Review: "Godzilla: King Of The Monsters" Is Not The One To Rule Them All.

Have you ever watched an action blockbuster from the past decade?

Y’know, the ones with explosions, military uniforms, dull shades of blue and government conspiracies?

Now, in these movies there’s usually at least one scene (if not more!) where some kind of authority figure gets out of some type of aircraft, other people approach him or her, the new figure dumps a whole load of exposition, and might whip out a file or two with something important in it.

These scenes, if used too much, are often considered embarrassing, lazy ways to deliver mounds upon mounds of exposition. A classic example of “showing not telling” (us pretentious film nerds do not like this one bit!).

Now, imagine watching that scene over and over for 130 minutes. Just one very, very long exposition dump.

This, ladies and gentlemen, is Godzilla: King of the Monsters.

Maybe I Don’t Get a Say...

First, I ought to mention that I have no personal connection to these films, this was actually my first time with a Godzilla film. I know lots and lots of people are in love with all thirty something Godzilla films. I can’t say the same, however.

To show just how much personal connection I have with these movies, I’ll just tell you this: I watched the trailer with my sister at a Mexican restaurant without volume, and both of us were laughing our asses off by the end. All we knew was there was a humongous moth and enough lasers to end World War II. It looked like fun. So, with nothing to do that evening, we watched it.

But King Of The Monsters is not a fun movie.

How’s it not fun? Simple. It’s completely void of life or any type of personality. It’s dull, and It feels like everything wrong with modern blockbusters as a result. It’s characters, visuals, and choices show this.

How It Absolutely Tanks...

The character normally wouldn’t be too much of a problem in a film like this. They’re supposed to be blank slates. Which is the problem in this case. They’re written as blank slates, and we’re still expected to follow them.

The whole movie.

Yep.

Not a single moment goes by without a room or aircraft with people in uniforms sitting around a table discussing what the hell the movie is supposed to be about. The characters exist as walking exposition dump trucks here, and not for a scene. The whole movie.

Characters here include...well...I can’t tell you that.

I can recall a supposed human “villain” who was introduced to us in one of several exposition dumps(! See! They’re here!), but he doesn’t have an actual role. I genuinely don’t think he even existed, he had such a low impact. My eyes may deceive me because the choice of having him in the film as essentially a cameo is beyond me.

Ken Watanabe talks like he’s trying to convince you and himself the whole time he has a reason to be there. That was fun.

This film also reflects what’s wrong with action films these days with its usage of color. Karsten Runquist, a popular film youtuber, briefly mentions in his video on Mad Max: Fury Road (an action film much better) that action films nowadays seem to go with a dark blue color palette rather than warm colors such as orange or red. In his video, he says:

“...how are we going to feel any sense of edge in a cool blue looking setting?”

Which is exactly my point. The entire movie is a dull blue, making it a complete bore visually and emotionally. I felt nothing. This isn’t the first movie to do this, but it’s so unavoidable here, nearly impossible to ignore. It’s just a recurring style choice that I wish would stop already.

But arguably the worst part of this film is what direction the plot goes down. If you name a trope or genre cliche, it’s most likely here. In this little gem of a movie, we have:

-Heroic sacrifice involving a bomb or some kind of device (twice! They pull this twice!).

-Fake-out death of a major character.

-Character defying the government because it’s “the right thing to do”

Whenever these choices were made along with any others, I wanted to cry. Every choice feels like it was already made by someone else several years ago in a different movie. Derivative, for lack of a better word, and “lazy”, for a better word.

One common argument I’ve heard that has been used to override all of this is “well, the fights are cool. Is it not enough to see Godzilla?”. To me this is invalid for a few reasons:

-The fights simply aren’t done in any kind of fresh or exciting way.

-Godzilla barely has any screen time in the movie.

-The fights are minimal.

-The fights stop before they get started.

Considering the fact that the film simply is the way that it is, I honestly have a very hard time believing a die-hard fan who just wants some monster violence would fall head over heels for it.

Don’t you want something at least a little more engaging?

Maybe I'm just a moron...

Verdict:

“King of the Monsters” is essentially an exploration of what is wrong with modern blockbusters, making it incredibly frustrating to watch. And while the beasts may look cool, everything surrounding them is a big, big mess, visually and in terms of writing, and the fights the beasts star in are lackluster, to say the very least.

Yes, Mothra is my friend and I love her, but you wanna know what I don’t love?

This movie.

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