REVIEW: Godzilla - King of Monsters

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Let's start with a synopsis, shall we?

For the past 14 years the world’s giant monster security force, known as Monarch, has been tracking and studying potential threats known as Titans all over the world. This is to the chagrin of most governments as the Godzilla vs MUTO fight in 2014 destroyed literally all of San Francisco. Understandably, people want these creatures dead, not studied. Meanwhile, Dr. Emma Russell of Monarch and her teenage daughter have developed a device that will allow them to communicate with Titans by analyzing their vocal patterns. When Eco-Terrorists storm Dr. Russell’s facility, kidnap the duo, and start controlling monsters with the device, the remaining members of Monarch must go after the fiends responsible! The team enlists the help of Dr. Russell’s ex-husband and are now forced to ask themselves the question: are we the problem?

Now I will posit to you, dear reader, that this synopsis has a lot going on that I super-duper like. We’re talking about the worth of knowledge and its relationship to practical survival, we’re talking about our responsibility to each other as human beings, heck, we’re talking about whether humanity is worth saving or just a straight up hazard to all life! That’s some collegiate shazz! Quality conflicts! Couple that story with some wicked special effects and I’d say you have yourself a fantastic feature film. A movie that’s a bit cornball, but poetic and action packed. A movie that not only holds homage to the classic Godzilla in visual style but in tone.

The problem is you gotta have the script to back it up and the script for King of Monsters does not live up to its ambitious premise.

The pacing is messy. Really messy. The dialogue crashes into scenes with the bluntness of a jackhammer, multidimensional characters are given no chance to develop earnestly, and every surprise is met with 2 disappointments. It’s riddled with jokes that feel half thought out or fall completely flat. There’s an unneeded plot device that ruins the very nature of unstoppable monsters by, ya know, stopping them. ANNND Boston was a freakin’ boring place to have the final showdown considering the writers had the entire world to choose from, INCLUDING TOKYO! Why on earth would you not end this globe trotting GODZILLA MOVIE in Japan? Are you SERIOUSLY that dense?!

…

but I guess I liked it okay.

Ghidorah looks rad as always, Millie Bobby Brown and Ken Watanabe show the heck up to work, as always, and I fell in love with the more creative action sequences (that I won’t spoil because they’re the main reason to see a movie like this). It delivers what I think most people want out of a movie like this, but it’s just a bit unfortunate, ya know? The new American Godzilla could have easily subverted my expectations but King of Monsters ended up being yet another B- action flick. Oh well. Maybe a 3rd reboot will be the charm?

3/5

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