There is a moment in Godzilla vs. Kong, during the second bare-knuckled fight between the fire-breathing titan and the giant ape of the title, when Godzilla straightens up after delivering a knockout blow, frames his huge head in the centre of the camera, the edges of his mouth curling upward, and laughs. It could be mistaken for a growl. It’s very growl-like. But it’s a laugh. That’s basically where we’re at with the MonsterVerse, the slowly expanding movie franchise that Warner Bros. launched in 2014 with Gareth Edwards’ Godzilla to reintroduce the famous gigantic lizard and other huge creatures known as kaiju to modern audiences. That critical hit film and a less beloved sequel, 2019’s Godzilla: King of the Monsters, have already pitted the titan against giant insects, a giant pteranodon, a giant moth, and a giant three-headed dragon from outer space, but that’s all small potatoes compared to one very, very big gorilla.

Godzilla and King Kong are, without a doubt, the most internationally famous of the great monsters of classic cinema, and this battle royale has been teased pretty much since the beginning of Warner Bros.’ Monsterverse, and definitely at the end of the franchise’s fourth entry, 2017’s Kong: Skull Island. I don’t think it’s a spoiler to say that, yes, Godzilla and Kong finally fight each other in this movie, and the fights (there are three) are pretty great. The main problem with the movie is that it’s a movie, and not simply a collection of X vs. Y scenes, which means that a decent amount of plot and setup and character drama about the humans in their path is required to make the entire experience worthwhile.

When our two leads are introduced-and the movie does, at least, understand that Godzilla and Kong are its main characters-things aren’t going well for them. The otherwise peaceful Godzilla has emerged from the ocean and is terrorizing cities for no apparent reason, while Kong is a prisoner on his own island, watched over by Monarch, the kaiju-monitoring organization that’s been present throughout the franchise. Kong communicates through sign language with Dr. Ilene Andrews (Rebecca Hall) and her deaf adopted Iwi daughter Jia (Kaylee Hottle), with whom Kong has formed a bond. When a company called Apex Cybernetics claims to have a way to subdue the rampaging Godzilla, Dr. Andrews is convinced by fellow Monarch geologist Nathan Lind (Alexander Skarsgård) to journey with Kong into the Hollow Earth (!!!) to find a power source capable of running whatever Apex is building. (I won’t spoil what that turns out to be, but if you’re a fan of the franchise, you probably know where this is going.)

Meanwhile, Madison Russell (Millie Bobby Brown), the daughter of Monarch director Mark Russell (Kyle Chandler, who spends his few scenes of the movie answering phones) and one of the few holdovers from the previous movie, teams up with her friend Josh Valentine (Julian Dennison) as well as Bernie Hayes (Brian Tyree Henry), a former Apex employee turned podcasting conspiracy theorist, to infiltrate the Apex facility to find out what they’re making and why Godzilla seems so hell-bent on destroying it.

For a movie that is impressively shorter than two hours and for a franchise that’s been obsessively setting itself up for years as an interconnected universe, there’s tons of background and setup of new concepts and characters to get through within the first 20 or so minutes of the movie. Director Adam Wingard is economical about it to the point where characters just say lines about how the Earth is actually hollow on the inside and how they’ll travel around it using antigravity cars (reminiscent of the delightful mid-budget sci-fi action movies Hollywood simply doesn’t make anymore) and all the audience can do is accept that before the film moves forward with the next scene. There are way too many human characters, which is maybe inevitable when you have two (and, eventually, three) camps meeting on the battlefield for the first time.