Godzilla: King of the Monsters (Review)
Godzilla: King of the Monsters At Least Manages to Get the Monsters Right.
Let’s get something clear right off the bat, no one sees a giant monster movie for the plot. So, if you’re expecting anything significant from Godzilla: King of the Monsters, you’re going to be sorely disappointed. Then again, if you’re expecting any sort of plot at all, you still might be pretty disappointed. I get that no one really wants to pay attention to the humans when we have the literal King of the Monsters kicking monster booty on the big screen, but the film seems hell-bent on making me resent every single moment a homo sapien opened its damned mouth. The question is if the big screen brawls between the giant monsters is worth sitting through the rest of Godzilla: King of the Monsters.
All you really need really know about the plot for Godzilla: King of the Monsters is that it features Godzilla throwing down with his arch-nemesis, the three-headed dragon King Ghidorah. There are a few other kaiju thrown in for good measure, but the real smackdown is between those two. Of course, there’s a human element tossed in so that the audience can feel grounded in all the destruction and chaos, but it’s not even worth mentioning considering how detrimental it is to the film overall. Especially since writer/director, Michael Dougherty decided to inject some family drama into the story with characters that can’t seem to see eye to eye when it comes to the giant titans now roaming the Earth.
From a popcorn perspective, I actually enjoyed a lot of Godzilla: King of the Monsters. Then again, I’m probably a little bit biased given that I grew up watching a guy the giant rubber suit terrorize downtown Tokyo (in a movie, not in real life). Godzilla has come a long way since then and I have to say he looks damn good on the big screen. In fact, all the monsters have benefited from a bit of a redesign from the good old days. Don’t get me wrong, they’re still the same old kaiju that fanboys knew and loved, but the detail that went into their transition from rubber suits to CGI monstrosities is impressive. The same can be said for the incredible destruction they wreck with their epic battles. In a lot of ways, Godzilla: King of the Monsters feels almost like a natural disaster movie thanks to the epic scale when it comes to these beasts asserting their dominance over ill-fated cities. Bearing that in mind, the script itself feels like a natural disaster in and of itself at times.
At the center of this new chapter in the Godzilla franchise is a family (Kyle Chandler, Vera Farmiga, and Millie Bobby Brown) that suffered a terrible loss when the giant lizard attacked San Francisco in 2014’s Godzilla. Of course, that means they’re deeply involved with the organization tasked with researching these so-called titans. Honestly, there’s not much to say about them given how weakly conceptualized the characters are. I suppose the purpose initially was to show the incredible destruction these creature wreck on a personal level. After all, it’s easy to watch a city fall apart and not really feel much, watching a family fall apart though is another thing. Unfortunately, it’s hard to really give a damn about any of the characters in Godzilla: King of the Monsters. Honestly, I think Dougherty should have just killed them all off in the beginning and just focused on what we really came to see.
Spectacle is the name of the game when it comes to Godzilla: King of the Monsters, but even keeping that in mind the film continues to sprint when it really has a marathon to run. There’s barely a moment to catch your breath between giant monster battles, which ends up cheapening them since they all sort of blur together. Don’t get me wrong, I still found myself cheering for the titular King of the Monsters, but my throat was getting a bit horse by the end of the movie. Honestly, Godzilla: King of the Monsters spreads itself a little too thin, mostly because it keeps cutting back to infuriatingly poorly developed subplots featuring the meddling humans in the film. However, even as much as I like watching giant monsters duking it out, Godzilla: King of the Monsters wears out the novelty by the end.
Look, Godzilla: King of the Monsters might not be a great movie, but it’s still a fun one. The film knows what die-hard fans of Godzilla really want to see at the end of the day and for the most part, it delivers that beautifully. That being said, it overdoes it, especially when it comes to “hinting” at a future (and inevitable) King Kong vs Godzilla movie. It’s everything else in Godzilla: King of the Monsters that simply sucks. It’s a struggle to get through certain points in the film and I’m pretty bitter about that. Fans of the character won’t want to miss out on this movie, but casual moviegoers might not have as much to cheer for.
