It should be said that Godzilla: King of the Monsters is not exactly “Citizen Kane,” but while most wouldn’t expect it to be a legendary classic that includes a filming style taught in universities 80 years after its release, it falls short as anything other than a present day soon-to-be-forgotten cash grab.
I grew up being enamored with the old Godzilla movies of the 50s and 60s. Limited budgets, laughable effects, and suspect acting (with hysterical language dubs) but they were fun, at least to the eyes of a 10 year old. While the 2019 “Godzilla: King of the Monsters” is anything but short on the aforementioned descriptions, its overall pacing and absurd premise are a major blemish on the finished product, helmed by filmmaker Michael Dougherty.
It’s tough to accept that the premise is absurd – it’s about giant ancient monsters battling each other and laying waste to everything in sight. But the human element is a complete miss on virtually all fronts.
The film serves as a sequel to the 2014 movie “Godzilla” (which I hadn’t seen and was frankly unaware even existed) and an opening sequence does its best to fill in the gaps from the 5 year span of time.
We have some big names like Vera Farmiga, Kyle Chandler, Bradley Whitford, and Zhang Ziyi. Television stars Millie Bobby Brown (Stranger Things) and Charles Dance (Game of Thrones) add recognizable appeal. Japanese star Ken Watanabe reprises a role from the original 2014 picture.
They’re all good actors. Vera Farmiga in particular is one of my favorites, but it’s tough to work with such a limited scope and poorly written confusing story. Here, it’s as though the writing is working to take away from the positive elements of monsters and special effects. Oh, and enough of the Boston element already.
Farmiga plays Dr. Emma Russell, a paleo biologist who is so Coastal Elite she would prefer a world in which beasts like Mothra, Rodan, and Godzilla can freely roam and dispose of people as they see fit. Its human beings (specifically Man) who are at fault for everything bad and the monsters are here as a form of cleanup crew provided by nature.
Charles Dance is known as the sinister Tywin Lannister in “Game of Thrones” but is completely wasted as Alan Jonah, a militant eco-terrorist. You’ve heard of PETA people tossing paint on fur coats, Alan Jonah’s way of resolving environmental problems is releasing King Ghidorah, a three-headed flying dragon that destroys literally everything its near.
You get my point. There’s only so much of a similar plot; mankind sucks, nature is better, the government has split factions between the wise ones that want to protect the monsters and the evil ones that want to destroy everything, which we want to see. It was great with “Jurassic Park” but everything thereafter is such a bore.
What was great about the old Godzilla movies is the monsters, not the silly plot that surrounds them. And the effects in this film are enjoyable. If you can look past the dad-bod Godzilla, he’s still an awesome sight to behold. We get some up front images of other notorious beasts like Mothra, Rodan, and of course Ghidorah. The plot calls for some other cool looking monsters to be shown for no other reason than the movie being a movie, but other than the main creatures they aren’t touched upon with any effort.
The fight scenes are good, not spectacular. I think this is where the movie really misses the most. It’s over 2 hours long but there’s so much silly human drama inserted that we get robbed a bit of seeing what we really want to see – the monsters. Rodan was one of my favorites as a kid and has a great initial battle, and an early sequence with Mothra is filled with tension, so there are some parts that give us what we want.
“Godzilla: King of the Monsters” is exactly what one would think it is. Part Man Movie, part Summer Blockbuster. It’s little in the way of depth but is an enjoyable film to check out – and serves as my 400th Movie Buff Review (in case you’re counting).
