Godzilla: King of the Monsters is the sequel to 2014’s Godzilla, and the third entry in Legendary’s
MonsterVerse shared universe
franchise. Set five years after the
colossal battle between Godzilla and MUTO revealed to the world the existence
of “Titans” (see Godzilla), the plot pits
Monarch – the organization that has been studying these massive creatures for
many years (as revealed in Kong: Skull Island) – against an eco-terrorist group who wishes to unleash the slumbering
Titans into the world, so that it may be purged of humans and jumpstart the
recovery of the environment. As the
Titans begin waking up and causing tremendous destruction all over the globe,
Godzilla and Ghidorah engage in a battle of supremacy.
In 2014’s Godzilla, the eponymous kaiju only showed up for 8 minutes of its
123-minute runtime – just about 7% of it!
Crazy. But director Gareth Edwards
did a magnificent job in crafting a taut, thoughtful, slow-burn drama-thriller that efficiently
built up tension, emotion, and anticipation through a narrative framed from the
human characters’ POV. Thus, when the
spotlight was finally put on Godzilla, it felt very rewarding. It was a very well-earned payoff.
On the other hand, what director
Michael Dougherty did with Godzilla: King
of the Monsters is kind of the opposite.
We get to see Godzilla and the other kaijus quite a lot of times. Now, the monster smackdown that comes off it
can be fun. But it also starts to feel saturated
in the long run, and the substance of the story is sacrificed. It’s evident that the spectacle is what was made
paramount by the direction.
Nevertheless, to be honest, I
would have been totally fine if this film has been all about “monster smackdown.” But even in this end, I wasn’t quite
satisfied. Again, the monster battles
can be fun at times, but none of them really struck me as memorably original or
outstandingly gratifying. At the very
least, I wanted a set piece that would have given me a nerdy rush. I found cool beats here and there, but no
sequence truly delivered what I hoped.
Many scenes are also a tad too dark to see and absorb fully.
Moreover, it seemed to me that
the film didn’t truly commit with taking the “dumb, popcorn flick” route. There was a tang of it wanting to be “smart.” But it fell flat at it. It only made itself look a bit pretentious. I believe that this would have been a much
more pleasurable movie if it just went all in with being a feast of kaiju
fights.
And for a movie trying to focus
more on the monsters, Godzilla: King of the Monsters has more human characters than its script knows what to do
with. Despite of several recognizable
faces in the cast, I never cared for any of the characters they were playing. What was going on with their arcs even
annoyed me a bit at times. If I had a
favorite character, it would be the snarky Dr. Rick Stanton. But only by virtue of him being the least
bland and actually being fairly charismatic.
I read later that the actor Bradley Whitford based his portrayal of Dr.
Stanton on Rick and Morty’s Rick
Sanchez, and the slight appeal that I found in the character finally made sense
to me.
All in all, Godzilla: King of the Monsters entertains. There’s enjoyment to be had with the monster
throwdowns. But it’s generally underwhelming
as a whole.
Still, I put it above Netflix’s recently finished Godzilla anime film trilogy, though.
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