Godzilla: King of the Monsters * (2019, Kyle Chandler, Vera Farmiga, Millie Bobby Brown) – Movie Review

Godzilla: King of the Monsters (2019) is a boring, plot-free filler film between Godzilla (2014) and Godzilla vs. Kong (2020). Admittedly the 131 minutes move swiftly and painlessly by in a slick, professional package.

It has one advantage for creature feature fans. It gives plenty of screen time to showing off Mothra, Rodan and ultimate nemesis three-headed King Ghidorah, before resurrecting Godzilla to see them off. There is so much CGI that it is virtually and animated feature. Oh, and its serious, dark, apocalyptic horror movie tone is very welcome.

Humans are sidelined. It is a monster movie not a people package. The central group of humans facing off the monsters seems as arbitrary and it is uninteresting. What is the rest of the world doing while these few are trying to save the world? We will never know. We will never care. The movie doesn’t.

Kyle Chandler and Vera Farmiga are welcome stars and first class actors, but their thinly sketched roles as separated married couple Mark Russell and Dr Emma Russell pretty much defeat them, while Millie Bobby Brown’s inexperience shows as their interfering daughter Madison, running around pointlessly, just to be rescued incredibly, a little girl in a grown-ups’ movie.

Charles Dance has plenty of screen time too, as what should be the villain of the piece Jonah Alan, who is creating monsters, but he turns lamely into a sort of misguided good guy when Emma Russell joins forces with him to save the planet by encouraging monsters so that we can live in harmony with them rather than killing them as Admiral William Stenz (David Strathairn) commands. There is a weird pro-peace and co-existence message in here somewhere but Dr Emma Russell is so misguided that you easily find yourself on the side of gung-ho Admiral William Stenz.

It is a waste of time trying to follow the plot, work out the characters’ motivations and intentions, or understand the details of the script – how do they know Godzilla is still alive, where to find Godzilla or most crucially that Godzilla is going to be on our side (‘for now’) in the battle for the planet of man against monster? It is all unfathomable, lost, probably, on the cutting room floor, in the desperate bid to put more monster footage up there on screen. There used to be a rule ‘don’t show the monster till the last reel and then only sparingly’. Now film-makers have to show monsters throughout the movie. When monster action stops and actors start talking, half the audience gets up and goes to the bathroom. Admittedly, they don’t miss much.

With no major stars and a cheap look, it looks like a low-budget movie, which is of course fine for a monster movie, in the best Fifties Godzilla tradition. There are no actors in monster suits, unfortunately, just murky looking CGI, in dark images that try to disguise the essential weaknesses of it all. But, no, it is not a low-budget movie at all. It cost a whopping $200,000,000, twice as much as Godzilla (2014). That is scary, and big budgets are the monster. The trend of throwing money at movies will just go on and on until a couple of these blockbusters crashes.

Of course kids love monsters like they love dinosaurs. There are new kids growing up all the time, so essentially there is a new market for monsters every five years. That’s fine for the kids, but what about the fans who have ploughed their way through every Godzilla movie since Godzilla? Message to co-writer / director Michael Dougherty: you really need too find a new story before attempting another monster movie. And maybe, dare it be said, some new monsters? Regular recycling is good, but only if it is bottles and plastic bags.

There are several mentions of Skull Island in the movie, trailing the new episode, Godzilla vs. Kong (2020), and a sense of dread builds up.

© Derek Winnert 2019 Movie Review

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