Godzilla: King of the Monsters Review: A Roaring Mess
Gareth Edwards's 2014 Godzilla wasn't for everyone; the American reboot brought a more paced-out, thoughtful take on the giant radioactive lizard who crushes cities for fun: Rather than the threat, Godzilla was the hero, destroying the two havoc-wreaking MUTOs and restoring balance to the earth, the buildings of San Fransisco just happening to get in the way of his noble mission. The film's slow reveal of the titular monster, and the patience and restraint with which it meted out the monster fights, spoke to a clear ambition for the film and for the character of Godzilla himself. This is not a creature who has any interest in pleasing humanity. It's our fault we built cities on his, quite literal, stomping grounds.
Of course, in a Godzilla movie, you gotta have Godzilla, and maybe there were too few colossal showdowns for the average moviegoer's appetite. We were promised the sequel would one-up the first film on that front — and boy does it — but amidst the awesome spectacles of King of the Monsters, a clear story, a clear message (any message at all, really) is lost as soon as the big guys get their hands on each other.
King of the Monsters, set four years after Godzilla's razing of the Bay Area and subsequent disappearance, introduces a very different world. Monster-hunting agency Monarch has identified dozens of dormant "titans" (that's what we're calling the big monsters now, keep up) around the world, and scientist Emma Russell (a game Vera Farmiga) has developed ORCA, a device to help communicate with—and even potentially control—certain titans. Her daughter Madison (Millie Bobby Brown) is there, too, because someone's kid has to be in peril for the sake of the movie. After waking up long-time Godzilla franchise mainstay Mothra from her slumber, Emma is quickly captured by ecoterrorist Alan Jonah (Charles Dance, still seemingly in Tywin Lannister mode) and forced to use the ORCA to wake up the other titans to restore the natural order, or something.
Turns out the first one they wake up is just the worst. The alien dubbed "Monster Zero," better know as Godzilla's arch-nemesis King Gidorah, is a beautiful construction. He's got three heads, two tails, and brings with him a furious lightning storm wherever he goes. He's legitimately terrifying, and you get why Godzilla would rather Gidorah go back into hibernation.
A third classic Godzilla villain, Rodan, is also thrown into the mix. He's not as scary as Gidorah or as legitimately beautiful as Mothra, but the lava-fueled pterodactyl-like titan still poses an extra problem for our big lizard hero while he tries to manage all these newly-awakened friends and enemies. We see in new bulletins other, originally-designed titans waking up around the world and crushing stuff. They look great, but none greater than Godzilla himself. The sheer power of the guy is transmitted in his fight-ready bipedal stance, his perpetual snarl, and his trademark scowl which rests above very real, quite sad eyes. You believe in him every moment you see him as the lonely god of countless legends. He's not a guy in a rubber suit, and he's certainly not the young, muscular lizard he may once have been. This is an aged, tired being, called out of retirement for one last fight. Even upright, Godzilla looks a little more pear-shaped than in his other iterations. He is, in modern Internet parlance, a "chonky" boy. And I love him.
If it feels like I'm giving the human characters short shrift, it's because the film does, too. An admirable cast is assembled in Farmiga, Brown, and Kyle Chandler as the Russell family unit. Monarch honchos Ken Watanabe and Sally Hawkins are welcomed back from the 2014 original, and new faces Thomas Middleditch and Bradley Whitford join Monarch on their global monster hunt. Still, after Emma's ridiculous decision to release Gidorah (I've never been more sane," she casually, hilariously intones to Monarch over video chat before hitting his alarm) none of the actual actors really get to do anything, besides hang out on monochrome airplane sets and look out of windows while the giants do all the work. The peril is oversized and it's hard to get a read on anyone's motivations, even after Emma realizes how horribly wrong she was to release these creatures.
Godzilla movies are always a way of looking at our world from a wider perspective. Godzilla himself was originally created out of the pain and atrocity of America's nuclear assault on Japan. 2016's Shin Godzilla is a political satire worthy of our fucked-up global situation. King of the Monsters takes Edwards's original, nuanced take on the futility of humanity when faced with nature's fury, and swaps it out for a confused and confusing allegory about, what? Climate change denial? Foreign intervention? The Red Sox (the final showdown takes place at Fenway Park)? All of the above?
Godzilla's personal plight is reason enough to care about this new film before his 2020 main event with King Kong. But while the epic scrimmages are a joy to watch, there are few other reasons to root for this massive movie or its people as much as we root for its massive CGI mascot, and even his enemies, too.
Originally Appeared on GQ
