Much like John Wick, people just keep trying to fuck with Godzilla. Instead of getting shot in the head 5 times, Godzilla will just breathe blue fire into your face.
It’s debatable who would win in a fight. My money is still on John Wick.
I reviewed Kong: Skull Island a few years back, I believe I might have used the word masterpiece a few times. I was referring to a ton of movies back then as masterpieces, so please forgive me. Masterpiece or not, it was still a film I thoroughly enjoyed.
The only Godzilla movie I owned was this old VHS copy of King Kong vs. Godzilla. I of course remember nothing of that film other than I believe Kong wins. Godzilla might have still been considered a “bad guy” back then, so it would make sense Kong would be the victor.
The last Godzilla related film I’ve seen was Shin Godzilla, which I absolutely hated. The Japanese no longer have any right to make fun of us for how the shitty 1998 Godzilla movie turned out.
If we’re talking non-movie related, the last thing I watched with Godzilla was the Netflix series Godzilla: Planet of the Monsters. I believe I might have mentioned it in my Pacific Rim 2 review.
It’s a pretty great series where humanity is forced to leave earth because Godzilla is just too powerful. Without finding a new planet to call home, they return to earth years later, now completely overtaken by Godzilla and monster-like creatures.
It’s a fun… I want to say 4 part series. The ending however is extremely disappointing and a major letdown.
My thoughts on the 2014 Godzilla film are a bit more positive. I know that film has people split, but I thought it was really well made. It had this subtle way about doing things. Like how Godzilla was on this revenge path, taking revenge out on the monsters that killed his mate or family. It never comes out and states that is what’s happening, but the clues are there.
The sequel however completely ignores that, as apparently Mothra is Godzilla’s mate or love interest? What? Is that canon, guys? That seems like something horribly made up to give Mothra a reason to be in this movie.
I really enjoyed Godzilla: King of the Monsters, but I do have some issues with it. Mostly it’s the writing I have a problem with. Oh and that Godzilla ending song. What the hell was that? It was like an even worse version of that shitty Venom song they played at the end of Venom.
On the bad writing side of things, it’s been a long while since I’ve heard a character in a movie stop and say “as you know…” Never do that. Never start a scene off or hell, have your character say “as you know” and then proceed to tell the audience this long exposition dump.
If they already know what you’re about to say, why the fuck are you saying it? All you’re doing is advertising this is the moment where we get you, the audience up to speed on what’s going on. It seriously takes you out of the movie.
An issue people had with the 2014 Godzilla film was it didn’t show enough of Godzilla fighting. This film overcorrects that by delivering a ton of monster on monster action.
By doing that, you slightly lose that feeling of awesomeness when you eventually do get to the brawl, much like in the 2014 film. Maybe you didn’t enjoy that movie but you can’t say the final fight wasn’t badass. I mean, you can but you’d be wrong.
Kong also featured a ton more monster action and that was all really well done as well. Though it hit the same wall slightly, once you’ve shown us the 5th time Kong kills or fights a monster, I really don’t care as much when he eventually gets around to taking on the final boss.
Damned if you don’t show the masses the monster fighting and damned if you do.
The thing 2014 Godzilla had over the sequel was Bryan Cranston. And this was him hot off of Breaking Bad, so the hype was still there. Then they kill him off not even midway through the movie.
The new Godzilla film stars… 11 from Stranger Things?
Okay, not as exciting, but at least we still have… That one guy from Game of Thrones… that guy from Friday Night Lights, a show I’ve never seen.
Okay, at least Vera Farmiga is in it, that’s cool, I guess.
Sally Hawkins is briefly in this, not having sex with the monsters this time.
They also tried incorporating humor into the movie at times, that were cringe worthy. Bradley Whitford is there as our comic relief but also so is the guy from Silicon Valley. And all the jokes from them fall flat. They fall hard, landing with audible thud. They even try giving Ken Watanabe a few funny lines. The humor is so bad and unnecessary.
I thought the humor in Kong worked really well. I’m not sure if that’s because John C. Reilly was our comic relief or what.
Kong also had a much better cast. I know a bunch of the people from the 2014 Godzilla movie are returning, but Kong had John Goodman, Samuel L. Jackson and Tom Hiddleston.
It puts both Godzilla films to shame.
So let’s get to the plot.
It takes place a few years after the events of the first film after Godzilla has shown himself to the world, taking out the MUTOs. In the aftermath of the final fight, it caused the casualty of a young couple’s son. That couple being Mark and Emma Russell, played by Kyle Chandler and Vera Farmiga. They aren’t left completely kid less as they still have a daughter Madison played by Millie Bobby Brown.
It’s still strange to see her with hair.
Anyway, years later, an organization has formed called Monarch. They’re an organization that tracks down these “Titans” as they’ve started calling them. Their goal is to keep them under observation, as they don’t wish to harm them.
The military on the other hand wishes the opposite to happen. They see them as a threat that needs to be dealt with immediately. And I can’t say I blame them.
They mention they have about 17 giant monsters they’re keeping an eye on. The Titans are asleep usually in an egg, cocoon, ice, underground somewhere and in some instances surrounded in a heavily populated area.
To help possibly control these monsters, Emma has developed a device she calls the ORCA, that allows them to calm or even enrage a Titan. In the wrong hands, it could be used as a weapon.
Emma and her daughter Madison have a chance to finally use the ORCA machine on Mothra, who is just about to hatch from her larva.
