I kinda love this new interpretation of Godzilla as a sort of cosmologically-sized anti-hero, a stone-cold bad-ass who will do the right thing to protect the earth, but with virtually no regard for the collateral damage. It holds onto the mass destruction and associated terror Godzilla has always been a part of, but it allows the colossal creature to be a character we actually care about. This stands in stark contrast to the original Godzilla, who was a direct result of humanity's own hubris, and who's rampaging was a barely disguised metaphor for war in general and the nuking of Japan in particular.
The original Godzilla is a masterpiece of thematic storytelling and message delivery, of course, and stands quite apart from the vast majority of its sequels and reboots as being, all things considered, not really a "kaiju movie" the way we've come to expect them. That started with the second Godzilla movie, in which the monumental myth assumes more of a protectorate role, similar to our current US interpretation of the large lizard, by fighting off a gigantic triceratops and pterodactyl. Down that road we find a long history of genre creating/defining kaiju films, and it's at the end of that we find 2014's Godzilla and 2019's King of the Monsters.
Godzilla was a good movie, don't get me wrong. There were some truly excellent moments in there, and Elizabeth Olsen is always a win. But if it had one critical failing point, it was the lack of kaiju in the, you know... kaiju movie. They were there, they looked great, and when they were fighting it was glorious. But as a percentage of the film... there just wasn't enough of it. The filmmakers heard those complaints though, because King of the Monsters...
Look, it's not hard to tell why you should like this movie. It's because of all the monster fights. There are people doing people things in order to try and tie the set-pieces together, but honestly that bit of the movie isn't very good, nor is it particularly necessary. But I don't care that there's more of it than I wanted and that it's kinda crappy, because in a shockingly close mirror of my initial viewing of Pacific Rim, I knew exactly what I wanted going into this film and I got it, exactly.
And like Del Toro's thesis on monster-punching mechs I have to give credit where it's due. Satisfying fights involving two behemoths are not as simple as tossing a bunch of 3D models onto a screen and calling it a day. Just look at the second Pacific Rim movie. No, the secret is in making these gigantic three-hundred-plus-foot monsters feel grounded and real in the world around them such that you, as a viewer, can imagine yourself being there with them. It's a subtle combination of realistic CG, believable physics, and actually possible camera angles and lighting. Stuff like resisting the urge to put your virtual camera in your virtual world in the middle of the sky miles away from anything and instead putting it on the ground, or in a building, or on an actual monster, someplace where you actually could put a camera.
Those little grounding details are what really... uh, ground, movies like this, and the result is a giant monster movie with engaging giant monster fights instead of boring giant monster fights, and frankly I just love me some giant monster fights and if you also love giant monster fights I can't fathom why you wouldn't like King of the Monsters.
So that just leaves those of you who don't like giant monster fights. And for you the human story is weirdly constructed and uncomfortably scripted, leaving you with what is frankly a hard-to-parse and not particularly good time. Most of the performances are fine, if decidedly two-dimensional, but the prevailing trend regarding characters and their motivations isn't so much well-thought-through as it is... not that. The villains, for instance, have motivations that range from our usual charitable "they exist" to straight up "nobody who isn't bat-shit insane would ever make that illogical leap." When the most inexplicably crazy villain then tries to have possibly the most rushed redemption arc in cinema history, it's a little difficult to not get thrown out of the intended emotional climax of the movie in abject frustration.
So there's not really much here if you're not in your chair specifically because you want to see the giant monster fights. But, I mean... who doesn't? You're not going into this for human drama, trust me. You're here to see Godzilla demonstrate once and for all that he is uh... the king of the monsters.
It's almost like the movie wasn't really pretending to be anything other than what it is...
The original Godzilla is a masterpiece of thematic storytelling and message delivery, of course, and stands quite apart from the vast majority of its sequels and reboots as being, all things considered, not really a "kaiju movie" the way we've come to expect them. That started with the second Godzilla movie, in which the monumental myth assumes more of a protectorate role, similar to our current US interpretation of the large lizard, by fighting off a gigantic triceratops and pterodactyl. Down that road we find a long history of genre creating/defining kaiju films, and it's at the end of that we find 2014's Godzilla and 2019's King of the Monsters.
Godzilla was a good movie, don't get me wrong. There were some truly excellent moments in there, and Elizabeth Olsen is always a win. But if it had one critical failing point, it was the lack of kaiju in the, you know... kaiju movie. They were there, they looked great, and when they were fighting it was glorious. But as a percentage of the film... there just wasn't enough of it. The filmmakers heard those complaints though, because King of the Monsters...
Look, it's not hard to tell why you should like this movie. It's because of all the monster fights. There are people doing people things in order to try and tie the set-pieces together, but honestly that bit of the movie isn't very good, nor is it particularly necessary. But I don't care that there's more of it than I wanted and that it's kinda crappy, because in a shockingly close mirror of my initial viewing of Pacific Rim, I knew exactly what I wanted going into this film and I got it, exactly.
And like Del Toro's thesis on monster-punching mechs I have to give credit where it's due. Satisfying fights involving two behemoths are not as simple as tossing a bunch of 3D models onto a screen and calling it a day. Just look at the second Pacific Rim movie. No, the secret is in making these gigantic three-hundred-plus-foot monsters feel grounded and real in the world around them such that you, as a viewer, can imagine yourself being there with them. It's a subtle combination of realistic CG, believable physics, and actually possible camera angles and lighting. Stuff like resisting the urge to put your virtual camera in your virtual world in the middle of the sky miles away from anything and instead putting it on the ground, or in a building, or on an actual monster, someplace where you actually could put a camera.
Those little grounding details are what really... uh, ground, movies like this, and the result is a giant monster movie with engaging giant monster fights instead of boring giant monster fights, and frankly I just love me some giant monster fights and if you also love giant monster fights I can't fathom why you wouldn't like King of the Monsters.
So that just leaves those of you who don't like giant monster fights. And for you the human story is weirdly constructed and uncomfortably scripted, leaving you with what is frankly a hard-to-parse and not particularly good time. Most of the performances are fine, if decidedly two-dimensional, but the prevailing trend regarding characters and their motivations isn't so much well-thought-through as it is... not that. The villains, for instance, have motivations that range from our usual charitable "they exist" to straight up "nobody who isn't bat-shit insane would ever make that illogical leap." When the most inexplicably crazy villain then tries to have possibly the most rushed redemption arc in cinema history, it's a little difficult to not get thrown out of the intended emotional climax of the movie in abject frustration.
So there's not really much here if you're not in your chair specifically because you want to see the giant monster fights. But, I mean... who doesn't? You're not going into this for human drama, trust me. You're here to see Godzilla demonstrate once and for all that he is uh... the king of the monsters.
It's almost like the movie wasn't really pretending to be anything other than what it is...
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