Godzilla: King of the Monsters (2019) - Review
'Godzilla: King of the Monsters' is supposedly a sequel to 2014's 'Godzilla', but original director Gareth Edwards has been replaced by Michael Dougherty, and main cast members Aaron Taylor-Johnson and Elizabeth Olsen have been completely forgotten about. Instead we're introduced to a new set of leads in the form of Kyle Chandler, Millie Bobby Brown and Vera Farmiga, the family which the film centers on. Sally Hawkins and Ken Watanabe return from 'Godzilla' as the heads of Monarch (the monster-investigating agency involved in each film so far), but they don't really get much focus here. It's bizarre to see such a large ensemble cast for a film like this, and while it adds a sense of scope to the whole thing, it does feel like there's far too many characters involved. None of them are especially charismatic or likable, and none are particularly developed.
Instead the story centers around King Ghidorah, a new rival alpha to Godzilla who seeks to bring the various Titans (previously known as MUTOs, also known as monsters or kaiju) together under his rule, to take over Earth. Monarch want to stop him, Charles Dance wants the Titans to fix the planet, and Godzilla's a bit cheesed off that a giant three-headed dragon is stealing his thunder. As it turns out, the three-headed dragon's power is, quite literally, lightning, which causes a tiny bit of destruction along the way. 'Godzilla: King of the Monsters' has been sold as a monster ensemble, with Ghidorah, Godzilla, Mothra and Rodan all fighting for the throne, but several other monsters appear as well - and Kong is name-checked frequently to ensure that the next entry is established. However, as it turns out that the main conflict is between Godzilla and Ghidorah, with Mothra and Rodan helping respectively, and the other monsters featuring in brief cameos (which becomes more bizarre as the film unfolds).
Despite the large-scale action, the film frequently focuses on the various human characters instead of just providing the audience with insane monster battles for two hours. It takes quite a while for Godzilla to appear, and even then his first brawls with Ghidorah are far too brief. The climax of the film is thankfully much longer, more elaborate and very impressive, but 'Godzilla: King of the Monsters' seems to want to try and fit-in a plot to all of this as well. There's some vague semblance of a theme about environmentalism and the Titans fixing the world, and possibly even something about family, but the film doesn't really explore these themes in any great depth. Instead, characters are given bouts of exposition to help explain unnecessary plot-points, potentially to make the film more interesting, but ultimately falling into less interesting sub-plots in comparison to the main battle. Say what you will about the underdeveloped characters in 'Kong: Skull Island', but the film maintained a simple plot and focused on the monsters; the characters were just there to create a sense of scale.
That's not to say that 'Godzilla: King of the Monsters' flops in this respect, but the film doesn't quite indulge in the monster battles as much as it should. Given that's what the audience have paid to see, I find that a bit disappointing, and instead too much focus is given to weak characters and a silly plot, which frankly no one particularly cares about. Warner Bros made the perfect kaiju-monster movie in Guillermo del Toro's 'Pacific Rim' a few years ago, which perfectly balanced a simple story, fairly standard but likable characters and spectacular action set-pieces. As stunning as 'Godzilla: King of the Monsters' looks, it never really just lets loose and goes for it. The action sequences are fun, but sometimes are shot a bit too close to the action, and with all the lightning and atomic blasts, I don't think the film needed as much rain and snow as it seemed to think it did. The visual effects work is very strong throughout, and there's a much wider and more interesting colour palette to this film than Gareth Edwards' first entry. Bear McCreary's score is bombastic and silly, while the sound design is outstanding. If the sound team don't get Oscar nominations next year, I'll be very disappointed.
'Godzilla: King of the Monsters' is by no means a bad film but I can't help but feel that it could have been so much more. So much bigger, so much sillier - and with considerably more focus on the monster battles. This isn't as unfocused and dull as the first 'Godzilla', but it's not as loose and fun as 'Kong: Skull Island'. The story isn't particularly deep, but the action doesn't take enough of the focus away from that aspect. Ultimately the creative team seem to have slightly over-thought the whole thing. Let's hope that next year's 'Godzilla vs. Kong' is much simpler in that respect. 5/10
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