Godzilla: King of the Monsters Review

There are three kinds of dumb when it comes to narrative in cinema. There’s comedic dumb, reserved for comedy, there is popcorn flick dumb, commonly found in action flicks, bonkers dumb, which can be hard to pull off but when executed properly can generate great buzz, and WTF dumb, which has no reason or rhyme for being there, making the viewer scratch their head as to what they are actually seeing is actually a movie. Okay, yes, that’s four, but the last one we hope only appears as a fluke or briefly in any type of film. Godzilla: King of Monsters- sorry- King of THE Monsters, is loaded heavily with that kind of dumb and no so much the popcorn flick dumb we all expect it to be.

 Now to be fair, I’m not a huge Godzilla fan; I grew up on reruns of the Godzilla cartoon on Cartoon Network and beyond that, other than common pop lore, that’s all I know about Tokyo’s favorite city destroyer (or savior?). That was until the 2014 Godzilla, where I am somewhat bias. The film crew came on our ship, the USS Ronald Reagan, and filmed there (most of these shots were never used and they never credited the right ship- way to keep your ships straight Hollywood!). My shipmates were paid extras. One of the divisional officers had a brief scene (he’s the conning officer on the bridge giving orders but they dubbed over his voice). LT. Brody was an EOD! I was far more invested in that movie than I should be but it was a much better movie than its sequel, even though there was less Godzilla. Why? Two things: the movie made me care about the human characters and tension building. G:KotM doesn’t get me there. I’m going to break down the Good, the Bad, and the WTF.

The Good: Godzilla. Our monster hero has more screen time and you know if he shows up it’s a party (which I mean fight). It’s hard to tell how he feels about sharing screen time with his fellow tiny humans: it’s somewhere between ‘why hello underlings’ or ‘you guys again? Get out of the way’. But our real team player is Mothra, who lights up the screen like a giant celestial angel and is far more useful than her human counterparts. Anytime there’s a big monster fight it’s on, and that’s by far one of the brighter spots of the movie. Some of the animation and imagery is well crafted too, which some hinting at biblical allusions. As far as our human actors, the only people I cared about were the military folks (again, I’m slightly bias), who seemed to have a more grounded grasp on reality. Though Barnes is rocking what I believe is CWO4 rank, which seems a bit high up there for his age, but I can let that slide thanks to the other atrocities in this movie.

The Bad: All right here we go: I could care less about any of the other characters. Seriously. I was hoping one dude would just die because I just couldn’t understand his character. Millie Bobby Brown, I have no idea what she’s even doing in this movie. All she does is whine and cry for 2/3’s of the movie, does one thing, and does more of the same. Between this and Stranger Things, I think the best her acting consists of is a focused stare. She’s a nice kid but I’m doubting her acting. There may have been one or two other people I could’ve cared more about if they were given more to do or do something other than what their character was written to do. There are also some really cool sci-fi concepts in this movie but they’re executed so poorly, it’s just disappointing.

The WTF: I walked out of this movie thinking “What did I just saw?” plus words not said in front of children. I almost wanted to go get my money back. This script is so bad. I could’ve written a better script. You know if I’m saying that I, with my recent college degree, can write a better script, it was terrible. There is so much unnecessary melodrama that I would’ve scrapped all of it. Just, UGH! Someone is going to make a supercut of this film; I just know it. Also the film just throws all kinds of physics out the window. I don’t have a degree in nuclear thermodynamics and I wasn’t a Nuke in the Navy, but even I was going ‘that’s not how physics works’ at points in the movie.

Sequelability: There has already been announced a new film for Warner Brother’s ‘Monsterverse’ with the showdown between Godzilla and King Kong next summer. G: KotM did not earn as much money on opening weekend as expected even though it took the number one spot. It is fighting against a handful of already heavy summer blockbusters so we’ll have to see what WB’s plans are in the following weeks as well as international sales.

Should I See This Movie: Save your money. Go see Aladdin, or John Wick, maybe give Booksmart some love, but this movie is trash. If you have to see it, like this is your one heart’s desire, then go on a discount day. Otherwise, wait for it to hit the bargain bin at your local Wal-Mart.