Godzilla: King of the Monsters (2019)

Legendary's 'Monsterverse' films are what many consider hit or miss so far and the latest film 'Godzilla: King of the Monsters' is no different. While not that bad, it also misses the mark on a lot of important details. The story continues five years from 2014's 'Godzilla' and long after 'Kong: Skull Island' the government agency Monarch who hunts and attempts attacks from various cryptozoological creatures now face a dangerous new threat: King Ghidorah, an alien species that threatens to destroy the world. Monarch then attempts to recruit the legendary Godzilla to fight on their side as Ghidorah amasses an army of Kaijus to launch an all-out attack.

The biggest problem right out the gate here is that the film simply does too much name dropping and winks to the audience. What I mean by this is that the film will just mention various items, names, or other lore from the past Toho films with little to no significance nor reason for their being there. Naming Ghidorah "Monster Zero" or randomly revealing the Oxygen Destroyer from the original film are some of these examples and while it's cool to hear and see these if you're a fan, for the majority of the audience these things mean nothing and add nothing to the story.

The other major issue here is the human characters and yes I know that we don't see Kaiju films for the human element, but even in the silliest films of the series you'd have that one protagonist or antagonist that anchored the plot so that we can move to the fighting smoothly. You simply don't have that here as any characters of potential interest such as Dr. Serizawa or the young girl Madison are kept in the background while unlikable or uninteresting characters such as Madison's parents or the various comic relief characters are pushed forward. Even Charles Dance as our main human villain has little to no motive that we know of other than he saw things in the military and hates humanity. Dance is always a class act but that's about as much character as a paper doll.

Luckily, the film does give us some of the best monster fights of the series and delivers on what 2014's film severely lacked. It was nice to finally see fan favorites Rodan, Mothra, & Ghidorah make it to the screen over here and I couldn't help but turn into a little kid again, humming the famous 'Godzilla' theme song as it played during those end credits. Speaking of the music, composer Bear McCreary is becoming a new favorite of mine and here he provides a nice score. It comes with lots of new work while also doing some great covers of the Godzilla & Mothra themes. The special effects here are well done too. The work done on Ghidorah was a standout for me, as each individual head acts like a separate entity and these Kaiju all felt alive with their distinct behaviors and movement.

So my final word on 'Godzilla: King of the Monsters' is this: It's a standard Godzilla movie with the same strengths and weaknesses as many in the franchise but provides little else. It really is a shame that these Legendary films just can't make that high jump above the others, with the exception of 'Kong'. The other critics may be a bit too harsh than me, but 'Godzilla' has never been a darling with them but also I can't ignore a lot of their complaints either. The cinematic universe angle has killed a lot of potential with many films in an attempt to cash in on Marvel and sadly 'King of the Monsters' is another victim.

6/10