GODZZZZIIILLLAAAAAAA! King of Monsters is out now!
Godzilla has been sort of a tricky beast to conquer as far as making a good movie with the classic monster in the modern era. They tried first in 1998, and was more successful in 2014 with the first film in this new franchise, but both times they focused too much on the human element, which isn’t what makes us go see these movies. No, we go to see big monsters smash cities and fight each other.
That’s what we finally get here with Godzilla: King of the Monsters. It’s set in present day, five years after the events of the previous movie in this franchise, and the world has changed since the discovery of monsters. The Monarch Corporation are trying to seek out and awaken these Titans.
But the awakening of a new Titan, Mothra, is interrupted by an eco terrorist named Jonah Alan (Charles Dance) who takes lead scientist Emma Russell (Vera Farmiga) and her daughter played by Millie Bobby Brown. Farmiga’s character has developed a way to control the Titans, and Alan wishes to use this to help save the planet, from humanity.
They awaken a new Titan, the three-headed dragon Ghidorah, and there’s only one way to stop him, that’s with Godzilla himself and it becomes a free for all almost to see who will be the King of the Monsters.
This movie is getting torn apart by critics online, the same critics that said the first movie had too much of the humans in it, they now complain that this movie doesn’t have enough of that. It’s a Godzilla movie, we watch these things to see monster fights, as I mentioned before, and this movie has plenty of that action in spades.
The film does tend to drag at times when cutting to the people, but they are necessary to explain the plot of the movie and to keep the story moving forward, which they do a good job of doing that at least.
One thing of note I did find interesting – we get the Godzilla vs Ghidorah fight right away. These two as intense as Batman and the Joker, or maybe like cat and dog. And in this flick, they start brawling as soon as they see each other. It’s weird that the series didn’t lead up to this, but is in fact leading up to Godzilla vs. Kong.
The film indeed does refer to Kong throughout the film, but we don’t see the beast, save for a cave painting we see in the end credits tease setting up the next movie, which I found weird. They say all the Titans are coming but at the end of the movie I counted like three or four other monsters, most of which we knew Mothra, Rodan, etc, and a few others that looked like the monsters escaping from hell near the end of last month’s Hellboy reboot (check out our review HERE). But no sign of the King himself.
I will say if you’re going to this movie for the people you will be disappointed mostly. They do nothing but to service the plot as exposition devices. Even the great Joe Morton is wasted in a one scene cameo as a Monarch scientist.
But if you’re going to see monsters fight, and are a long-time fan of the characters you’re in for a fun treat with some nice fan service throughout
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