“Godzilla: King of the Monsters” Movie Review

    There is just something about monster movies that brings a smile to my face everytime I watch them.  Even if they aren’t my favorite movies, seeing a giant monster destroy a city is fairly breathtaking.  Seeing a monster fight another monster is just that much better.  Kaiju films are a bit of a guilty pleasure for me.  Even though I didn’t catch it in theaters, “Godzilla: King of the Monsters” was a bit of a must for me to watch.

    Set after the events of 2014’s “Godzilla”, “Godzilla: King of the Monsters” starts with the scientific organization Monarch tracking the likes of Godzilla and Kong as well as several other titans who have yet to arise.  Monarch scientist Dr. Emma Russell has created a device that can communicate with these titans but the device is stolen by a terrorist organization who also kidnap the doctor and her daughter.  Soon the device is used to awaken the hibernating monsters.  Monarch soon enlists the help of Emma’s ex-husband Mark to figure out how to rescue Emma and stop the titans.  When everything else seemingly fails, Monarch must put their faith in Godzilla to restore the natural order.

    This film is influenced by the 1968 film “Destroy All Monsters” which sees Godzilla and several other monsters battle King Ghidorah.  This film scales back the monster mayhem a bit to focus primarily on Godzilla vs King Ghidorah with a smaller scale battle between Mothra vs Rodan also happening at the same time.  The monsters are the clear stars of this film but it was also nice that the human co-stars had a slightly more satisfying role to play in the sequel.

    On the subject of the human co-stars, this film primarily focuses on the Russell family played by Vera Farmiga, Kyle Chandler and Millie Bobby Brown.  Farmiga and Chandler both give good performances but it was a bit odd seeing Chandler in the role considering he also co-starred in Peter Jackson’s “King Kong”.  Millie Bobby Brown was wonderful in the movie and proved her career past “Stranger Things” is just beginning.  It was also nice seeing Ken Watanabe, Sally Hawkins, and David Strathairn all return for the sequel.

    Michael Dougherty took over directing duties for the sequel and delivered a superior sequel.  This film is the third film set in this new monsterverse after “Godzilla” and “Kong: Skull Island”.  This movie will be followed next year by “Godzilla vs. Kong” which should be an interesting film considering how both Godzilla and King Kong are depicted as protagonists in their films.

    While I enjoyed how the Monarch organization managed to allow the human characters to appear in the film in a logical way without taking away from the monsters, the monsters were still what everyone came to see and they didn’t disappoint.  Toho favorites King Ghidorah, Rodan, and Mothra all join the battle in this sequel.  Rodan is given the least screen time and feels almost like an after thought.  King Ghidorah on the other hand is the main antagonist and is depicted incredibly.  Still, for me, the main standout was Mothra, Queen of the Monsters.  I won’t go into spoilers, but one of the most emotional scenes in the movie for me involved Mothra.

    “Godzilla: King of the Monsters” doesn’t have much plot but also has the good fortune of not requiring much story either.  These monsterverse movies provide good old fashion spectacle and that is fine by me.  I would recommend this movie for anyone who just needs to sit back and relax.  Enjoy the show (down).

Grade: B

“Godzilla” (2014) Movie Review

    The second American remake of “Godzilla” was released during a time when I rarely went to the movie theaters.  (I know, super weird to hear such things).  I have to admit though, the film caught my curiosity and I liked the trailer.  At the worst, I figured it would be at least on par with the first American made “Godzilla” film which I oddly didn’t hate like many other people did (though it has many problems).  This film turned out to be very different than that film unsurprisingly.

    The film follows a Navy Lieutenant named Ford Brody who accompanies his father Joe to Japan to investigate what caused the meltdown that killed Ford’s mother at the Janjira Nuclear Power Plant.  Upon their investigation, a creature emerges and ends up killing Joe.  Ford, being a Navy Lieutenant and witnessing this creature, is informed about Project Monarch which studies monsters and he is told about Godzilla.  Project Monarch hopes that Godzilla might be able to fight these new creatures, dubbed MUTOs, along with the United States Armed Forces.  Ford finds himself caught in the middle of the rampage caused by the monsters fighting.  Will Godzilla end up being a savior to humanity or an unstoppable monster?

    To be completely honest with you, I was actually pretty excited to see this movie when I finally got it on video.  A large reason I had so much faith in this movie was because of Bryan Cranston.  Cranston was still doing an incredible job on “Breaking Bad” at this time and he could only elevate a project like this.  To his credit, he does add a sense of realism and does an amazing job...SPOILER WARNING...for the few minutes he is in the movie.  Unfortunately, Cranston is the only actor who manages to ground the film with his presence with the exception of Ken Watanabe who is also hardly used.  Instead the film focuses primarily on the couple of Ford and Elle Brody who are a bit of blank slates in this movie.  Now, I don’t blame the actors for this because their characters had almost no development.  Once Godzilla shows up, the focus on human emotion takes a backseat.  Aaron Johnson-Taylor and Elizabeth Olsen play the Ford and Elle Brody and both actors have done fantastic work in the past, it is just a shame they weren’t given more to work with.

