Rent Godzilla: King of the Monsters (2019)

Best non-Toho Godzilla film yet - spoilers. - Godzilla: King of the Monsters review by NP

In 1998, America’s mighty film studios took on the Godzilla mantle from licensors Toho. The release was not the success it was hoped to be, and the critics, as they often do, gave it a hard time. In 2014, Legendry Entertainment made a far better-received version. In 2019 came the sequel, which proves the old adage ‘third time lucky’ to be quite true.

This is a true celebration of audience memories of Godzilla films, whichever ones they may be. Triumphant echoes to the past include purist-pleasing mentions of Godzilla ‘lore’ (if we are to call it that), none more so than vast slabs of music from the original films including, of course, Akira Ifukube’s monumental original theme. Bear McCreary ‘s music sometimes strays into unmemorable bombast, but also has moments of greatness, particularly Ghidorah’s sing-song call to his titanic minions.

I found the human characters – rarely anyone’s reason for seeing such a film – incredibly bland in 2014’s ‘Godzilla’: square-jawed vacuums racing around the carnage trying to save their insignificant family trophies from probable death c/o Big G and his city-snuffing ways. There is an element of that here, particularly towards the end, but the human characters are a lot more real, a lot better acted and therefore much easier to care about. Debonair Charles Dance lends his steely-eyed insidiousness to the much less virtuous Jonah Alan. (If, like me, you wondered what happened to him towards the end, stick around after the credits have rolled.) Sally Hawkins is also very good as the PJ Harvey-esque Dr, Vivienne Graham, and Millie Bobby Brown not only makes sure her character, young Madison, steers clear of the brattish tendencies that sometimes afflicts heroic film juveniles, but that she is also very real and appealing.

And yet the monsters are who we really come to see. And ‘King of the Monsters’ does not disappoint. We see plenty of them, and this time, the camera doesn’t cut away every time a fight breaks out. Ghidorah is one heck of a nasty piece of work, albeit with a nifty, icky way of regenerating on of his three heads if need be. Rodan is great fun, all beak and swooping wings. Mothra is genuinely beautiful, and possesses a sense of ethereality that earlier films often strove for, but didn’t always achieve (there’s even a brief mention of her guiding human twins, although mercifully we’re speared actually seeing them).

As for the main man, the big lad, the star performer, Godzilla – he’s been battered in fights before, but always come back fighting. Here, he requires a little help. Does this undermine him as The King? Not really. His regenerative powers are revealed, but if left to the natural cause of things, the world might have come to an end. So he is given a push (albeit one requiring a massive cost), no more than that. And there is something air-punchingly great about his returns from the brink. Such moments have been great in the past but here, with some extraordinary effects at play and with such a horrible and seemingly unstoppable opponent, it is difficult not to feel elated. Watching this on the big screen with a bunch of strangers, I felt like cheering. And when the sparingly used atomic breath makes an appearance, it’s impossible not to feel elated.

My score for this is 9 out of 10. ‘King of Monsters’ hardly puts a step wrong. We’re not waiting 45 minutes for the first bout of monster action, and after the fights are over, we don’t have tedious minutes of sickly human ‘bonding’ to sit through. Looking through the rolling ends credits, you can understand why it has taken five years to plan and make this meticulous masterpiece. You’d need an atomic heart not to enjoy it.

Godzilla Stomps Things to Bits and Punches other Monsters - this is what it should be. - Godzilla: King of the Monsters review by Strovey

Godzilla: King of the Monsters is about great big monsters stomping the crap out of cities and people and then having no-holds-barred fights with each other. It is that simple. The original Japanese versions were as bonkers fun but had an underlying message about the nuclear proliferation and horror of having atomic bombs dropped on your country. Perhaps it may not have seemed that obvious, but it was there amongst Tokyo being stamped into matchwood.

The message for this 2019 version is the planet’s health and how if we do choose the correct path then we will not need Godzilla or his wacky enemies to destroy the planet will do it ourselves. Really though this is about massive monsters stomping cities into rumble and roundhouse pounding each other with much fire and roaring.

In this respect Godzilla: King of the Monsters works perfectly. It knows what it is, director Michael Dougherty apparently loved these films and the little kid in him shows in every frame on the screen. The cast Vera Farmiga, Millie Bobby Brown, in particular, are great, play this all with a straight bat which is the only way to do this. It is camp and silly but if you wink to the audience you ruin it. Kyle Chandler, having taken on King Kong a few years ago and got away, now takes on Godzilla, his mates and enemies and his own estranged family this time around. Charles Dance pops up, in cold bad mode but at least not two-dimensional although ruthlessly evillike only Charles Dance can be.

For all the acting talent up there on the screen, Godzilla: King of the Monsters lives or dies by its monsters. The fighting, roaring, jumping up and down a bit and general mayhem by a roster of rather silly monsters is perfect. It took me back to the days of stamping around the fields near my house being a monster whilst my brother and his mates laughed at me. For me this was the purpose of the film.

So, what if the storyline involvies separated parents, mistaken motivations, two conflicting ideas, one of which is obviously ‘bad’ this is not the purpose of the film, but it pads it out, so something is there. It is perfunctory and perhaps it could have been better but in all honesty I did not care. How can you care when you can watch a giant moth curing and giant ‘lizard-king-thing’ but cuddling him?

Godzilla: King of the Monsters is a giant monster film with some human bits as filler before the WWE of creature fighting gets going. The human bits are not the best, but the actors are good and besides the aforementioned thespians we also get Sally Hawkins, Bradley Whitfield in best Bradley Whitfield-mode, Thomas Middleditch so much better here as the ‘nerd’ that he was in Zombieland 2, shoring up the human roster.

To me this was all good. It made me feel the exhilaration of being a little boy watching monsters knocking the stars out of each other. Perhaps I was in the right mood to watch that type of action, who knows?

Godzilla: King of the Monsters is camp, silly, trashy, daft but above all it was fun, really fun.

Where are people? - Godzilla: King of the Monsters review by CP Customer

Shockingly bad. Action sequences that you can't see, apparently no daylight ever, cities containing no people, central characters that you are supposed to root for but are simply self absorbed horrible people, good actors left just to look at screens and state the obvious...

A big budget mess which is s shame as the director has done good work previously