By: Keaton Marcus

The trailers, the character posters, and well, the title explains everything for once. "Godzilla: King of the Monsters" is big, feeble-minded fun--without compelling human characters, but bumbling, grand scale, and dazzling kaiju encounters. For some, yes, it's a complete yawn--but concerning kaiju fans angry at the horrific "Pacific Rim: Uprising", this is the film to go to. The general criticism of the 2014 reboot was that Godzilla never gets his fair share of screen time, in the messy sequel, the Titan's in almost every action sequence. Of course, the screenplay, and the storytelling are just embarrassing--but, it's a creature-feature, what can you expect? What I'm saying is it may be long, and brainless, but the third installment to WB's MonsterVerse is hysterically entertaining, generally because of it's rock-em-sock-em kaiju fights.

Mentioned before, the characters such as Godzilla and King Kong were originally meant to be handed to Universal, however, that studio got busy cooking up the Dark Universe. Instead, the franchise was handed to WB, whose the biggest series seems to be "Harry Potter". "Godzilla" was released in 2014, and was a box office success--an expensive one too. The film opened to generally positive critical reception, sprouting the MonsterVerse. A spin-off in the saga, "Kong: Skull Island", debuted in 2017--opening to similar victories with both reviews and profit. "King of the Monsters", the next installment, is arguably world-building, but paper-thin. The next film in the series is titled "Godzilla vs. Kong", and features both famous creatures battling against one another.

Already repeated many times in my review are the supposedly spectacular kaiju battles; we need to talk. This "Godzilla" sequel seems like the perfect address to the "not enough screen-time issue" that the previous film had--bringing together many behemoths like Titans, such as Ghidora, Mothra, and even Rodan. Yes, it delivers what we were waiting for, a massive, dazzling battle between the four titular creatures--Godzilla in the ads, was always set up to fight his mortal "enemy", Ghidora, as they fight for dominance over the lesser monsters. While the battles were expensive, the detail put into the monstrosities is extraordinary, and surprisingly realistic. The 200M budget was surely not put to waste. If you turn your brain on, you're literally watching one of the worst films on planet Earth, however, if you came to just enjoy the sheer spectacle, and scope of the picture, you'll have a fantastic time cheering for the iconic lizard.

The performances, as expected, are extremely under the bar. Not usually what you expect from a monster showdown, the cast is actually extremely talented--led by "Friday Night Lights" star Kyle Chandler, along with a performance from Vera Farmiga. Frequently courtesy of the incompetent direction by Michael Doughtery and the terrible writing making the audiences care less and less about the human characters. However, “Stranger Things” lead Millie Bobby Brown delivers a subtle, but clever supporting performance as Madison, who is a hot-headed, ambitious daughter grieving over the death of her brother. Generally, the issue is the generic dialogue and underdeveloped backgrounds, but the cast is wasted with a resounding thud. The supporting portion is also solidly well-known, adding more and more non-monster roles that the audiences flick away like they're nothing, such as Ken Watanabe's Japanese scientist, Dr. Serizawa or Sally Hawkins' Dr. Graham--completely left into the dust. Really, the humans are the lesser part of the film, in fact, they shouldn't even be there, just let the monsters do their thing--and let the fans be entertained.

The final verdict is: "Godzilla: King of the Monsters" delivers beautiful cinematography, spectacularly dazzling kaiju action, and some good old-fashioned fun--of course at the expense of its underdeveloped human characters, and the embarrassing screenplay.

By: Keaton Marcus

Box Office Info:

Opening Weekend: 47.7m

Domestic Total: 110.5m

Worldwide Total: 386.6m