    A lot of the problem I had with this film was with a lot of the narrative decisions.  As stated above, you don’t hire Bryan Cranston for your film and then kill him off in the first act.  Even Cranston himself called his character’s death a “narrative mistake”.  Then there was the somewhat confusing way Godzilla was viewed by Project Monarch in this movie.  It seemed like the organization was a bit all over the place with what they believed Godzilla’s motivation to be.  Then there was Ford and Elle Brody who ALWAYS seemed to travel right in the path of destruction.  No matter where Godzilla and the MUTOs happened to end up, so did the Brody family.  Lastly, while the action was well done, it took awhile to finally see Godzilla in all his glory.  This isn’t a horrible creative decision, but I just personally wanted to see more of Godzilla early on.  While I didn’t love the design of the MUTOs, I thought the design on Godzilla was top notch and deserved more screen time.

    This film marked the beginning of Legendary Studios’ MonsterVerse which now includes “Kong: Skull Island”, “Godzilla: King of the Monsters”, and the upcoming “Godzilla vs. Kong”.  In some ways, this film felt a little more like “Cloverfield” (minus the shaky cam) than a traditional Godzilla film from Toho.  While I think there was more quality that went into this movie and definitely more care, I don’t know if I enjoyed it more than the first American “Godzilla” movie.  Sure, the first one was dumb and had a lot of flaws too, but it also knew it was a dumb popcorn flick.  I enjoy when movies take themselves seriously, but sometimes there is a middle ground as well.  Essentially what hurt this movie the most was it’s structure.  It just needed some tweaks and it could have been mind blowing, instead we ended up with a respectable popcorn flick, which is nothing to be ashamed of either.

Grade: C

“Shin Godzilla” Movie Review

    A few years back, a group of some of my friends decided to hit up our local theater for a screening of the Japanese film “Shin Godzilla”.  With the recent release of “Godzilla: King of the Monsters”, I figured it would be a good time to look back on some of my experiences seeing Godzilla on the big screen.  Unfortunately, “Shin Godzilla” is the only Godzilla movie I can honestly say I saw on the big screen.

    This film reimagines the origins of Godzilla and sets it in modern Japan.  Instead of emerging in full form, this Godzilla evolves over the course of the film.  These evolutions the creature experiences seem to help him adapt to any weapon he is exposed to.  Unlike his American counterpart, this Godzilla isn’t a force for good.  This Godzilla comes in like a wrecking ball and leaves a path of destruction in his wake.  Throughout the film, the Japanese government and the scientists researching the creature must try to figure out the best way to stop the beast before anyone else gets hurt.

    This movie is Toho’s third reboot (the three American Godzilla films were not produced by Toho) of Godzilla aka Gojira.  The Godzilla films are recognized as the longest continuously running movie franchise by Guinness World Records.  The film ended up making a ton of money in Japan and even won seven awards at the Japan Academy Prize ceremony.  It is also the first Japanese produced Godzilla movie to receive a North American theatrical release since “Godzilla 2000”.  Does that mean it’s good though?

    Well, to be honest, I found the film to be a little too slow and at times a bit boring.  Don’t get me wrong, the scenes with Godzilla were impressive and enjoyable but there just wasn’t enough of the ‘not so jolly green giant’ for my taste.  Now I know sometimes less is better and they did do a good job with the buildup, it’s just with Godzilla, everyone already has a pretty good idea what they are going to see and how massive he will be based on previous films.  It worked better in a film like “Jaws” because you didn’t know what to expect.

    Now, I did revisit the film on home video because the first time I watched it I nearly fell asleep in the theater.  This actually had nothing to do with the movie however, I didn’t get a lot of sleep at the time due to helping an ailing parent.  Having to read subtitles because the film is in Japanese didn’t exactly help that at the time.  I generally prefer when foreign language films use subtitles but my eyes were just not feeling it that day.  That is one nice thing about the home release of the film.  They have the version I saw with subtitles (which I recommend unless you are sleep deprived like I was that day) or a version with an English language dub which was released on DVD as “Godzilla: Resurgence”.

    The reason I mention the different versions on home video is because the film features social commentary that can easily be lost on a viewer if they aren’t paying attention.  There is a good chunk of political subtext about the Japanese government that is easily lost on a western audience (which might explain why the reviews weren’t as glowing for the film as they were with eastern critics).  Much of it was lost on me until I had a friend pointed it out to me.

    Godzilla is a hard character to get right and every fan has an opinion how to handle the character.  “Shin Godzilla” is probably the most like the original “Godzilla” film we have got to date and probably will ever get in the future.  I will say this too, while I personally wish the film had a bit more action, I love how much most of the Godzilla fans have embraced it.  Just the other day, I was reading about a theory revolving around the character of Goro Maki and how he could tie into Godzilla’s tail (yes you read that right and you really should go look up that theory because it is bananas).  At the end of the day, “Shin Godzilla” wasn’t the Godzilla movie I wanted but perhaps it was the Godzilla film the other fans needed.

Grade: C