The 2014’s Godzilla, even though it was way too heavy in terms of the exhausting action set pieces, it looked a bit authentic as it convincingly included the nuclear energy part in the whole Godzilla concept. When it comes to the 2019 story, exactly after five years from the events of the first film, the content wants to explore newer levels of the mega monster but gets tangled into the catastrophic fights way too much rather than investing on building a captivating story.
Emma Russell a scientist at Monarch develops a machine named Orca that can help us in communicating with these titans. But her discovery gets compromised and environmental terrorists are after it to set all the titans free as they believed that the Titans are here to maintain the ecological balance. The efforts of Mark Russell, Emma’s ex-husband and her daughter Madison’s father, to save them from these terrorists and what happens due to the setting free of these Titans is what this second part titled Godzilla: King of the Monsters showing us.
The whole concept of maintaining the equilibrium and the monsters are not necessarily evil etc are pretty catchy (even though we have seen similar viewpoints in the ideologies of Villains like Thanos). But what was problematic for me in this movie was that very soon it steps into that familiar zone. We can clearly sense the fact that some of the characters are going to do that sacrifice act. There were a couple of occasions in the movie where the Godzilla is supposed to make a heroic surprise entry and surprisingly there wasn’t any element of surprise. Director Michael Dougherty is trying hard to pitch Godzilla as that heroic figure and he even goes to a way of character buildup that made me wonder if this is a Desi masala movie.
The making is pretty much focused on those large scale CGI fights which I am not a huge fan of. And the problem with movies like Godzilla is that there is always a lack of clarity in those action bits as it constantly shuttles between these gigantic creatures and minute humans. The familiar traits of a disaster movie take over the screenplay after that initial zone of fresh promises. Characters sacrificing their lives, parenting conflicts in the middle of high octane actions and there is even that classic decoding of location from a casual dialogue when the parents had to guess where their daughter could be. The CGI quality is indeed great. But the editing of those portions kind of made it chaos that we just wish to skip through. There was a scene where a newborn Titan kills an old one in a style that might remind you of some of the noir mafia films and the audience was laughing seeing it.
Dripping in heavy CGI and big scale set pieces, Godzilla: The King of Monsters isn’t really providing a great platform for the actors in it. Kyle Chandler is convincing as the concerned parent who is not a big fan of Godzilla. Vera Farmiga plays the role of Emma neatly. Millie Bobby Brown was kind of impressive as the daughter of the pair. Sally Hawkins reprises her character from the 2014 movie briefly. Ken Watanabe reprising the role of Dr. Serizawa was perhaps the only properly developed character among a pool of underdeveloped clichéd characters. Maybe because of the Marvel influence, we can see multiple comedy sidekicks in the film.
If you are okay with a heavy dosage of quality CGI in an average story, then Godzilla: King of the Monsters will work for you as a passable movie. For me, the movie just couldn’t maintain the kind of intrigue it developed in the beginning towards the end portions and ultimately felt like one more to the list of run-of-the-mill monster films. (There is a post-credits scene by the way)
Rating: 2.5/5
If you are okay with a heavy dosage of quality CGI in an average story, then Godzilla: The King of Monsters will work for you as a passable movie.
Green: Recommended Content
Orange: The In-Between Ones
Red: Not Recommended
