Directed by: Michael Dougherty
Runtime: 132 minutes over Tokyo
Godzilla II: King of the Monsters is not a good movie. It’s messy, noisy and chaotic. The human characters don’t behave according to any sort of internal logic. The monster fights aren’t that exciting. It’s the sort of film where characters will stand around waiting for something bad to happen and then say “Oh, shit” when it starts to happen. I imagine a lot of people will love it.
There’s no inherent law that dictates a Godzilla film has to be bad. There is an opportunity for fun, action, suspense, and even a message about humanity incurring its own demise. Destruction at the hands of resurrected titans might be the fate we deserve. I did not attend my screening of King of the Monsters looking to tear apart a blockbuster. I’m generally a fan of humanity being wiped out. I’m happy to talk about Thanos.
There are some very talented people working on screen during this film. Charles Dance plays the best character in the film, a British eco-terrorist with the most consistent logic in the movie. He’s seen enough of humanity to know it is bad, and he’ll stick to those guns. No other character is consistent. Ken Watanabe does a reputable job as a Japanese scientist who is asked at one point “How many nukes do you have?” He of course needs to ask why the other character is asking that, because the dialogue needs to explain to us that it is for the monster that feeds on nuclear energy. A scientist obsessed with Godzilla should know this. Millie Bobby Brown plays the daughter of two scientists. Godzilla killed her older brother, but she still smiles when Godzilla shows up later in the film for some reason. Vera Farmiga and Kyle Chandler play the scientists. They yell a lot and change their minds on whether or not Godzilla needs to die or be powered up by nukes. Bradley Whitford plays a wise-cracking scientist who speaks in euphemisms. When asked to clarify what he means by suggesting that Godzilla is about to go thermonuclear at Fenway Stadium, he responds with something like “It’s about to be a hard time to be a Red Sox fan”. You shouldn’t clarify with more euphemisms if you are in charge of monitoring giant nuclear lizards. You’re not really here for the human characters though, are you?
Godzilla, himself, is given a tiny bit of charm as the titular titan of the film. There are some shots where you see Godzilla standing, almost pensive and proud. The other monsters are all done with CGI well enough. They destroy a lot of CGI military planes, screech a lot, and some fire lightning or fire beams. There’s none of the suspense of a Jaws or a classic monster movie where the pay-off is getting the monster itself. You’re bombarded with monsters from the start, so if you like that, then you’ll like that.
There are giant plot-holes in the film. There is a laundry list of spoiler-related material that I could query here. There are plenty of things that just don’t make any sense. This is the sort of movie where someone will say “Get out of there, it’s about to go off like an A-bomb” and the next line will be “Roger that—we’re going in now”. No, not “a bomb”; “A-bomb”. There are at least two needless sacrifices for the sake of a plot point where simple solutions could have completely avoided the need.
The film is basically two-and-a-half hours of bad exposition and lizards shooting beams at each other as they screech. If you like that sort of thing, then see this movie and enjoy. My personal highlight was the avatar that pops up of O’Shea Jackson Jr. when he intercoms in at one point. His face is priceless. I could probably do with another Godzilla movie.
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