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With the summer blockbuster beginning this year, the season was kicked off into high gear with multiple films. Avengers: Endgame, Detective Pikachu, and John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum just to name a few. As each film gained successful earnings at the box office, Godzilla: King of the Monsters was, unfortunately, was not on the same financial level as it suffered critically and financially.
Before we get into the review, let’s recap the film. 4-5 years after Godzilla’s disappearance, the Monarch agency awoke another creature known as Mothra. This is not the only creature that has awaken, for many others arisen from their slumber, including one that is not of the original titans, the Three-Headed dragon known as Ghidorah. Threatening humanity and the survival of the world, Godzilla awakens from slumber to challenge the false king of monsters in an all-out war that humanity is caught in the middle of. Between critics and audiences, the film has become a great divide. According to Rotten Tomatoes, the Critics’ score is 39%, while the Audience is at 88%. Based on a variety of reviews, a major difficulty was the lack of human involvement or development. I found this odd because a number of reviews from the previous film origin Godzilla (2014) claimed that humans were too much of the focus. The difference I found between the two was more than simply the amount of screen time, but the execution of that screen time.
The dialogue between humans in the previous film was more believable, relatable, and honest. A large amount of this can be contributed to Brian Cranston’s phenomenal acting as he struggles to find the truth after his wife’s death. In Godzilla: King of the Monsters, however, the dialogue takes a complete 180 where it is predictable, quippy, and full cheesy one-liners. Along with that, the characters themselves are predictable and are hardly worth the investment in, other than Dr. Ishiro Serizawa. This was a primary concern after watching the first trailer. When you compare it to the first official trailer of Godzilla in 2014, the tone, and the stakes are significantly different, character wise. While this does not destroy the film as a whole, it does distract and become annoying nonetheless.
As for the action itself, it did not disappoint, but only to certain degrees. There is no doubt that monsters in movies must have monster fights, that is just a fact. While the fights between the Godzilla and Ghidorah are cool to watch, that is all it really is – cool. There is nothing wrong with action or monsters, how it is executed is a different story. In 2014’s Godzilla, audiences can heavily understand the amount of stress with some of the humans as they were awakened to the fact that monsters exist.
Rather than humanity – primarily the U.S. – responding with their own weapons and contributions, their contributions amounted to very little as they came to the realization that they are outgunned. While this does happen in the sequel with the military, the same cannot be said for the civilians. Throughout the 2014 film, there was a significant focus on the tole humanity took just from their point of view. In this film, not so much. The tole is hardly covered from humanity’s perspective, and when it is, the dialogue fails to be genuine and believable, thus losing the interesting of the audience.
Godzilla: King of the Monsters has a number of awesome, heart pounding, intense moments. These moments were indeed enjoyable and awesome to watch, however, to rely heavily on it to carry the story was an unfortunate mistake. When the plot shifted to the humans, it failed to keep the interest and connection, compared to 2014’s. One may have a good time watching Godzilla and Ghidorah battle it out in the moment, but when the dust settles and the clouds fade, there is not much left to go around beyond that.
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