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| The Kings Face-off |
The 1998 film from Roland Emmerich and the 2014 film from Gareth Edwards are the closest to having watched kaiju cinema. The former being a silly 90's action blockbuster while the latter goes
The Dark Knight route on being a more gritty and serious. While the 2014 iteration is superior on a technical and critical level, I have a soft spot for the 98 version; admittedly for nostalgic reasons. While it found life again as an animated series, fans of the original were still non too pleased with Emmerich's vision and welcomed the second reboot from Edwards with open arms. It's success lead to
Kong: Skull Island, taking place in the same universe but back in the seventies whereas
Godzilla (2014) took place in present time. Thus the MonsterVerse was born.
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| Madison Russell (Millie Bobby Brow) and her mother Dr. Emma Russell (Vera Farmiga) |
Five years have passed since Godzilla (himself) defeated the monstrous MUTO and left San Francisco in shambles. With the public now aware of giant creatures roaming the Earth, questions are raised if such beings should be destroyed or if co-existence is possible. Monarch, the secret facility that study and contain the beasts believe in a mutual future thanks to a device called the Orca; created by Dr. Emma Russell (Vera Farmiga) it can emit sound frequencies that can tame the titanic titans. The project gets compromised when an eco-terroist group lead by Alan Jonah (Charles Dance) take the machine and kidnap Dr. Russell and her adolescent daughter Madison (Millie Bobby Brown). Their plan is to awaken Ghidorah (himself), a three headed dragon-like behemoth that can breathe lightning and outmatch the strongest of titans including Godzilla.
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Mark Russell (Kyle Chandler), Dr. Sam Coleman (Thomas Middleditch),
Dr. Ilene Chen (Zhang Ziyi), and Jackson Barnes (O'Shea Jackson Jr.) |
A rescue team is launched, lead by head Monarch scientist Dr. Ishirō Serizawa (Ken Watanabe) who recruits Emma's ex-husband Mark Russell (Kyle Chandler), who helped create the Orca.
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| What shiny scales you have. |
Some of the major complaints that the 2014 reboot faced was having too much focus on forgettable human characters, very little focus on Godzilla who doesn't appear much in the movie until the end and, and cutting away from the fights.
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| Butterfly, butterfly, fly, fly away. |
Taking to heart the criticisms
Godzilla: King of Monsters goes out to correct these mistakes as we see plenty of Mr. Zilla in action and smashing the competition. Director Michael Dougherty of
Krampus and
Trick 'r Treat fame, adds a palette of color on the landscape, characters, and creatures with Mothra, and Rodan joining in the fray.
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| My mistake Mr. Rodan we were just leaving! |
Amidst the renovations a few things slip through the cracks. In his movie, Edwards made the scope and scale of the creatures realistic as possible. With
King of Monsters, Godzilla may have gotten more bulky but lost some pixelated pounds in the process, that almost resemble the visuals one would see on the Syfy channel or on a Direct-to-DVD movie.
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Dr. Rick Stanton (Bradley Whitford) and Dr. Ishirō Serizawa (Ken Watanabe)
watching with the group on the events unfolding. |
The movie tries to present other interesting ideas like how man is the true monster with a big villain speech akin to
Saw where the heroes just the declare them crazy but offer no voice of reason or counterargument to their motives. The movie even throws some broken family drama schmaltz that only got annoying like in the
The Day the Earth Stood Still remake.
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| ZZZAAAPPP!! |
What it lacks in those areas, the movie makes up with titanic tussles and the humans attempting to assist and steering clear from the brawl. Aside from a couple of poorly-established characters, it's cool seeing the humans semi-ally themselves with Godzilla and strategize on bringing down Ghidora. Maybe its because I grew up watching
Early Edition, but seeing Kyle Chandler stare at Godzilla straight in the eye had me squealing with joy.
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Colonel Diane Foster (Aisha Hinds) taking command
as the group head into the battlefield. |
In some ways King of Monsters is better and worse than its predecessor. Truth be told I still prefer the Emmerich version. If you want mindless destruction and don't care on the rest of the content, then you'll be right at home. Godzilla may have the King of Monsters title but come 2021 another King will step into the ring all the way from Skull Island......
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