THIS POST CONTAINS SOME MILD SPOILERS.
Ever since the after credits scene from 'Kong: Skull Island', my hype meter for this movie shot a hole in the sky.
Originally, Gareth Edwards was expected to direct a whole trilogy of Godzilla films but certain unexpected happenings forced these plans to be altered significantly. Edwards became busy working on the film 'Rouge One' and chose to not return for the sequel. Then, Legendary pictures obtained the rights to a certain other monster and chose to work on a film that would bring them together.
Stepping in to direct the follow up to the 2014 film was Michael Dougherty, who previously directed horror films Trick R Treat and Krampus. Not only did he already have experience with monsters but in the years leading up to the release of King of the Monsters, he made it clear that he was a die-hard Godzilla fan. Our boy was in good hands, but did it come together in the end?
The answer is yes. Oh. my. God. Zilla!
This movie absolutely delivers the goods in terms what you'd expect from a Godzilla movie.
An eco-terrorist group kidnaps a Monarch scientist who has invented a device that sends out frequencies capable of calling out to and calming down the newly discovered monsters, now dubbed 'Titans'. They use it to awaken one of the more deadlier Titans dubbed 'Monster Zero' or Ghidorah, this gets the attention of Godzilla who immediately takes a dislike to him as well as other Titans around the world including Mothra and Rodan. It becomes a race against time for Monarch to figure out how to defeat Ghidorah and save the planet from complete annihilation.
Before this, I had only ever seen a handful of Godzilla movies in theaters. Mostly solo ventures like the original 1954 film and Shin Godzilla, 2014 comes out and I finally get to see the Big G fighting other monsters on a big screen. But as much as it wet my appetite, it still left me and many more fans wanting, wanting more fights and the inclusion of classic monsters from the now 65 year history of the series.
And I feel King of the Monsters granted our wishes.
Finally getting to see Mothra, Rodan and King Ghidorah on the big screen was such a delight. Their redesigns are all great, their personalities are on point and I found the scenes with them and every other monster simply breathtaking.
The fighting in this movie retains most of the same POV style shots from the previous film while adding even more dynamic shots of the monsters in action. Much of the time, our human characters are caught right in the middle of the fights and it raises both the tension of not only which monster, but which humans will survive the chaos.
And no, I don't care if it's in the dark or the rain, I just love seeing monsters fight, no matter the environment.
Seeing Godzilla and Ghidorah fight is always amazing, but what was even more surprising was seeing Mothra and Rodan engage in battle with each other, something that has never been seen before.
If I had a gripe with one of the monsters it would be with Rodan. Don't misunderstand me, I loved Rodan in the movie. However, unlike Godzilla, Mothra and Ghidorah, who all had their signature roars updated, I missed hearing Rodan's trademark cawing from the original series. Instead, he just makes generic monster sounds, I think they even reused a MUTO roar.
True Godzilla fans will be sure to spot every little easter egg sprinkled throughout the film. Especially the outpost numbers, names of the titans and a certain message on a protest sign.
I'm sure this has been said a million times already, but I FREAKIN' LOVE the soundtrack for this film.
I gotta be honest, I was not begging for some of the original Ifukube scores to be used for this movie. I was perfectly fine with the music from the last movie, but Bear McCreary's music has the same epic, primal feel from the last movie, cranks it up to 11 and adds some awesome renditions of classic themes. And they even threw in a new version of the Blue Oyster Cult song.
Much of the original music is great as well, especially the themes for Rodan and Ghidorah.
Now the time was come to talk about the most criticized part of this movie, the human characters.
For what they are worth, I think the human characters are all good. Millie Bobby Brown does great in her first film role, Ken Watanabe gives a masterful performance as always and the rest of the characters all act in ways that I feel would be realistic in this films universe.
I loved that they included a brief appearance from Houston Brooks from Kong: Skull Island.
As long as monster movies exist, there need to be humans in them to explain the plot and move the story forward. Sure a few of them say a few bad jokes, but that doesn't drag the quality of the film over all for me. Even if the characters are 2 dimensional, I still can't bring myself to hate them.
But sadly, it looks like most people do. The majority of reviews I've seen for King of the Monsters seems to have affected the box office performance of the film, putting the future of the MonsterVerse into uncertainty after Godzilla vs Kong.
However, I do not wish to judge the opinions of other reviewers and fans thoughts on this particular part of the film, I'm just here to give my thoughts on the matter.
I do however wish to bring up one comment made by someone I know. They said that they wanted to go watch 'Shin Godzilla' again because that movie actually meant something.
That got me thinking, does King of the Monsters have any meaning other than watching giant monsters beating the crap out of each other?
Godzilla 1954 was metaphor for nuclear destruction, Shin Godzilla was a commentary on the response to a natural disaster by the government and even Godzilla 2014 was about citizens and government officials reacting to a disaster.
But what about KOTM?
Let's look at the story. The monsters from the start have been used as metaphors for natures wrath or weapons of mass destruction. Emma Russell using the Orca device to, more or less, control the Titans can be likened to such weapons falling into the wrong hands.
Think about what would happen if all nations just decided to attack each other with their biggest, most powerful weapons. The planet would be completely devastated and most of humanity would cease to exist, but eventually, the planet would move on and begin anew. Replace those weapons with giant monsters and that's more or less what happens in this movie.
But that's just my view on the subject.
This movie is a love letter to all Godzilla fans, I can count multiple times where I was smiling like a kid during it. It's got the dynamic violence, savage action and spectacular thrills I hoped it would. As of this, I've seen the movie 3 times in theaters and it has not gotten old yet.
Michael Dougherty is clearly a huge fan of the series and the amount of effort and care he put into King of the Monsters shows in abundance. If you are a big Godzilla fan, ignore the professional reviews and give King of the Monsters your time. I promise you will not regret it. See it on a big screen and be sure to stay till the end of the credits.
If I had anything else to say, it'd probably be: Good luck, Kong. you'll need it...
Till next time, I have been your host Gryphon
and thank you for joining me here in my Lair.
So long...
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