You know it’s summer movie season when shit starts exploding. While Godzilla: King of the Monsters surely delivered on that front (and then some), the second installment in the Legendary franchise missed the point once again.
I wasn’t writing film reviews at the time Godzilla 2014 was released so before I get into this, please allow me to qualify my response. If you were to spend a few minutes in my home, you’d quickly realize where Godzilla ranks on my hierarchy of fandom. After my father passed away when I was 7-years old, distractions were at a premium and one day my mom brought home a crate full of VHS tapes from the big guy’s Shōwa period (1954-1975). Despite the rubber suits and terrible voice-over dubbing, there was an innate charm that resonated with me as a child and helped me bond with my mother in the shadow of my dad’s absence. Our shared affection for “Godsy-Wodsy”, as she liked to call him, still held strong as we attended one of the press screening for Garreth Edwards’ reboot five years ago. Now that she has also passed on, to say these films hold a special place in my heart would be a massive understatement.
I have seen all 32 of the live-action films in this franchise (29 from Toho/3 Hollywood productions) and am currently working my way through the Japanese Anime trilogy on Netflix. Not to be taken lightly, Godzilla is the longest running franchise in cinematic history with 35 titles under its belt (James Bond has 26, the MCU has 24), depending on how you qualify the entries. I wouldn’t describe myself as an expert but I’m very familiar with Japan’s signature kaiju and Legendary’s 2014 installment was a much-needed palate-cleanser after Roland Emmerich’s much-maligned dumpster fire in 1998. If nothing else, it signaled Hollywood was at least capable of making a fairly good and successful Godzilla movie. Fast forward five years and I’m not so sure that will continue to be true.
Sadly, King of the Monsters had a lot of problems that should have never made it to the final product and they all start with the script. Considering nobody is going to a “Godzilla” movie to watch a family drama unfold, it’s insane to think that Godzilla isn’t the main-fucking-character in his own damn movie…again. Writer/Director Micahel Dougherty and Writer Zach Shields clearly didn’t learn from the first movie and decided to double down on the human characters this time out, throwing in stupid one-liners and zingers for effect while the returning members of the original cast got relegated to the sidelines. Moving on from Aaron Taylor Johnson and Elizabeth Olsen makes sense but, if you’re going to have returning characters, you may want to consider them as the primary focus of the human element rather than poorly writing a bunch of new ones. Unfortunately for us, the returning cast didn’t play a significant role outside of Ken Watanabe. These actors were more than capable and had narratives already built in but Sally Hawkins and David Strathairn might as well have just stayed home.
Writing the human stories in big-G films has always been a bit on the shallow side, which is why the default plot usually boils down to a conflict with either aliens or the military. However, following a few simple rules should streamline the process. A.) Focus the narrative through the star of the film. That’s a no-brainer…or so you’d think. B.) Give the characters somewhat reasonable motivation. Typically, I wouldn’t include a plot summary but it’s just sooo dumb. After the events in San Francisco, five-years prior, Godzilla has gone into hiding. Except wait! No, he hasn’t. Not only do they know exactly where is but they built a giant, state-of-the-art underwater facility right next to him…complete with Godzilla viewing window on the command deck. In his absence, Monarch has located 16 other “Titans” and set up bases in their vicinities as well. Now for the best part. As some poorly thought out piece of ridiculous social commentary regarding man-made climate change, the bad guys have a plan to unleash the monsters to burn the world and all the people on it…makes total sense. Naturally, shit goes sideways and they can’t control the ancient monsters quite like they thought they could. Duh! Doctor Serizawa spelled it out in the first movie when he said, “the arrogance of man is thinking nature is in our control and not the other way around.” Well, it’s not like they’re colleagues at Monarch or anything…wait for it. Of course, they are! Holy shitballs, this story is a damn mess and I’m used to time-traveling aliens as the primary antagonists.
Kyle Chandler was fairly good as Mark Russell, given his character was left holding a big bag of steaming kaiju crap left over from all the terrible character writing. Honestly, I didn’t even know he was in this movie because the marketing focused primarily on Vera Farmiga’s Dr. Emma Russell and her daughter, Madison, play Millie Bobby Brown. If you’ve ever seen anything Farmiga has done, you’ll have a pretty good idea of her character arc here. She and Mark have gone their separate ways after the death of their son during the attack on San Francisco and she’s brainwashed their daughter, to top it off. It wasn’t for a lack of effort of their parts but there’s only so much one can do with a script such as this.
Of the new characters, Bradley Whitford was the only one that made sense. He brought enough humor to the table as one of Monarch’s chief scientists but one comic relief character was enough. There was absolutely no need for O’Shea Jackson Jr. and Thomas Middletich to be in this movie at all, let alone dominant so much of the screen time with their one-note characters. Props to them for getting paid. It’s not their fault their characters were poorly written but the commitment, on the part of Dougherty and Shields, to the inclusion of that dialogue was a big miss when it came to setting the tone.
For the main course, there were more frequent and bigger kaiju/Titan action sequences and some of them were pretty great. Bear McReary’s inclusion/adaptations of Akira Ifukube’s original score in combination with his own original music was a huge plus. Although they were the least disappointing aspects of the movie, there still wasn’t enough of what we came to see. For some reason, the filmmakers went the Michael Bay Transformers route and at least half the monster battles revolved around the humans scampering around below their feet while the behemoths clashed in the background. It gives the audience the impression that they’re watching Godzilla battle King Ghidorah but, in reality, they are watching a fast-paced mess of explosions with very little of the main event on the screen. It’s the equivalent of going to see Ali vs Tyson in the most anticipated hypothetical boxing match of all-time and then watching a fight in the audience for two hours. Comparatively, Pacific Rim may not be a great movie but Guillermo del Toro didn’t cheat you out of giant robot fights. He understood what the product was and focused the story through that prism. Maybe there wasn’t enough in the budget for Godzilla but, whatever the reason, it was a mistake
Besides the stupid dialogue and terrible characters that permeate an otherwise perfectly enjoyable kaiju movie, announcing Godzilla v Kong before this film’s release was a colossal mistake from a narrative standpoint. How can any of the threats in King of the Monsters be taken seriously when the audience already knows a sequel is on the way? Thus, you have an action-packed movie where the story is completely irrelevant because it’s all just a set up for the next installment. Captain Marvel suffered from the exact same problem as it released in the shadow of Avengers: Endgame.
It hurts to say but King of the Monsters could have been so, so much better. It SHOULD have been. Instead, the highly supportive fan base was given a monstrously mediocre film. Despite the anticipation, word of mouth is going to sink this sequel and the box office numbers are already heading that direction. The $47-million domestic opening weekend fell short of the studio’s projections and barely managed to edge out Disney’s Aladdin ($42-million) in its second weekend. Thankfully for Warner Bros, the foreign markets brought the global total to $177-million which was enough to the recoup production budget. One way or another, this wasn’t a good sign. If I were one of the executives at Legendary, I’d be knocking down Guillermo Del Toro’s door right now, offering him whatever he wants and giving him the keys to the monster kingdom.
Recommendation: For Godzilla fans, you kind of have to see it for everyone else…maybe. There’s a lot of competition in theaters right now and, quite frankly, better ways to spend your movie dollar. I was able to enjoy it at the moment, but the further I’ve gotten from it, the more disappointing it is.