Review - Godzilla: King of the Monsters

Godzilla: King of the Monsters is the sequel to that Godzilla film from 2014, as well as a sequel to Kong: Skull Island I guess, although that link is only relevant in setting up the next film. Primarily, this is set five years after that initial attack, where Godzilla's fight ended up completely levelling San Francisco and obviously, a lot of people lost family, which is kinda making America twitchy about the big guy, even though he is clearly on our side, against monsters who are bigger and way more malevolent. The thing is, that's technically the main plot but there's also a lot of side stories about some fairly uninteresting human characters. I'll go more into that later but while it would be odd to make a monster movie about nothing about the monster, it feels foolish to spend way more time with humans (even if that worked out solidly for the 2014 Godzilla). As the plot goes on, everything starts to get a little silly, except in my least favourite way, where everything is silly but the film is still being very serious about it. There's a moment that would perfectly orchestrate this but it is near the end, so I feel that probably would end up ruining it a bit (because I know everyone here is clamouring to avoid plot spoilers for a Godzilla movie) Suffice to say, it's a paper thin plot that exists only to get from fight to fight, except that way too much time is spent on the plot.

So, actors. I don't think there are really any actors in this film who are actively bad, it's just that everyone is a little meh. I like Kyle Chandler, I like Bradley Whitford, I like Sally Hawkins. They're all just working below par and are given nowhere near enough time. Before I go on, I would like to admit something; I don't think I get this whole Millie Bobby Brown obsession people have. I'm not going to criticise her acting too much because she's still a teenager and could certainly get better, I've just never found her particularly compelling in anything I've seen her in, this included. I mention that mainly because she is part of a family who are the core of the human story in this film, a family who lost a child when Godzilla first attacked in 2014. The problem is, nowhere near enough time is spent with any individual member of the family for us to care at all, time being lost either to other humans (who will inevitably just sit there and keep making "wow" faces at monsters) or to the monster fights. No other characters get treatment better than that either. It is merely a parade of famous faces to make you go "oh, I like them". I'll move on in a second but this film does also feature a lot of time spent on my least favourite monster movie trope of "Giant monster takes interest in sole human figure, who is about 1/10000th of their size". It makes no sense, develops nothing and I keep seeing it in these kind of films, so I suppose it shouldn't be a surprise that G:KOTM follows suit.

The first trailer for this film came out at Comic-Con last year and was quickly praised by hordes of people for its gorgeous visuals and interesting seeming tone. I wasn't fully on the side of the converted, being more of a Kong: Skull Island kind of guy, but it seemed cool enough. Turns out, it wasn't all we expected it to be, as an amazing colour palate would be too interesting for a major studio blockbuster, although this is ironically the studio who brought us Fury Road and Blade Runner 2049. Still, it seems they've massively toned those visuals down and now, it's a lot of fighting in darkness and shadows with occasional flashes of blue or orange. It's a shame because there are more monster fights in this film than the 2014 one, something that many, myself included, wanted. Looking back now, it's clear that that restraint allowed for the few fights before to mean more, whereas here, it becomes shapes versus shapes, causing two of my friends to get legitimate migraines. With all of that said though, you come to a film like this looking for cool moments and I'd be lying if I said I didn't get a few cool moments to push me along. It's just that those moments were not nearly frequent enough for a movie this promising.

I don't think I can recommend this film. There are some cool moments but honestly, while watching this, there were so many moments where I really just felt like going to sleep. It is visually too messy, the plot is all over the place and the characters are too plentiful to be fleshed out, even ignoring the migraine inducing. Such an odd mixed bag that ultimately leads me to give Godzilla: King of the Monsters a