To say I went into this apprehensive is putting it mildly. After hating the last Godzilla movie and watching director Adam Wingard butcher beloved franchises like Death Note and Blair Witch, ON TOP of not enjoying the one work of his I've seen that wasn't tied to a preexisting property, all signs pointed to this not being my cup of tea. So imagine my surprise when it turned out that not only DID I enjoy it, but that it's the first entry in the MonsterVerse to truly deliver on the one thing we've all wanted to see from these films in the first place: giant monsters fighting. Right from the opening shot of Kong waking up and scratching his butt you know you're in for a very silly time. Vs. in no way takes itself seriously. The tone is irreverent and all of the new characters portrayed by the likes of Brian Henry and Julian Dennison (this kid is the best) are just goofy joke dispensers. The plot is also so absurd and nonsensical that you can't help but wonder why the writers couldn't come up with a less convoluted means of getting these two titans to clash. The humans are once again unnecessary (and extremely stupid), but for the first time don't get in the way. They do their job of carrying the exposition without distracting from the Kaiju or their battle. In fact, it's the monsters who receive the real characterization here. Godzilla in a somewhat villainous turn fully becomes that stereotypical anime protagonist who goes around fighting everyone just to prove he's the strongest. Meanwhile, Kong gets put through the wringer in a surprisingly emotional arc that finds the giant monkey imprisoned and constantly getting dragged around by the idiots at Monarch before finally discovering his origins. We're not here for the script though, are we? No, the appeal comes strictly from what the title promises, and that's a couple of massive beasts throwing down for dominance. On that front it delivers completely. The destruction. The spectacle. The scale. It's all so much fun and unlike King of the Monsters is never obscured by particle effects or incessant cutaways to the people on the ground, which means we get to witness all of the action in its full glory, even if the CGI isn't quite what it could have been. So yeah, it's about as dumb as a box of rocks. That's okay though because Warner Bros. finally gathered that it won't matter so much if you not only "let them fight," but let us SEE them fight as well, and preferably with as little interference from the humans as possible. Or at least they hired someone who did. Seriously, props to Wingard for being the first person given the reigns on one of these to realize that the Kaiju brawls should be the focus and that the Monarch morons need to be used as sparingly as possible because they suck. He pretty much just saved the MonsterVerse despite his track record indicating the opposite would happen and made me willing to give him another chance in process. Maybe I'll check out The Guest sometime after all.