Godzilla: King of the Monsters (2019) review

When it comes to the most iconic monsters in film history, none arguably stand taller (figuratively AND literally) than the gigantic reptilian creature known as Gojira AKA Godzilla. Ever since he first hit the big screen in 1954 with his titular film debut, Godzilla has become a staple of pop culture thanks to his numerous film appearances courtesy of Toho Co., Ltd. As of 2019, there have been 32 official installments in Toho’s Godzilla franchise that span over the course of four separate eras. However, for many years, Godzilla wasn’t exactly as popular in the U.S. as he was in Japan. While several installments of the series did see a U.S. release either via a traditional American redub or substantial re-edit (e.g. Godzilla, King of the Monsters, the 1956 U.S. release of the original 1954 Godzilla film), others didn’t see a proper domestic release until they were released on home video several years later. It wasn’t until 1998 when the character was finally given a film adaptation that was primarily geared towards U.S. audiences. 1998’s Godzilla was directed by Roland Emmerich and did generally well at the box-office upon its release, grossing over $300 million worldwide. However, it was ultimately a major dud with both critics and audiences, with many fans lamenting the fact that this version of Godzilla barely resembled the character due to its drastically different design and general lack of the character’s traditional abilities (e.g. his atomic breath). Instead, many felt that the film was blatantly trying to match the success of Jurassic Park, right down to a finale that copied several key elements from Steven Spielberg’s 1993 classic. Toho wasn’t too happy about the film, either, to the point that, when the character appeared in 2004’s Godzilla: Final Wars, it was renamed ‘Zilla’.

The next big attempt at an Americanized version of Godzilla came in 2014 from director Gareth Edwards. Compared to the 1998 film, the 2014 Godzilla made a considerable effort to create a far more accurate rendition of the title character, and for fans of the franchise, it seems as if the film managed to succeed at doing just that. However, while the film was a solid success with critics and audiences and grossed over $500 million worldwide, it turned out to be rather polarizing due to its overall handling of Godzilla, namely because of his general lack of screen-time in favor of the film’s less interesting human characters. But now the King of the Monsters is back in the fittingly titled Godzilla: King of the Monsters, and while it’s only the second of these recent Godzilla films, it’s the third installment of an ever-expanding cinematic universe known as the MonsterVerse. This new series also initiated a reboot of the King Kong franchise with 2017’s Kong: Skull Island, and these two iconic creatures are set to duke it out in a 2020 crossover, Godzilla vs. Kong. But first, we have the second Godzilla film, which sees the title character interacting with several of his iconic monster co-stars from previous Godzilla films, including Mothra, Rodan, and King Ghidorah. This time, directorial duties go to Michael Dougherty, a long-time screenwriter whose writing credits include a pair of X-Men films (2003’s X2: X-Men United and 2016’s X-Men: Apocalypse) and 2006’s Superman Returns. He made his feature-length directorial debut in 2007 with the horror anthology flick Trick ‘r Treat, which has since gone onto become a cult classic of the horror genre along with his 2015 effort, Krampus. And yet, despite his best efforts, Godzilla: King of the Monsters doesn’t quite live up to its goal of fixing some of the biggest issues that fans had with its 2014 predecessor.

It has been five years since the events of the original Godzilla. After the incident in San Francisco where the city was ravaged by Godzilla and a pair of creatures known as MUTO’s, the secret government organization known as Monarch has been pressured into revealing what they know about the existence of these monstrous creatures, who they refer to as ‘Titans’. During this time, Monarch paleobiologist Emma Russell (Vera Farmiga) attempts to establish a method of communicating with the Titans via a device known as the ‘Orca’ that can replicate their vocal frequencies. However, while monitoring the birth of a giant larva, Mothra, Emma and her daughter Madison (Millie Bobby Brown) end up getting captured by a group of eco-terrorists led by former British Army colonel Alan Jonah (Charles Dance). Utilizing Emma’s device, Jonah plans on unleashing all Titans on Earth as a way of bringing balance to the natural order when it becomes apparent that humanity will end up causing their own demise. This results in various monsters being unleashed including the ‘Fire Demon’ Rodan and the most dangerous of the bunch, ‘Monster Zero’ AKA King Ghidorah, the Three-Headed Dragon. To undo Jonah’s actions, Monarch recruits the help of Mark Russell (Kyle Chandler), Emma’s ex-husband and Madison’s father, since he had a hand in developing the Orca prior to their divorce. But, of course, it’s only a matter of time before the one and only Godzilla gets involved as well.

