Godzilla: King of The Monsters Review

     What a time it is to be a Kaiju fan. Heck, what a time it is to be a Tokusatsu fan. Godzilla about to wrap up a very successful American series produced by Legendary. Kamen Rider and Super Sentai getting a strange but welcome revitalization in recent seasons with no sign of stopping. There are even whispers of a New Ultraman movie on the horizon. While those are all worthy topics for another day, It is well past time to look at the recent big Toku/Kaiju news hitting the spotlight; Godzilla: King of the monsters. The movie was recently released on DVD/Blu-Ray so the inevitable toku-nuts and Kaijuphiles are swarming with memes and discussion. Many say the movie was a fantastic popcorn flick, some say it was a catastrophe of a boring movie and others are kind of in the middle. After watching the movie one more time I am honestly of the opinion that this movie is very good, but very flawed.
     One Thing I want to be clear of is what I mean by "flawed". The way I went into watching this movie was as a Godzilla fan looking for a fun movie. I did not go in expecting to judge this movie with the same level of seriousness that one would judge the Original 54' Gojira or the 2016 Shin Gojira. Anybody who does that is wrong and should reevaluate some things. (topic for another day). This movie was very clearly trying to be a fun summer blockbuster with Godzilla, something I and MOST people should have picked up on with the trailers and the first 20 minutes of the movie. (again, topic for another day). So judging it like that I really think the movie is good but fails on some general technical levels that would have really helped the film. Let's get into details.

Plot

     The plot of this film is mostly straightforward. Monarch is keeping tabs on Godzilla, but losing government favor quickly due to lack of info and lack of initiative to destroy threats. Since the events of 2014 Dozens of Kaiju have hit Monarch's radar including one particularly dangerous specimen in the antarctic. A team of eco-terrorists go and supposedly kidnap a lead researcher for Monarch, and her daughter, from a site that holds Titanus Mosura, or Mothra. Their efforts lead to Mothra escaping and forming a cocoon in the surrounding forest as the terrorists take the researcher to he Antarctic to free this new  Kaiju, Ghidorah. The method they use is a "super sonar" essentially that can replicate any Kaiju's bio acoustics and, in effect, communicate with them. This device is known as the Orca. The signal they use to wake up Ghidorah is that of an alpha. While this signal, and a few key explosions, are effective in drawing out Ghidorah, the signal also enrages and drawn unwanted attention from Godzilla.
     From there the movie goes into full motion. The eco-terrorists plan to awaken all of the Kaiju in a messed up plan to "save" the planet from the human infestation. The next target, in Brazil, is a very ferocious flying Kaiju known as Titanus Rodan. After Rodan is set free, Monarch intercepts with a new ship and lures Rodan into the path of King Ghidorah. Ghidorah defeats Rodan easily only to be intercepted by an angry Godzilla who lured him into the water. the fight rages on in Godzilla's favor until the military intervenes with a new weapon in an effort to kill both Kaiju where they stand. The new Oxygen destroyer works wonders on critically injuring Godzilla, but does little to Ghidorah. Ghidorah emerges from the water and perches atop Rodan's volcano where it grotesquely regrows a head that was lost in combat. Then, to the horror of mankind, Ghidorah lets out a mighty below waking up every other dormant Kaiju all across the globe taking it's place as the new alpha of all the Kaiju on earth.
     As things look their most desperate the humans think of a plan to revive Godzilla by feeding him nuclear energy. Dr. Serizawa, who has been leading Monarch Leads a team down to Godzilla'a home, the ruins of an ancient civilization. Due to immense heat and radiation, the launching mechanisms break. Dr. Serizawa then makes the ultimate sacrifice and takes the bomb to Godzilla personally. Detonating it with time for the rest of the team to escape. The plan works! Godzilla is awake, angry and storming towards Ghidorah, who is being drawn to Boston. The researcher's daughter managed to swipe the Orca and activate the signal to draw Ghidorah and the other titans to one place so the military can converge as well.
     Ghidorah makes landfall in Boston to search out the source of the alpha signal. Before Ghidorah manages to crush the girl, Godzilla makes landfall and the final battle ensues. Monarch and the Military using their full might to assist Godzilla against Ghidorah. As Mothra enters the fray to help Godzilla, the queen is intercepted by the subjugated Rodan. A massive brawl takes place. Kaiju versus Kaiju and humanity versus monsters. Mothra sacrifices herself to stop Rodan and save Godzilla. Between Mothras intervention and the building of radiation, Godzilla gets enveloped in nuclear fire and becomes burning Godzilla to finally defeat King Ghidorah and claim his rightful place as King of the Monsters