But just as they are about to use the machine, terrorists attack, killing everyone in the facility. These terrorists are being led by Jonah Alan, whose goal is to use the ORCA to start an apocalypse.
They kidnap Emma and Madison, taking them to the arctic where Monarch has a facility housing Ghidorah who is frozen in ice.
Emma’s ex-husband Mark has been called in to help find them before they can release any monsters.
But it turns out they don’t need his help as Godzilla is doing the tracking for them.
The arctic facility gets attacked, releasing Ghidorah. But the ORCA doesn’t seem to have much influence over him. Thankfully Godzilla shows up, pulling off one of three of Ghidorah’s heads.
But even being down a head doesn’t stop Ghidorah, mainly because he can just regrow a pretty new one.
Ghidorah has one thing over Godzilla, aside from three heads, he also has wings.
Ghidorah manages to fly away while Godzilla goes back undersea to track him down once again.
Emma however is revealed to actually be working with the terrorists, but not just her, she’s also roped her daughter into this scheme as well.
Next stop, Mexico where they have a volcano caging Rodan, the pterodactyl looking monster. He doesn’t seem to have any special powers like Godzilla or Ghidorah, who both shoot something from their mouths. Even Mothra can shoot webbing.
Rodan I guess can just fly really fast.
It’s still enough to take out the air force sent to stop Rodan. Godzilla and Ghidorah finish what they started, bringing the battle to the sea. The military however have a new weapon up their sleeve they call the “Oxygen Destroyer”.
The blast manages to severely injure Godzilla, but it seemed to have zero effect on Ghidorah who can regenerate himself.
With Godzilla out of the picture, Ghidorah awakens all the other sleeping Titans around the world. Or at least 7 of them. They mentioned Kong a few times and Skull Island, but 7 or so are all we are shown.
I really wasn’t sure who the other monsters were. One was a giant woolly mammoth, the other a spider… one might have looked like a turtle, I’m not sure.
The king is dead, all hail the king.
For some reason Ghidorah is different from the other monsters, turns out that’s because he isn’t from this planet. He’s actually an alien creature.
Their best bet to defeating Ghidorah is to find Godzilla and get him back on his feet. They track him down to an underwater sunken city that seemed to worship him.
A spot in this sunken city is a heavy stream of radiation, something Godzilla needs to help heal himself.
The dose he’s getting isn’t strong enough, so they decide they need to give him a bit of a booster shot with a nuclear bomb.
The problem there is, the only way they can get the bomb to him is if they transport it themselves through the radiation.
Ken Watanabe volunteers and sets out to save Godzilla. The two share a moment, recreating the scene in the first film where he boops the snoot.
The nuke goes off, wiping out the ruins of the sunken city, but giving Godzilla the shot of energy he needs to take on Ghidorah in one late fight.
Emma and her terrorist crew are hiding out in Boston. She wants to try to stop Ghidorah, seeing as he changes the plan a bit. He wants total destruction of everything, while Emma only wants moderate destruction. Enough that humanity can survive and start over again.
At this point Jonah Alan, the Game of Thrones guy has pretty much disappeared from the movie. He confronts Emma when she tries to leave to help find Madison once she takes off, but after that he is gone from the movie.
Madison has stolen the ORCA device and taken it to Fenway Park to cast the frequency to attract all the monsters, so they’ll stop rampaging across the globe.
Ghidorah shows up to stop the broadcast, putting Madison in danger.
Mark and the Monarch team shows up to rescue her, running into Emma as she tries to fix the ORCA machine and help save their daughter.
Godzilla finally appears and another battle ensues. This time Mothra shows up to help aid Godzilla, fighting off Rodan as he swoops around.
Thanks to the nuke Ken Watanabe set off, Godzilla is supercharged, ready to explode in a fury of radiation. Mothra dies and Godzilla turns red, going nuclear on the city. He destroys Ghidorah, eating his last remaining head.
In Godzilla’s final attack, Emma dies but helps get Madison and Mark to safety.
With Ghidorah defeated, Godzilla is once again king, now all the awakened Titans bow to him.
There were some ending credit scenes, mostly news reportings of Titans and this egg they found. Which I guess was meant to be Mothra? Exactly how does Mothra work? It seems like her and Godzilla have been a thing for centuries, yet she keeps having to be reborn? So is it the same Mothra or is this an off spring?
I don’t get how Mothra works, guys. They even introduced the really dumb twin thing that sing to Mothra. They didn’t really do much with them here, just introduced some twins as more of a reference.
I can’t say I was focusing that hard on what the end credits where telling me, as that terrible Godzilla song was playing and it was the only thing I could focus on.
This is so bad I can’t listen to this anymore. So I was itching to leave the theater as fast as I could. There was no way I was sticking around for an end of credits scene.
But from what I hear, Jonah Alan shows back up after vanishing from the movie, to buy one of Ghidorah’s heads.
Honestly, that’s kind of dumb. It should have set up the fight between Kong and Godzilla. All we got in that department was another dumb cave drawing depicting them clashing.
So that’s Godzilla: King of the Monsters. Usually with the bad writing at times, the plot holes and that god awful end song, this is a rent.
However!
I can’t imagine seeing this on your tv screen. A film like this NEEDS to be seen in theaters. It’s what theaters are made for. So because of that, I give Godzilla: King of the Monsters a SEE IT.
Next week I’ll be reviewing… Well, you’ll just have to tune in to find out.
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