HAVING ONLY SEEN GOOD FORCES BATTLING bad forces, I was not familiar with the concept of rivalry. The closest thing I can think of is when my friends and I would play “King of the Hill,” but that really was not a rivalry. My first encounter was in school when 2 boys in my class had to race each other to see who would be the fastest. They already had the reputation of being fast runners, but our PE teacher thought it would be fun to pit the two of them against each other. I was friends with both, so I was in a quandary. The gym class was devoted to racing, where the teacher would randomly choose 2 students to race the length, up and back, of the gymnasium. He would mark down each student’s time. I hated racing competitions, especially the relay races; because, I was not a fast runner. The pressure to do good in a relay race made me ill; the boys on the team would always call the slowest runner names. When the PE teacher paired the 2 fastest runners, the rest of the students formed a team behind each runner. They cheered and hollered encouragement throughout the race. From that first pairing of these two boys, the teacher always made sure to reprise the pairing in every race through the school year. Suddenly, one had to declare which runner they were supporting in the race. I could not do that because of my friendship with both, so I got teased for it.      THE NEXT RIVALRY I BECAME FAMILIAR with was watching the ice-skating competition during the Olympic Games. The television commercials, the ads in magazines and TV announcers all mentioned the rivalry between an American ice skater and a European one. During the different television broadcasts, covering the various Olympic competitions, the commentators would bring up this rivalry. It was as if they were teasing the viewing audience, mentioning each skater’s strengths and flaws. I would later experience this same type of coverage during aired tennis matches. As an adult, I was fascinated with the importance the media placed on having or creating a rivalry. I found myself buying into it. If there were 2 tennis players “battling” each other, I would root for the left-handed player if it was an option. The most random things, such as liking the city where the player or team was from, would sway my decisions. And here now there is this film with its mega- monster rivalry that I did not know existed and I do not know which monster I want to see win. Maybe you will have more luck deciding than me.     FOR SOME UNEXPLAINED REASON GODZILLA HAS become destructive, attacking a location in the United States. Some scientists believe the monster is agitated, sensing the movement of King Kong who had been secretly kept hidden. If the two monsters were to meet, there would be no telling if mankind would survive. With Alexander Skarsgard (The Kill Team, True Blood-TV) as Nathan Lind, Millie Bobby Brown (Enola Holmes, Stranger Things-TV) as Madison Russell, Rebecca Hall (The Town, Holmes & Watson) as Ilene Andrews, Brian Tyree Henry (Hotel Artemis, If Beale Street Could Talk) as Bernie Hayes and Demian Bichir (The Hateful Eight, A Better Life) as Walter Simmons; this action, science fiction thriller was all about the fight scenes and special effects. The script defies any logic; one needs to turn off their brain before viewing this battle spectacular. I did not feel any of the acting was notable, though I did enjoy watching Millie Bobby Brown. A must in my book is if there is going to be a villain, then they need to be a strong character; the “bad guy” in this movie was nearly nondescript. Without character development and unexplained scenes, this was simply a visual experience, nothing cerebral.           

2 stars