Godzilla: King of the
Monsters has become the latest example of the ever-increasing divisiveness
between critics and general audiences. If you look at the tomato and audience scores
on Rotten Tomatoes, you’ll see that they have the biggest gap since Captain
Marvel, but where that was largely the victim of a massive trolling
campaign run by Internet misogynists, the division here is a bit more defined.
Critics have argued that the giant monster fights are fun but the plot involving
the humans is pretty dumb and not blatantly “about anything”, while audiences
don’t mind so much since that’s not what anyone goes to see a Godzilla movie for. Understandable considering
that the 1954 original was a parable for Japan’s post-war anxieties over
nuclear testing, but all that is considered moot since its 30+ sequels junked
metaphor in favor of having him wrestle a bunch of different monsters. But I’m
also that guy who loved Pacific Rim
specifically because it gave me the same adrenaline rush that 5-year-old me got
when he first saw Power Rangers, and
while Godzilla: King of the Monsters
didn’t awaken those feelings with the same intensity, it still served the same
basic function.
Taking place five years after the 2014 American Godzilla reboot and 2017’s Kong: Skull Island, we follow Monarch, a
secret organization dedicated to monitoring the activities of giant prehistoric
creatures called “titans”. They believe that humans and titans can live
together in harmony, but the world’s governments believe they’re too
destructive and wish to destroy them. Things are complicated when a militant
eco-terrorist group manipulate a Monarch scientist (Vera Farmiga) who invented
a device that can control the titans so they can awake them from their
hibernation and trigger the apocalypse. Their plan was to awaken them one by
one, but when they awaken the Alpha, King Ghidorah, they all emerge from their
slumber at once and begin wreaking havoc across the globe. Monarch’s solution
is to find Ghidorah’s lifelong rival Godzilla, who’s been MIA for the past five
years, and help him dethrone him.
My biggest observation of all the fan/critic division
surrounding this movie is that those who didn’t like the 2014 Godzilla didn’t like this one and vice
versa. Not hard to see why considering the former spent so much time with
uninteresting human characters and heavy-handed climate change metaphors and
less on Godzilla himself, who doesn’t show up in full until the last 20 minutes
or so, while the latter doesn’t even pretend the human plot isn’t that
important. Some were expecting something deeper or more serious like the 1954
original or 2016’s Shin Godzilla, and
instead were inevitably disappointed when got something more in line with Godzilla, Mothra and King Ghidorah: Giant Monsters
All-Out Attack. As far as said human plot goes, it isn’t exactly deep or
nuanced. The climate change themes of the first film are brought to the
forefront by virtue of the main villains being a group of ecoterrorists using
the titans as a white blood cell system to counteract the environmental damage
we caused, while the good guys’ main actions argue that we have to learn to
live with this mess that we created now that it’s too late to fix it.
The cast is a murderer’s row of actors you recognize from
other bigger properties such as Kyle Chandler, Vera Fermiga, Millie Bobbie Brown,
Charles Dance, Bradley Whitford, Thomas Middleditch, O’Shea Jackson Jr., along
with Ken Watanabe and Sally Hawkins reprising their old roles, who deal with
the monster problem in their own way. The crux of this division is between Chandler
and Fermiga, the inventors of the monster control device, who divorced and ended
up on different sides of the war after their son was killed in the destruction
of San Francisco, with their daughter caught in the crossfire, and the mother
giving a rational and personal reason for joining the ecoterrorists. Ken
Watanabe’s character also plays a pivotal and effective role that mirrors one
of the sadder moments of the original ’54 Godzilla.
But that’s about as complex as character motivations get. I don’t think Charles
Dance’s character gets a motivation beyond a generic “I’ve seen what humanity
is capable of” diatribe.
Director Michael Dougherty has built his reputation on
tributes to his favorite things (Trick ‘r
Treat being a love letter to Halloween, both the movie and the holiday, and
Krampus being a tribute to the
holiday horror films to the 80’s) and his affection and understanding of kaiju
films shows through here. He knows the plots are paper thin, heavy on social commentary
and are just there to provide a foundation for monsters to fight on. The one
thing that everyone, even the most ardent hater of this movie can agree on is
the monster fights, which are probably the best in a Hollywood movie since Pacific Rim. If the noticeable lack of Godzilla in the last one was a sticking
point for you, here you get to see him in all his colossal glory. The scale, magnitude and
environment shifting destructive capabilities of Godzilla, Ghidorah, Rodan and Mothra
is something to behold with some of them being able to laying waste to whole
villages just by flapping their wings, not to mention that of the dozen other titans
we only get passing glimpses of. The big climax of the movie is a showdown in
Boston between Godzilla and Ghidorah with Mothra and Rodan swooping in for
support that seems like the fully realized version of a battle pitched by a
12-year-old smashing his action figures together. There isn’t a single frame of
monster on monster action that doesn’t look ready for a poster print, and it’s
all held together with the madcap energy of a kid with an overactive
imagination. Godzilla vs Ghidorah got me as pumped up as the fight between Gispy Danger and Otachi
in Pacific Rim, and the aerial
dogfight between Mothra and Rodan will explain why Mothra has gained such a fervent
Internet following.
Admittedly the basic plot is the one thing that’s keeping Godzilla: King of the Monsters from being
a wholly transformative experience, but even then, it’s still the best American
Godzilla movie to date. While it
doesn’t exactly break any new ground, it’s still the best traditional Godzilla
movie one could ask for by tapping in to what makes kaiju movies so beloved in
the first place in a way that only a true fan can do. And quite frankly, that’s
all I can really ask of it.
8/10
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