Human Characters/Story

     While the main plot elements revolve around the monsters, there is a very active human story in this movie to be sure. Some would even argue it was focused on too much. I can certainly see why some would think that. There are absolutely moments where the film cuts away from the monsters and focuses on the humans when it really shouldn't have.The climax has one of the most glaring of these moments. In the end, While I do see the humans and their struggle as somewhat "in-the-way" I don't necessarily see this part of the movie as bad.

     While there is a slew of side characters and returning characters there are really on 5 main humans to make note of in this film:

Dr. Emma Russell- Played by Vera Farmiga. The Scientist I mentioned who was taken along with her daughter. It turns out Emma hatched this plan with the eco-terrorists to stop the human "infection" and create a world of balance where titans could roam and rein and humans could coexist with them.









Dr. Mark Russell- Played by Kyle Chandler. Mark was called upon by Serizawa after hearing about the kidnapping of his wife and Child. He is advising monarch and acting as Serizawa's right hand effectively since he helped create the Orca that sends out the signals and wakes up the monsters



Madison Russell- Played by Millie Bobby Brown. The daughter of Emma and Mark Russell. She was taken with Emma and the eco-terrorists very much against her will. Madison slowly comes to resent what her mother is doing and does what she can to stop it, especially after Ghidorah prematurely wakes every titan.

Dr. Ishiro Serizawa- Played by en Watanabe. Returning from the 2014 film, Dr. Serizawa is in charge of Monarch and doing everything he can to protect the creatures and prevent humanity from making grave mistakes. Serizawa is effectively the moral "middle ground" of this movie. His love of the monsters, or "titans"as they are referred, never goes fanatical like Emmas. His understanding of the creatures also keeps him from siding with any effort to attack or destroy them.


Alan Jonah- Played by Charles Dance. the leader of the Eco-terrorists. While Alan doesn't get much screen time, he gives of this air of evil genius. Alan truly believes that it is time for humanity to go extinct and it is high time the monsters finished the job.







        Dr. Serizawa and Alan Jonah would have been fine to be played as a fairly standard good guy/bad guy scenario but the film never goes that simple. Instead, the film chooses to stick with a more complex human dilemma that may have been to the film's detriment. The main human story instead focus on the other three, the main family. Apparently the family lost their son when Godzilla was fighting the MUTO's in San Francisco. This drove the parents to lose themselves in their efforts and split apart. Emma in awe of the power the titans commanded and Mark resenting the monsters for destroying everything near them without a care which leads to alcohol abuse and drives the family apart. Madison is left in the middle of this separation and is with her mother trying to stay in contact with her father.
     There is nothing wrong with this kind of plot thread. These characters reacted to previous events in very believable ways as well as they further tie the events of the 2014 film with the current film and the leftover consequences. The problem is that we already had a cast of characters returning with interesting backstories and ties to the monsters. I honestly believe Dr. Serizawa should have commanded more focus in this movie, especially given the sacrifice he makes at the end of the film.
     To play Devil's advocate, it's not like each of the main characters didn't serve a role. Each character served a purpose in this movie, even if some side characters had a very brief scene of exposition. As soon as you remove one element from the movie, it becomes hard to fill in that gap. This creates what I believe to be the main problem with the film. The story with the monsters is nice and straightforward while the story with the human characters is complex and interesting. Each story is fine on it's own but they do not contrast that well together. this creates an overall story that, while good, feels a bit jumbled while it fights with itself at times.

