Godzilla: King of the Monsters

photo courtesy of youtube.com

SPOILER-FREE REVIEW

     Godzilla: King of the Monsters is the sequel to 2014’s Godzilla reboot and the third movie  in Legendary Entertainment’s MonsterVerse, which also includes Kong: Skull Island (2017). King of the Monsters sees the world face a new wave of destruction after a deranged ecoterrorist releases some of the world’s most deadly Titans (including classic Rodzilla rivals like King Ghidorah, a three-headed dragon, Mothra, a giant moth-like monster, and Rodan, a giant Pteranodon). If humanity is to survive, it’ll be up to Godzilla to defeat Ghidorah and take his place as the Alpha Titan.

     Let’s cut right to the chase. King of the Monsters is a movie about giant monsters fighting each other, and this is the part of the review where normally I say something to the effect of: “so if that’s your type of thing, you’ll probably get a kick out of it.” This time I’m not so sure that’s the case, because even for an unabashed monster B-movie, King of the Monsters is a slog.   

photo courtesy of buffalonews.com

     King of the Monsters bears an uncanny resemblance to another monster B-movie, the unrivaled cinematic classic that is 2009’s Mega Shark Versus Giant Octopus (a film made by the low-budget studio that would later produce Sharknado). Seriously, it’s a surprisingly similar concept, except that Godzilla executes it on a substantially bigger scale (thanks to a substantially larger budget). Between the two of us… I’d have to recommend you check out Mega Shark. Mega Shark is fun, it’s absolutely ridiculous, and it’ll surprise you in the best ways. None of the same can be said for King of the Monsters, which tarries along at the same gloomy note from beginning to end.

     The human stories in King of the Monsters are thin and dispensable, though of course we shouldn’t expect anything too grand from a movie which, again, is about giant monsters fighting each other. Genre and genre conventions rightfully dictate that the monster mash takes center stage. But even so, the human scenes don’t exactly work in the movie’s favor, ultimately failing to generate sympathy for the protagonists. (I found myself rooting for the U.S. government, which the movie intends to depict as an unfeeling bureaucracy.) The cast, populated by Kyle Chandler, Vera Farmiga, Millie Bobby Brown, Ken Watanabe, and several other significant actors, does its best.

photo courtesy of bloody-disgusting.com

     More importantly, King of the Monsters is remarkably boring for a movie of its kind. The runtime extends at least an hour too long, so without solid characters or jokes that work, the movie struggles to maintain momentum. By the time we finally get to the climactic action scenes—which, remember, ought to be the movie’s selling point—the showdowns seem more tedious than epic, more chaotic than exhilarating. I was excited to see Godzilla face Ghidorah, to be sure… but only because I knew the credits would roll soon after.

Godzilla: King of the Monsters is rated PG-13 for sequences of monster action violence and destruction, and for some language.

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