Directed by Michael Dougherty
Produced by Thomas Tull, Jon Jashni, Brian Rogers, Mary Parent,
Alex Garcia
Screenplay by Michael Dougherty, Zach Shields
Story by Max Borenstein, Michael Dougherty, Zach Shields
Starring Kyle Chandler, Vera Farmiga, Millie Bobby Brown, Bradley
Whitford, Sally Hawkins, Charles Dance, Thomas Middleditch, Aisha Hinds, O’Shea
Jackson Jr., David Strathairn, Ken Watanabe, Zhang Ziyi
Since 2014, when the
first entry in Legendary’s Monsterverse came out in the form of a rebooted, chunkier
Godzilla with little screen time, my main gripe with these movies has always been
how forgettable the human characters tend to be. Anybody remember who else
besides Ken Watanabe (he of “Let them fight” fame) starred in that first movie?
Try citing something endearing about one other character from Kong: Skull Island (2017) besides John
C. Reilly staying stuck on some South Pacific island for decades, unaware that
the Second World War had already ended. Try naming any of these characters without referring to the movies’ Wikipedia
pages. (I couldn’t.)
Godzilla: King of the Monsters makes a sincere effort to rectify
this issue. The human heart of this film rests on a broken family, the Russells,
who were apparently living in San Francisco during the events of the first
film. Dad Mark (Kyle Chandler) has left wife Emma (Vera Farmiga) and daughter
Elev—I mean, Madison (Millie Bobby Brown) so he can live out the rest of his
life recording North American animal sounds during the day and retreat into his
lakeside cabin at night (a cabin that looks oddly similar to the one Tony Stark
retired to in Endgame). Emma and
Madison, meanwhile, reside in China, at one of Monarch’s facilities (Seriously,
we’re three movies in and we still don’t know a satisfactory lot about this
organization), monitoring another one of these titans until eco-terrorist Alan
Jonah (Charles Dance) waltzes into their lives and (seemingly) takes them
hostage. Upon hearing this news, returning characters Dr. Serizawa (Watanabe)
and Vivienne Graham (Sally Hawkins), together with newcomer Sam Coleman (Silicon Valley’s Thomas Middleditch),
abruptly end a dimly lit senate inquiry and fly over to Mark’s cabin to ask him
about this little science project he and Emma had been developing back when
they were married, and which could potentially reawaken these monsters who’ve
been lying dormant for thousands of years.
For a movie that sold
itself on giant kaiju fights over wrecked landscapes, the conflict on the human
end is for the most part pretty convincing. Mark, severely traumatized by the loss of his other
child during the destruction of San Francisco, loathes the Monarch guys for
their wanting to keep the titans—Godzilla, especially—alive for ecological reasons, and Emma goes on to trade barbs with Madison for disagreements re a poignantly delivered statement the former made in the film’s first trailer.
The other characters, on the other hand, are there to provide muscle,
exposition, or a mix of both, so no point in forcing yourself to get too
attached to anyone else. Because the plot involves a lot of globe-trotting and
balancing scenes between the humans and the titans, the narrative is spread too
thin. Character developments are anywhere between rushed or negligible, and
certain plot points that could have otherwise been better rendered are reduced
to quick-cutting character banter delivered in a stifling, color-saturated
interior.
Then again, who cares
about the humans when you were promised cool kaiju clashes, right? Yes, this
film definitely delivers on that front—just a few notches better than your
average robot fight in one of those ten Michael Bay Transformers movies.
Creature designs are also the best this burgeoning Hollywood franchise has
offered so far, and one can only imagine how they’re gonna amp this up in the
sequel due next year. Fair warning: Things will get a little too loud, especially for those with sensitive hearing. Hopefully all those roars,
crumbles, clangors, and flashy lightning will be more than enough to conceal
other narrative shortcomings I may have failed to point out here.
Score: 6/10
About the Reviewer
Charles SanCheese is an avid reader, student of literature, and pop-culture vulture. He works as a copy editor in Mandaue City and has lived in Cebu his whole life.
He has authored several essays, short stories, and lengthier works of fiction, all of which can be found in the grand annals of his personal hard drive. Follow him on Twitter at @charlesancheese.
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