Review of Godzilla: King of the Monsters (2019) by L3Anyan — 30 May 2019

I write this as a generation X kid that grew up watching Godzilla and Toho films on Saturdays. To this day, for some odd reason, Godzilla holds a special place in my heart; whether it's him himself or purely nostalgic I don't know. So with high expectations I caught this movie on the typical night before release - coming in on a full-on roller coaster ride of hype and doubts. For those that aren't into reading reviews longer than one paragraph: Did I like the movie? No. I left my seat deflated and disappointed. I hoped for a film for those of us that grew up with Toho, those of us that aren't ten-years-old and don't care for the unnatural pacing and characters of films like Star Wars and Marvel, where it's one unbelievably happenstance thing after the next.

Let me say a few things I did like, and I admit, there is not many. I do like that you can now hear some of that iconic Godzilla roar in this mixed in with the new. There are some truly beautiful scenes of Godzilla and Mothra early on - which almost make the price of admission worth it alone. I do like Watanabe's last scene in the film, though to avoid spoilers, cannot go into that. Overall, I do like the monster designs.

Now we come to the part of this review that pains me to write...

All this talk of the monsters being the focal point of the film is absurd. The true stars here are Watanabe, Chandler, Farmiga, and Eleven from Stranger Things playing Eleven from Stranger Things. In all sincerity, Godzilla and the others are the supporting cast. What this left me with was a plot that was chock full of humans in the worst way; and I mean a very large human cast, where they by and large offer nothing but a skin deep plot to steer the movie forward. With their prominence in this film the only thing they contribute is characters that would fit into any Transformers movie. Simply put, all characters, with the exception of Watanabe's, are no good. We also get the very banal characters from the 2014 film, such as the admiral and Watanbe's genric aide, played by Sally Hawkins - and then some. Filling in for the famous twin Mothra fairies is a woman that adds drivel via her research on what looks like Wikipedia or another online encyclopedia. We also can't forget to mention the Hokey politicians and Monarch soldiers that are there for tired quips that lack wit. The villains in this film rival those of Star Wars' New Order; their story is so little told it could fit into a TV advert - they don't really matter. Charles Dance's character also doesn't matter. So what are we left with? A cast, the true stars of this film, jerking back and forth in character (Chandler), and the rest levying 'witty' comments, having an explanation for everything to handhold the audience, and reacting on a dime to everything at every turn... Literally, they look right just in time and something happens. Then they look left and, again, just in time, something happens. And so on...

The hand-holding of the characters and writing is so bad that, for instance, a video conference call between Farmiga and Chandler is accompanied by a short film. I guess the characters in this world create video presentations prior to calling one another. In reality, if your dialog is so weak and can't deliver or stand on its own, and requires the use of visual aids, it just doesn't work.

We have been primed going in to believe that they are the true stars of this film. Regardless how well they are designed, they are, as stated above, a supporting cast. For some of you the truth of this will come later once the dust and hype settles, and for others, it will take someone compiling a video of all Godzilla footage out of the two plus hours run time, and uploading it to YouTube - and it will be a small fraction of that two hours (oh, but not that human cast - they are in there for the duration). At every possible moment this large human cast is in the way. Whether it is during fight scenes or not, we are constantly being pulled away and led by the hand to see foot and claw from their perspective. I understand the desire to illustrate scale, but surely this doesn't mean we need to be constantly bludgeoned over the head to be reminded of it. Even when it comes to the final showdown between Godzilla and Ghidorah, the creators felt the need to busy the audience with characters doing dumb things that don't matter - or worse yet, are plot devices of the most worst kind.

The final battle also concludes in the worst possible way. It's offending how cheap and contrived it is... The ending and the buildup to it also flies in the face of the King of Monsters - the guardian of the natural world - Godzilla. It's the ultimate cheap shot. This is followed by showing additional titans - most having never been seen on any Toho film. There is no Gigan, no Baragon, no Megalon - none of them. And why weren't they there at the end to bend a knee?!? It would have left things off on the highest possible note.