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GODZILLA: KING OF THE MONSTERS
Director: Michael Dougherty Cast: Kyle Chandler, Vera Farmiga, Millie Bobby Brown, Ken Watanabe, Ziyi Zhang, Bradley Whitford, Sally Hawkins, Charles Dance, Thomas Middleditch, Aisha Hinds, O'Shea Jackson Jr., David Strathairn MPAA
Rating: Running Time: 2:11 Release Date: 5/31/19 |
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Review by Mark Dujsik | May 30, 2019 Technically, there are human beings in Godzilla: King of the Monsters, but they certainly don't provide the movie with a single bit of humanity. They exist to explain, to theorize, to cause or hopelessly try to fix problems involving giant monsters, and to run, drive, and fly away from said monsters. The argument could be made that the human characters in monster movies have always and primarily existed to do such things, so this movie is simply following, perhaps even honoring, that old tradition. There's an easy counter-point to that: Should we really set the bar that low in order to hand-wave away the fact that the representatives of our species are so dull, dim, and pointless? If this movie's predecessor hadn't shown us an acceptable, working formula for combining the human side of a monster movie with the monsters themselves, maybe this complete diminishment of the human characters in this one wouldn't seem like such a big deal. Godzilla (the 2014 reboot—not the 1954 Japanese original or the 1998 American reboot) did show us, though, in terms of giving us characters whose lives seemed to have more to them than giant monsters causing destruction. That film also gave us a sense of scale and perspective that were entirely human. The monsters, the devastation, and the fighting were all seen from a viewpoint of horrifying awe, because we would be as hopeless as ants against such titanic forces of nature. This sequel (not to be confused with the original film's 1956 American bastardization, from which this movie gets its title) ignores all of that in favor of a dunderheaded plot, featuring a bunch of hollow characters, that's only an excuse to show Godzilla taking on or teaming up with three other colossal monsters. In theory, such brawling is what we're here to see, and maybe we could forgive the vapidity of the plot, the human characters, and the long stretches of absent monsters if we could, you know, actually see the fighting monsters. Co-writer/director Michael Dougherty basically has given us the worst of both worlds—the human and the monster—with this movie. We don't care about the people surrounding Godzilla and his ally/foes as characters or even in broader terms—as just people. As for the monsters, the movie cuts plenty of corners in filmmaking terms, making all of the fights senseless, muddied sound and light shows. Five years after the events of the first film, the Godzilla has disappeared. Monarch, the agency that studies titans like the fire-breathing lizard, is under government and public scrutiny. None of that matters, because Dr. Emma Russell (Vera Farmiga) has built a device that can communicate with the massive creatures. Jonah Alan (Charles Dance), an eco-terrorist, abducts the doctor and her daughter Madison (Millie Bobby Brown), seeking to use the device to unleash all sorts of gigantic terrors upon the world. It's up to Emma's ex-husband Mark (Kyle Chandler) and a group of Monarch agents, including Dr. Ishiro Serizawa (Ken Watanabe), to find Godzilla and let it tackle the threat. We could talk about these and the other characters, all of whom basically spout exposition with whatever single tone Dougherty and co-screenwriter Zach Shields have allowed them (Mark is concerned, Ishiro is stern, Emma is upset, etc.), but the previous half of this sentence has practically exhausted the extent of their role in this story. The main point is that the villains, looking to bring balance to nature (for reasons that, like the movie's stances on the environment and weapons of mass destruction, are confused at best), eventually awaken a bunch of hibernating titans, which cause a lot of destruction. The major ones are Mothra (a big moth, obviously), Rodan (a great, scaly vulture), and Ghidorah (a three-headed, two-tailed, and lightning-spitting dragon from outer space). While the humans chase after and run from the monsters, the big guys destroy cities, secret facilities, and whatnot, while occasionally—and ultimately—battling each other. Aside from a few wide shots, though, most of the destruction and fighting is seen in shaky close-ups and with rapid edits that essentially turn the potential spectacle into much visual and aural noise. Add to that the fact that most of these sequences occur in the dark or under adverse weather conditions, and it becomes obvious that the filmmakers are attempting to minimize the still clearly underwhelming visual effects (Ghidorah conveniently brings a hurricane wherever it goes, which just seems like a tacit admission of cutting corners on the filmmakers' part). It's Godzilla, so we don't exactly expect technical perfection from a series that started with actors in rubber suits. That doesn't mean we should so readily accept something as messy, dumb, and empty as Godzilla: King of the Monsters. Copyright © 2019 by Mark Dujsik. All rights reserved. |
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(for sequences of monster action violence and destruction, and for some
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