The latest installment in the long-running Godzilla franchise is more of the same with an insipid blend of characters and monsters you can’t appreciate.
Initiated in 1954 as an allegory for the US’ detonation of a nuclear bomb in Japan, the Godzilla franchise has slowly segued from political commentary into spectacle. In 2014, the franchise was rebooted to lackluster reviews and the introduction of a new shared universe involving a string of popular monsters.
Five years later, audiences are ready to see Godzilla again with Godzilla: King of the Monsters (a title drawing on the 1956 Americanized remake of the original feature). Unfortunately the same problems that plagued the 2014 incarnation remain, with an overemphasis on wafer-thin human characters and a series of monsters you never see clearly.
Vera Farmiga as Dr. Emma Russell and Millie Bobby Brown as Madison Russell in Godzilla: King of the Monsters. Photo: 2019 Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. and Legendary Productions, LLC
The team at Monarch, the secret program known for finding and harboring the monsters known as “Titans,” are at risk of being shut down by the government in the wake of Godzilla’s 2014 attack on San Francisco. When Monarch scientist Dr. Emma Russell (Vera Farmiga) goes rogue with a plan to release the Titans starting with “Monster Zero,” a hydra named King Ghidorah, it’s up to her husband, Mark (Kyle Chandler) to save the world and his daughter (Millie Bobby Brown).
A movie starring a giant lizard doing battle with a hydra, something passing for giant woolly mammoth, and a giant moth sounds like the makings of a good time, right? And there are certainly glimpses of said awesomeness within King of the Monsters. If you can see it. It’s amazing that in 2019 there appears to be a lack of confidence in the CGI work of particular characters. So, in this case, nearly all the fight scenes take place at feet level, with the likes of Brown, Chandler, and Farmiga looking up in awe. Unfortunately that often means the creatures’ heads are super tiny up there with all that altitude.
There’s no definition on Godzilla’s face; you can barely tell he has eyes unless a piddly human is standing right in front of them. And every fight scene has to take place in inclement weather, so enjoy seeing your Ghidorah/Godzilla fight scene in rain, snow, and extreme wind with the camera doing the filmic equivalent of the hokey pokey.
Godzilla: King of the Monsters. Photo: 2019 Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. and Legendary Productions, LLC
It never feels like the movie successfully figures out what to do with the giant monsters that inhabit it, so it’s stuffed with a two-hour narrative that’s as thin as it is clunky. Acting as a sequel, Chandler and Farmiga play characters who were seemingly involved with Monarch but who we never heard about in the last feature.
They’ve been working on a machine to create an “alpha frequency” and thus control the monsters, but the death of their son caused their marriage to dissolve. Yes, this is one of those “divorced parents work out their garbage amidst a literal disaster that acts as metaphor” plot.
Chandler and Farmiga are fine as macho man wolf photographer and definitely murderous yet true believer eco-terrorist. Add in their scrappy daughter who literally has to decide between her parents during a monster invasion and you have the makings for total silliness.
The issue is you never care about their personal squabbles and everyone just acts so one-note. Chandler yells a lot and generally acts like a dad. Farmiga says a lot of important dialogue but is generally dead-eyed. And Millie Bobby Brown is the queen of scared and “oh, yeah” looks. Seriously, nearly half her scenes are done in profile over her shoulder.
But, wait, there are even more characters to not care about! Everyone, from Bradley Whitford to Ken Watanabe, Sally Hawkins, Charles Dance, and O’Shea Jackson, Jr. also populate the film, but there’s little doubt you’ll remember their names.
In two-hours there’s little worth remembering about Godzilla: King of the Monsters. There’s a lot of weather, monsters roar, and occasionally there’s a fight. In the end, it just feels like a blurry mess. We still haven’t cracked the right ratio of monster to human here, but it feels like it’s getting worse.
Godzilla: King of the Monsters is out in theaters May 31, 2019.