There is much to treasure about Godzilla: King of the Monsters as those so-called Titans come to life in the most jaw-dropping and mesmerizing ways. However, when it comes to their human players, this film forgot to develop anyone for us to care about save Millie Bobby Brown’s Madison Russell.
Finally, audiences have a Godzilla film out of Hollywood that is worthy of the radioactive lizard’s legacy that stems back to the nuclear war-weary world that was 1954.
The events of our literal larger-than-life flick pick up five years after what occurred in 2014’s Godzilla. It appears that the big guy’s arrival sparked an awakening of at least 17 Titans across the planet. That fact has sent the world’s leading scientists and political leaders scrambling to plan for this global new normal. That part of the human side of this story its only saving grace. It is intriguing to postulate how the international community would move forward after what occurred to San Francisco in the first film of this rebooted franchise. As solid as that aspect is, screenwriters Michael Dougherty (who also directed) and Zach Shields’ penning process failed to give us anything resembling an emotive tether to the monster movie’s ensemble. Even the stunning turn by Brown (of Stranger Things fame) cannot save the lack of heartstrings.
That’s a disappointment given the titanic thespians that Dougherty gets to direct. Kyle Chandler and Oscar nominee Vera Farmiga are an estranged husband and wife team, Mark and Emma Russell. After the events of 2014, their family became fractured. Mark is on one side of the globe studying the pack landscape of wolves and Paleobiologist Emma finds herself in Boston working as a scientist for the fabled Godzilla crypto-zoological organization, Monarch. Caught between them is daughter Madison (Brown). She lives with her mother, but desperately misses her father. Madison has taken an enormous interest in her mother’s work, even finding herself by her mom’s side at a Monarch facility when Titan activity goes off the charts.
Returning from the first film is Ken Watanabe’s Dr. Ishiro Serizawa and Sally Hawkins’ Dr. Vivienne Graham. Charles Dance portrays an eco-terrorist named Jonah Alan, while Aisha Hinds (9-1-1), Oscar nominee David Strathairn’s Admiral William Stenz and Straight Outta Compton star O’Shea Jackson Jr. embody the military angle for this epic tale while Bradley Whitford’s Dr. Rick Stanton and Ziyi Zhang’s Dr. Ilene Chen fill out our scientific collective. It’s truly disappointing that screenwriters never gave their human characters elements that bring life to what would otherwise be two-dimensional souls. That is exactly what occurs.
What is a triumph and is so in the most jaw-dropping ways, is how Dougherty captures the battles involving Godzilla and new (to most American audiences) arrivals—such as King Ghidorah, Mothra and Rodan. Mothra is a fan favorite and someone who has been missing from any of the American adaptations of the Toho icons. It is a rare thing indeed in films that feature bouts between the ginormous where the definition is so clear that each move is felt at an audiences’ core. That never happened with Transformer movies (at least until Bumblebee). It certainly never occurred in Guillermo del Toro’s Pacific Rim or 2017’s Kong: Skull Island. That is something that should be lauded and celebrated. These are monstrous characters beloved for decades, and it is so refreshing to witness them get their visual eye candy due. As such, it adds to the suspense and intrigue as viewers try to figure out how on earth Godzilla can win in a fight between the three-headed dragon-like creature and himself.
Also, the world of Godzilla and his cohorts can be seen as unapproachable by the average movie goer due to its rich history of specifics that escapes those of us who were never die hard fans growing up or even as adults. In Godzilla: King of the Monsters, the history of each of these Titans, their strengths and weaknesses (for lack of a better word) and believe it or not personalities, are crafted in the most adoring and respectful of ways. Longtime fans of the landscape where Godzilla resides will cherish every moment of this film that finds our gargantuan Kaiju clashing to the death. Even casual appreciators of the Godzilla movies will marvel at the awesome achievement turned in by all of those behind-the-camera folks that take a concept and breathe life into it.
Sadly, that can only go so far. Audiences need, and crave, a connection between their own hearts and those human characters on the screen. That provides an emotive lifeline whose absence can suck life out of an otherwise superior spectacle. It doesn’t completely with Godzilla: King of the Monsters, but it is decisively noticeable.
One last thing about Mothra. Her arrival on the screen should be celebrated as it is an endearing and adoration filled experience witnessing her sheer presence. Since she first appeared on the pages of The Luminous Fairies in 1961, the gloriously beautiful gentle giant’s (well, she’s at least gentle to her comrades) mere presence elicits roars of approval from audiences that one could foresee a solo flick in her future. I’d be there for that in a heartbeat. In the meantime, we’ll have to wait for 2020’s Godzilla vs. Kong. Pretty sure the luminescent monster will make the scene for that upcoming flick.
Grade: B-