<\/p>\n

The best thing about pitting characters against one another in a film’s title (like Godzilla vs. Kong<\/i>) is that long before people actually see the movie they can imagine the conflict and try to predict the outcome.<\/p>\n

When I was a kid I owned a book full of articles about horror films and movie monsters, and one of the movies featured in the book was Dracula vs. Frankenstein<\/i> (1971). Even though I had never seen the movie, I spent a lot of time wondering how a battle between Dracula and Frankenstein would turn out. Dracula, especially in bat-form, could flutter circles around Karloff’s lumbering Frankenstein. (I assume “Frankenstein” in the title referred to the monster, and not its creator.) Then again, Dracula’s fanged attack would prove largely inefficient against a monster that as far as I know contains no blood. I never did see the movie and don’t know who came out on top.<\/p>\n

For a lot of these movies, I suspect writers come up with a title first and then figure out a way to handicap one (or both) of the characters to make the conflict work. Take 2016’s Batman v Superman<\/i>, for example. I’ll admit up front that I’m not a comic book guy and my knowledge of these two characters comes from cartoons and movies, but I’m pretty sure one of those guys is a normal guy in a suit, and the other is a dude from space with super powers who I once saw fly around the earth so quickly that he reversed time. In reality, any fight between Batman and Superman should begin with Batman shouting “come at me, bro!” and end ten seconds later with Superman melting Batman’s face off using his heat vision from a few miles away. Unfortunately there’s not a big draw for ten-second films, and so concessions must be made. The same could be said for 2003’s Freddy vs. Jason<\/i>, in which Freddy Krueger (A Nightmare on Elm Street<\/i>) did battle with Jason Voorhees (Friday the 13th<\/i>). The stakes didn’t feel particularly high in that film, seeing as how both characters had already returned from the dead at least a dozen times combined, and it was unlikely that either franchise was willing to let their money-maker die at the hands of the other. <\/p>\n

(Other movies I considered discussing here: Alien vs. Predator, Monsters vs. Aliens, Abraham Lincoln vs. Zombies, Mega Shark vs. Mecha Shark, Cowgirls vs. Pterodactyls, Bigfoot vs the Illuminati, <\/i>and Sharktopus vs. Pteracuda.<\/i>)<\/p>\n

That brings us to Godzilla vs. Kong<\/i>, a movie that practically writes itself. Long before I saw the trailer, I predicted that the two apex monsters would do battle multiple times — once in Godzilla’s domain, once in Kong’s home, and once on neutral ground. (I was mostly right.) And as previously mentioned, the title itself sparked my imagination. Would King Kong escape Godzilla’s wrath by swinging through the jungle on vines? How would Kong deal with Godzilla’s atomic breath? Would Godzilla attack Kong with his atomic drop kick?<\/p>\n