Hey everyone, sorry if its been a while since my last review, because I was pretty busy with some traveling. But I have returned to take a look at the latest entry in the Monster-Verse. Now I have enjoyed the previous films in franchise quite well. The 2014 Godzilla was a pretty good exercise in tension with a very majestic tone, though most of the characters were nothing to write home about, and Kong Skull Island was a fun action adventure period piece, with some great monster fights, and some memorable characters even if the story was not in great shakes. So now we have the proper to sequel to Godzilla in King of the Monsters, and naturally I was really excited for it. I mean I love Kaiju movies, the trailers looked epic, the cast is strong, and it promised some hints at whats to come in next year’s Godzilla Vs. Kong. Now after seeing it, I can say that I definitely had a fun time watching it.
Taking place 5 years after the first Godzilla, we are introduce to Paleobiologist, Dr. Emma Russel, a scientist working for the organization Monarch, and her daughter Madison. They are still trying to cope with a loss on the family from 5 years earlier, and they have grown separated from their husband, and father, Mark. Dr. Russel however, has created a device that could communicate with the Kaiju called, the Orca, and plans on using it to try and see if they can coexist. Things get out of hand though when an eco-terrorist group breaks into one of the facilities, and kidnaps Dr. Russel, and Madison taking the Orca as well in the process. When Monarch finds out about this, they bring in Mark to help them out to try and rescue them. They track them down with the help of an old friend, Godzilla himself and find out soon enough that these terrorist’s true plan is to release Monster Zero, AKA King Ghidorah, Godzilla’s old rival, to take command of the Titans so they can rule this world once again, and save it from the damage humans have caused. When Ghidorah is released it is up to the people of Monarch, and Godzilla to stop King Ghidorah, in a battle of Gods for the ages to see who is truly king of the Monsters.
Well one thing that is true of this film, is that it is probably the biggest movie in terms of scope, and scale we’ll see this Summer. I mean this film just feels epic, thanks to how big the proceedings feel especially when it comes to the Giant Monster battles (which we will discuss more in detail later). There is also some cool world building here, as we get to see more Titans, and learn a bit more about how they were in the past when people worshiped them as Gods. Speaking of which, yes the movie does have set up for next year’s big showdown, and even references the 2017 prequel a number of times to make us feel excited, and it doesn’t distract too much from the movie at hand. I also really appreciated how different this film feels compared to the last two entries, in terms of tone, and visual style. On the whole though, this movie is a bit of mixed bag when it comes to the story. On the one hand it has plenty epic monster fights, that will make any Kaiju fan cheer with glee, and it does bring up some cool ideas, and interesting concepts like how we exploit these creatures, how they are seen as Gods, and the whole coexisting with them to make the world better ideas, that give the film some substance, and bit of an environmental message undertone to it. On the other hand, the human stuff in the story is just there. I mean its not terrible or anything, its serviceable, and keeps the plot moving along, but it the human scenes are mostly about explaining things to the audience shoving a lot of exposition down our throats, which is something that hurts the pacing of the movie at times. The whole broken family subplot is fine, if a little bit cheesy at times, but I do appreciate the attempts at making us actually care about it, and the characters are mostly not portrayed as idiots which can be a problem sometimes when it comes to movies like this (*cough* Jurassic World Fallen Kingdom *cough*).
But I think we all know who the real stars of this movie are, and I am of course referring to the Monsters! I mean the movie is called Godzilla King of the Monsters, not Mark Ruler of Humans, so of course these giant behemoths will end up stealing the show. I love how each monster is different from one another both, in appearance, and personality. Godzilla is of course an awesome ruler, but Mothra is responsible for some of the film’s most beautiful imagery, Rodan has possibly the best action sequence in the entire movie, and King Ghidorah works very well as a terrifying villain that proves to be a real challenge for Godzilla. All of these guys are brought wonderfully to life by the VFX team, and I’ve got to say they did a fantastic job at doing that. The movie is also quite visually stunning thanks to some beautiful cinematography, with a lot of nicely done shots, and some extremely well staged action scenes. Speaking of the action, when it starts it is just relentless from there, feeling intense, and almost like a roller-coaster ride. The film barely gives you moment to breathe, and I would highly recommend seeing this on the biggest screen you can possibly find, in order to truly feel the experience. Whats most impressive is how most of the action is taking place in this darkly lit locations, and yet I could see everything going on very clearly, which is just amazing because I hate it when action is shot like this because I want to see what is going on, and this movie did it right. Big shout outs to the score composed by Bear McCreary as it just as epic, and exciting as the film, thanks to the utilization of some classic themes from Toho movies past (I also love the song they play in the credits simply titled “Godzilla”).
In fact anything to do with the monsters is just perfect, but that doesn’t mean the human stuff is all bad. I think what really saves it from being completely disposable is that I liked a lot of the actors involved, and most of them did a very good job here. Vera Farmiga, Millie Bobby Brown, and Kyle Chandler are all very good as the Russel’s, and they do make the family subplot somewhat work thanks to their performances. Although Brown is actually not in the movie as much as the trailers have implied, and Chandler’s character, Mark is a really big Gary Stu archetype, as he knew all of the answers, and had all of the right ideas which was almost unintentionally funny in a way. Charles Dance as the main human antagonist, and leader of the eco-terrorist group, Alan Jonah, is also good, but the character is extremely underutilized, and is really just a big plot device more than anything else. The scientists like Ziyi Zhang’s Dr Ling, and Bradley Whitford’s Rick Stanton also do what they can with limited screen time, with Whitford getting some of the best lines in the film, and while Thomas Middleditch as Monarch agent, Sam Coleman, threatened to be an annoying comic relief at first, that thankfully was not the case, and he ended up doing a fine job. Aisha Hinds, David Strathairn (who was also in the 2014 movie), and O’Shea Jackson Jr. all play military personal, and they also manage to leave something of an impact with what they have. As for some of the other returning players they are actually the ones I cared about the most, like Sally Hawkins as Dr. Vivienne Graham, and Ken Watanabe as Dr. Ishiro Serizawa who makes any line of ridiculous dialogue so awesome.
So in the end Godzilla King of the Monsters is a fun monster mash that is not going to be for everyone. If you want deep human drama you may want to look somewhere else but if you want giant monster mayhem then this is the movie for you. I still think Kong Skull Island is the best out of the three films in this universe thus far, mainly because it gives you want you want (giant monster mayhem), and gives us a little more (some memorable characters whom we care about), but I still enjoy them all on their own merits. I would say this film is about as good as the 2014 one, since they both work for different reasons, and each one does some things better than the other. Now lets see what happens next year when Godzilla faces King Kong himself. To be honest after what we got here with the monster stuff, I’m curious to see how this universe is going to top itself with the massive scale, and monster fights.
Rating: B
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