Godzilla: King Of The Monsters Review: Doesn't Quite Rise Up
- naterichard98
- Jul 20, 2019
- 2 min read
DIRECTED BY: MICHAEL DOUGHERTY
STARRING: MILLIE BOBBY BROWN, VERA FARMIGA, & KYLE CHANDLER RATED PG-13 FOR SEQUENCES OF MONSTER ACTION VIOLENCE AND DESTRUCTION, AND FOR SOME LANGUAGE
LENGTH: 132 MINUTES
When Legendary and Warner Bro's reboot of Godzilla hit the big screen in the summer of 2014, it was met with polarizing reviews from audiences and critics alike. Most of the complaints were geared towards the fact that the titular monster was given a minimal amount of screen time in his own movie and that the film's lead in Aaron Taylor-Johnson didn't make for a compelling hero. Despite this, the film still had it's fans and went on to become a box office success. This led to Legendary moving forward with their own 'MonsterVerse', including a sequel Godzilla: King Of The Monsters, 2017's Kong: Skull Island and next year's Godzilla Vs. Kong.
One sure-thing that Godzilla: King Of The Monsters has over it's 2014 predecessor is that it gives audiences what it promised. The monsters are front and center and instead of the iconic lizard taking on two nameless Kaiju, here he is joined by three of the most popular Kaiju: the three-headed King Ghidorah who serves as the film's main antagonist, the gentle Mothra, and the winged wild-card Rodan. The action and VFX work here is absolutely stunning, not only are the monster battles a blast to watch, but they also contain the best visual effects of the franchise thus far.
The human cast is mainly decent here, with actors like Charles Dance and Ken Watanabe hamming it up alongside some solid work from Kyle Chandler, Vera Farmiga, and Millie Bobby Brown. Unfortunately, all the human characters are almost as flat as the lead characters were in the 2014 film. Nobody here is memorable and whenever a character is killed off there's no emotional heft leaving the deaths without impact.
The script is perhaps one of the messiest there's been in a blockbuster this year, the dialogue is light, everything feels dumbed down, and there is absolutely no development of anything. Everything aside from the monster fights comes across as flat and lifeless. None of it feels particularly memorable and drags the movie down.
It's a shame after the film's tremendous marketing, that Godzilla: King Of The Monsters is such a bummer. While it does improve upon some of the previous film's flaws it also repeats its sins.
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