Godzilla: King of the Monsters is a 2019 monster film about Godzilla having to take on the ferocious King Ghidorah and two other Titans.
Making a sequel isn’t an easy task, and it’s definitely something that Hollywood has been struggling with in some of their most popular franchises. When they have announced that the 2014 Godzilla and Kong: Skull Island will be setting up a fight between these two iconic characters in their own cinematic universe titled the MonsterVerse, it’s an obvious sign that their upcoming movies would be pretty messy and rushed. Godzilla: King of the Monsters perfectly showcases that fact. Directed by Michael Dougherty, known for making horror flicks like Trick ‘r Treat and Krampus, he’s now bringing some additional things to the franchise such as new monsters and human characters. As a sequel, it’s obviously bigger than the previous film, but that’s not always enough to make it better.
After the events of the first movie, the whole planet is now aware of the existence of Massive Unidentified Terrestrial Organisms (MUTOs). The Monarch agency, led by Dr. Serizawa (Ken Watanabe), is hoping to depend on Godzilla to take on the ferocious King Ghidorah and other well-known gigantic monsters such as Mothra and Rodan. Also, there are other human characters that you probably don’t care about trying to deal with this situation.
You obviously come for the action sequences while watching a Godzilla movie, and they’re actually pretty entertaining at times. Seeing these giant monsters fight each other on the big screen is always cool, and it’s definitely worth seeing as a unique cinematic experience. However, it can be a little frustrating with its annoying shaky cams in some scenes. As a brief comparison to the previous installment, the director Gareth Edwards knew how to perfectly showcase the size and scope of Godzilla, and he was still able to frame the action when things are happening on screen. While Dougherty really tries his best to showcase his own visual style to the movie, it’s messy fun that you can probably tolerate sometimes.
Without a doubt, Godzilla itself is the best part of the film. However, the humans are unfortunately still underdeveloped. You don’t care about them, and it’s a recurring and noticeable flaw in all of the MonsterVerse installments. The backstory to some of these people is very rushed, which makes you realize that the script is unfocused when it comes to character development. Even some of their motivations make no sense whatsoever, and you even question the logic behind the decisions they make in some scenes. Also, the tone is very different compared to the previous movie. In the first film, it’s gritty and grounded from start to finish, while King of the Monsters sometimes relies on humor to make the tone a little more fun. Some of the jokes are out of place, but they’re not as bad as the ones you would find in the Transformers series.
For the most part, Godzilla: King of the Monsters just wants to entertain the audience with its cool action sequences involving around Godzilla, and it actually does that really well. While the unfocused script and underdeveloped characters might compromise the enjoyment out of the movie at times, it is still worth seeing once just to watch giant monsters fight each other. It’s not trying to be a cinematic masterpiece or anything as it just wants the moviegoers to have some fun. Can you really fault the film for doing that?