One of the biggest complaints towards the previous Godzilla film was its overall lack of monster-related action. While it did have some genuinely incredible sequences of Godzilla fighting the MUTO’s, these scenes didn’t really occur until the end of the film, and any scenes where they fought beforehand ended up cutting away from the action right before they got started. Thus, fans will be happy to know that it’s an entirely different story with this new film. For starters, there aren’t any noticeable instances where the film cuts away from a monster fight that’s about to happen, and there are also a lot more scenes of Godzilla fighting the likes of King Ghidorah and Rodan rather than just a single fight between them all near the end. Simply put, the monster fights in this film are excellent and are matched by some equally terrific visuals… and yet, it still feels like the film doesn’t focus on its monsters as much as it should. Like the previous film, it tries to balance out the monsters with its human characters but ultimately focuses more on the latter. It also doesn’t help that this film’s plot can be quite a mess at times. Whether it’s because of a completely extraneous human villain or a heavily uneven tone that often makes it way too serious for a film of this nature, the film ends up having an extremely sluggish pace at times since most of the scenes with the humans are just exposition dumps.

This whole ‘focusing more on the humans than the monsters’ thing was another big issue that fans had with the 2014 film as they found the main human characters (namely, Aaron Taylor-Johnson’s Lt. Ford Brody) to be incredibly bland save for Bryan Cranston’s Joe Brody, who gets killed off very early on. And yet, to that film’s credit, Ford Brody was always the main character rather than it trying to focus on several characters at once. By comparison, King of the Monsters has a very stacked ensemble cast on par with the big ensemble of Kong: Skull Island, and while everyone’s fine in their respective roles, most of them have little to work with because of the incredibly convoluted narrative. From this cast, Kyle Chandler is arguably the most developed of the bunch (even though that’s not really saying much) as Mark Russell since the plot revolves around him trying to rescue his ex-wife Emma and their daughter Madison. Had the film primarily maintained focus on those relationships, there probably could’ve been some decent emotional depth to tie into the larger monster story. Instead, Vera Farmiga is tragically undermined by her character’s confused motives while Millie Bobby Brown surprisingly gets little to do despite having plenty of experience dealing with monsters thanks to her role on Stranger Things. As for everyone else, they’re just ‘there’, from Ken Watanabe and Sally Hawkins reprising their roles from the previous film as Dr. Serizawa and his assistant Dr. Graham to Bradley Whitford as a wise-cracking crypto-sonographer and Charles Dance as the previously mentioned human antagonist who’s quite frankly completely unnecessary.  

         

Now, despite all that I’ve said in this review, I want to make it clear that if you’re a fan of the Godzilla franchise and you’re just going into this looking for some awesome monster action, then you’ll probably love this film. Instead of what happened with the 2014 film, where Godzilla had limited screen-time and only one major fight scene with monsters that weren’t even some of his most iconic foes, this film more than delivers when it comes to seeing some of the franchise’s most iconic monsters duke it out. However, as much as it tries to fix the issues that fans had with the 2014 film, it ultimately still feels like Godzilla and his fellow monsters are playing second-fiddle in their own film when it should really be the other way around. Like the previous film, King of the Monsters tends to focus more on its human characters but doesn’t give them any legitimate character development to work with in a film that also suffers from having an extremely underdeveloped plot. Because of this, I’d dare say that the 2014 film did a much better job handling the character of Godzilla. I’m not saying that it was perfect, by any means, but it could be argued that director Gareth Edwards’ ultimate intent was to pay homage to the original Godzilla from 1954 by treating its giant monster attacks in a serious manner. And at the end of the day, that film’s serious tone felt much more appropriate when compared to this film, which doesn’t quite leap at the prime opportunity that it had to revel in some of the Godzilla franchise’s more over-the-top antics. As such, I’m sorry to say that I found Godzilla: King of the Monsters to be rather underwhelming, and yet, that isn’t stopping me from looking forward to Godzilla vs. Kong in 2020. Let’s just hope that it ends up being a heck of a lot better than this one.

Rating: 2/5