Godzilla: King of the Monsters (2019) Review

 

Godzilla: King of the Monsters (2019)

Godzilla: King of the Monsters follows Mark Russel, who’s wife and a group of eco terrorists unleash a plethora of monsters upon the world, including King Ghidorah, forcing Godzilla back to the surface to fight again.

For everything this sequel to 2014’s Godzilla did right, it did almost as much wrong. Once again, we get a very human centric story about a family who have been fractured following the events of the last film, with the dad now working for Monarch and the mother, who’s in control of their daughter, the head of terrorists who wish to bring the world back to what it once was. Their entire plot is frankly stupid and having such a goofy rivalry in the midst of monster world destruction is so damn American it hurts. I didn’t think they could possibly make me care less about the humans, with all the moving parts, but congratulations! They managed it.

As for Godzilla, boy did they give him a run for his money. This film threw everything but the kitchen sink at him, setting him up against Rodan, Mothra, and King Ghidorah (who twice, whoops his ass). The battles were huge, colorful, destructive, but most importantly, they were unbelievably grand in scale and really great to watch. There was also more of them this time around, giving us some terrific fights in the midsts of terrible storytelling. Ghidorah was a terrific villain and seeing Godzilla go super atomic was one of the best Godzilla sequences put to film yet.

The cast, not surprising to me, really let me down, starring Vera Farmiga, Millie Bobby Brown, Bradley Whitford, Charles Dance, Ken Watanabe, and Kyle Chandler. Chandler was infuriatingly tense, Brown had ZERO purpose in the story other than for name recognition and to look sad, and most of the rest of the cast was filled out by usually comedic actors (who kept their style), feeling ignorant and ridiculous.

Godzilla: King of the Monsters is a visually excellent movie that is at it’s best when dealing with Godzilla and Co., but falters again in attempting to inject a horribly written human element that brings down the whole piece. Which is a shame considering the epic potential this film had.

6.3/10