Godzilla: King of the Monsters
I normally do not take this long to write movie reviews for movies I’ve seen in theatres- at least, not any more. But this week, circumstances dictated doing so, and I’m kind of glad they did, in this case, because my feelings on “Godzilla: King of the Monsters” need to be on solid footing as I prepare for a rare recent-movie podcast with my friend and kaiju fan, Matthew Saliba. I had notes I did for that episode, so being able to put it off is easier.
I’m someone who really liked Gareth Edwards’s 2014 rendering of “Godzilla.” And rewatching it for mine and Matthew’s initial podcast on the monster, that appreciation grew, although some of the flaws people pointed to also became more obvious. The lack of Godzilla action is certainly to the film’s detriment, especially when one considers that the most interesting characters are the scientists who take an interest in Godzilla and his existence. But for an introduction of Toho’s iconic kaiju into American filmmaking idiom after the disaster that was Roland Emmerich’s 1998 film, I thought it did a very good job. With “King of the Monsters,” co-writer/director Michael Dougherty (“Krampus,” “X2: X-Men United”) is building on that film by expanding the monster rogue’s gallery to include more of Godzilla’s co-stars in the Toho franchise, while setting up a fight with the Kong from 2017’s “Kong: Skull Island” for next year’s “Godzilla vs. Kong.” Why is it Warner Bros. seem to always be trying to rush to the main event in their non-“Potter” franchises?
The film begins with the attack on San Francisco at the end of the 2014 film, and we see a husband and wife (played by Kyle Chandler and Vera Farmiga) among the destruction trying to find their young son, Andrew, with their daughter, Madison (who will be played by “Stranger Things’s” Millie Bobby Brown). Andrew dies, and years later, we catch up with them, and Chandler’s Mark Russell has retreated into the bottle, and isolation, in grief, while Farmiga’s Dr. Emma Russell works for Monarch, the creature-studying organization that has begun finding and tracking titans, as they call them, like Godzilla and Kong. Madison senses something off with her mother, who has been developing a biological tracker to make Monarch able to awaken the titans and, maybe, control them; her and Madison are currently scouting out a Monarch site where one titan, Mothra, has been dormant. During their test of Emma’s machine, an eco-terrorist named Jonah Alan (Charles Dance) comes in and takes both Emma and Madison, leaving Monarch to try and recruit Mark to find them. Mark’s feelings on titans, and Godzilla, in particular, do not match his wife’s, so Drs. Serizawa (Ken Watanabe) and Vivienne Graham (Sally Hawkins), from the Edwards film, will have their work cut out for them.
If you complained that Edwards’s “Godzilla” spent too much time on the human characters, and not enough time on the monsters, I would counter that you do not get to complain when this film centers a lot on the titan action, bringing in a few of Godzilla’s friends, foes, and in-betweens into this story. Actually, while “King of the Monsters” does find a very nice balance between the human element and the kaiju action, this movie feels every bit of its 131-minute running time as Dougherty tries to tell an all-encompassing story that is within the Toho Godzilla mode. If you complained about the lack of a major metaphor in Edwards’s film, though (which was something Matthew and I both lamented about in our podcast, given our shared love of the original film), this film comes up with one or two that will suffice, and they do not feel shoehorned in, either. Jonah being an eco-terrorist is essential, as his ideology with regards to the titans is one that sees them as a course-correction of man’s destruction of the planet. Oh yeah, this badboy is about climate change, and Jonah sees the titans as a necessary part of the Earth’s ability to heal itself from man’s hubris. It’s a smart way of bringing meaning to the monster madness, and it’s something that really fits in with the Toho tradition, and the original 1954 masterpiece, in which Godzilla stood in for America, and its use of the nuclear bomb during WWII. “King of the Monsters” will make you feel better about the Gareth Edwards film, because it set up where this film heads.
The actors in “King of the Monsters” are all fine in the roles they are given- they do what they are asked to do- with Bobby Brown being the main standout, partially because her character feels like it will be a lynchpin in this Monsterverse moving forward. Where the film really stands out is the action, and this is as beautiful and striking a film visually as the first film was, as Godzilla has Mothra, Rodan and King Ghidorah to contend with. The rivalries and alliances are in keeping with what Toho’s films have done over the years, and seeing them on this scale is marvelous and ambitious, visually speaking. (I’m curious how “Kong: Skull Island” is going to feel on rewatch prior to “Godzilla vs. Kong.”) Yes, the men-in-suits have an inherent charm and loving sense of character-building in them, even when it looks silly, but visually, Edwards and Dougherty are utilizing CGI to take these characters to a new level that is thrilling to watch, and seeing them in action is one of my favorite things about both of these new Godzilla films. There is personality to each kaiju, and the way that comes through is probably the best way Dougherty especially pays tribute to the world Toho created. There are things the 2014 film did better, but this is a more than worthy follow-up, and expansion, of what that movie was.
