and last one we see is used as a defibrillator to get Kong's heart beating again after his fight with Godzilla.
Yet the final scene of the film shows how Monarch has established a new scientific base in Hollow Earth. Not only have the main scientists returned, but it also looks like a lot of other employees have been shipped into the realm. It all begs the question — how many HEAVs did Apex make? Did they manufacture a ton we just didn't see? And even if they did, would the company have had the resources at that point to hand the vehicles over to Monarch?
Apex is responsible for a ton of destruction and likely millions of lives lost. There's no way the global community would allow what's left of the organization to just go about its business and hand over valuable equipment. Governments would likely seize whatever assets Apex had left over to ensure they don't fall into even worse hands. Then again, we're probably not supposed to think that hard about it. It's Godzilla vs. Kong after all, not Kramer vs. Kramer.