Monsters / effects

     I wont go into detail explaining the individual monsters simply because pretty much everybody knows about Godzilla, Mothra, Rodan and King Ghidorah. I will, however talk about the designs of the creatures. Godzilla himself went through a small overhaul. as is tradition for each movie. Compared to his 2014 iteration, he is considerably slimmer  with more jagged spikes. the design itself looks great and can be considered a sort of microcosm of several Godzilla designs from the Heisei era and recent years.
     Rodan's design is the simplest but is so sinister in it's simplicity. A giant winged beast that looks like a pteranadon with skin and wings that looks like molten rock. Rodan also appears to have lava for blood as close inspection shows lines of a red/yellow glow in the cracks of his skin. Aside from the jagged skin, all of the tips of his wings, claws, talons and beak are viciously sharp. I dare say, this is the most intimidating Rodan has ever looked on film.
     Mothra went a more realistic moth direction with her design. the Larval form has sharp insectoid legs with an adorably insect-like face. When Mothra grows up, she goes from adorable to fierce. the realistic moth look is there but more ferocious, jagged appendages and even a stinger! I know not everybody is that into the design of Mothra in this one. Mothra has been known to usually have this warm presence as a guardian of earth. this tone is not reflected here, but one must understand this is not a traditional take on Mothra. Within the context of this film, Mothra looks fantastic.
     King Ghidorah probably had the most people worried before the film was released. Some people worried the dragon would look to similar to Smaug from The Hobbit or worried Legendary would choose a new weird direction for the space dragon. To everyone's delight, this Ghidorah is "menacing" incarnate. The designers went the extra mile to make sure Ghidorah was bigger than all of the other monsters, Godzilla included. Compared to previous incarnations of Ghidorah it doesn't have any noticeable or jagged scales. The entire skin of Ghidorah is very reptilian. I can understand people preferring the more scaled look, but for those open to a bit to change, this design is very wonderful and ferocious.
     All in all, The effects of this movie are pretty great. Everything regarding creature design is very well done. The effects artists managed to create designs for all of the iconic monsters that is both wholly unique and recognizable at the same time. As for the other creatures, aside from Scylla and Behemoth, the audience didn't really have a chance to get a good look at any other monsters. what little we could see was unique and inspiring but that's just it, it was too little.

Major Problems

     It is easy to catch on by now that the strengths of this movie are related to the monsters and the cons are related to the human characters. It's not necessarily that the human stories are bad, but they pull way too much focus and attention. As I mentioned before, there are major sequences of monster action that were interrupted by cutting to human action. Humans pulling focus in Godzilla movies is not a new concept. Godzilla movies have been primarily about the people ever since the original film. Other films, however, have the foresight to let monster action play out during climactic and important fights. Every fight in this film has several cutaways, which was sadly a carry over problem from the last movie.

     Another problem unfortunately carried over as well. That is how "dark" the movie is. When I say dark I am referring to the effects and lighting. Many fights are shot in a way where monsters and buildings blend into the background. On paper, I understand why this is. The fewer colors and tones used in a scene, the cheaper the labor to make that scene look good. While I do acknowledge this film was done much better with it's lighting design than the previous movie ( I can actually make out the monsters the whole time), It is still not quite to a point where people can make out everything. Some people say this problem can be fixed with monster fights in the day, but I don't think time of day is the problem. There have been many monster movies with night fights that look fantastic. Pacific Rim has a very iconic fight scene at the end and even Godzilla has had a few night-time scraps in his day.
     The final major problem with the film is a storytelling problem. With the monsters and humans each having their own stories and conflicts, there was a lot to juggle. I feel like the film through an awful lot at the viewers from the get-go. It almost makes the film seem rushed when in reality the film isn't that rushed at all. Pacing is not an issue with this film, its all about story overload. There was just too much to present in such a short time. No matter how simple you make the stories, when you balance two different stories you have to have some connecting threads or it will all fall apart.

Final Thoughts

     This film is a Popcorn flick in the ultimate sense of the word. Godzilla fans can enjoy a fun, albeit slightly distracted, monster romp and even general audiences can enjoy a fun summer blockbuster. As a Godzilla fan I am immensely happy to see a fun and decently done Godzilla movie in the states again. If you like the 2014 Godzilla film, you will absolutely like this film as well. If you didn't like the 2014 film, I would still say to give this film a watch. This film is much more fun and monster oriented than its predecessor. Legendary hasn't quite mastered the Godzilla formula yet, but this is a very worthy attempt. I wouldn't say this is one of my favorite or one of the best Godzilla films, but it absolutely is one of the good ones.

Final Score

7.5/10

     Okay but seriously who's ready for this hype??