Godzilla: King Of Monsters was ROYALLY disappointing

The most run-of-mill blockbuster Ive seen in a longtime

I’m gonna be honest and state that my expectations for this movie weren’t high. I wasn’t expecting a beautifully choreographed action movie, and I wasn’t expecting thought provoking drama. I just wanted a fun, and maybe a bit goofy monster movie. And Full disclosure I came into viewing of this…product….slightly tipsy. Everything was set up for this to be a fun night.

Fun was nowhere to be found.

Image result for i expected nothing and was still disappointed
mood for this movie

I have never seen a movie that was this bloated and yet so shallow in a long time. The movie hits you over the head with so much exposition and world building, all for it to not amount to ANYTHING. By the time the actual monsters do show up, I couldn’t care less about what was going on. Unfocused is the best way to describe it.

Lets get what little good there was out of the way first.

  1. The movie itself looks good. Godzilla and other the titans that appear in the movie have weight to them and the scenes where they each make first appearance are handled well enough. The best looking being Mothra, who in my opinon, the movie should have focused on. Mothra arguably has the most breathtaking scenes in the movie.
  2. Ken Watanabe, who plays Dr. Ishirō Serizawa, gives the best performance in the entire movie. His character is an earnest scientist who just wants the titans are misunderstood creatures, that could benefit mankind, instead of destroying it. Its clear that Watanabe put the most effort into his role, because everyone else looks like their just going through the motions. Why he wasn’t the main character in boggles the mind.

Now to talk about everything else that was awful. The plot, and characters.

The plot is convoluted for absolutely no reason. It has so many characters and plot devices stuffed into it, none of which you actually care about. It wants you care about the main character saving his idiot wife and daughter. It wants you like all of these quirky scientists and soldiers, who all feel they were ripped from a cheesy blockbuster from the 90s. The movie focused on the human element so much, and dumped exposition to such a gross degree, that it drained all the excitement from my body. When the fighting between the monsters actually started I couldn’t care less. THE MAIN THING I WAS THERE TO SEE WAS ROBBED FROM ME.

The main human villain in the film is as generic as they come. So much, that the movie actually forget about him by the time climax arrives! Its honestly hilarious. Theres a little twist near the middle of movie, revealing that a main character was helping the bad guys all along. But its so poorly though out, that it boggles the mind as to why it was even filmed in the first place.

One excuse Ive heard for this movie was “oh its supposed to be all about the action and spectacle, who cares that the plot is bad?”. First of all, the actual battles themselves are OK at best, its nothing we haven’t seen before in similar movies like Pacific Rim or Transformers; just CGI models fighting each other. The awe of CGI action is wearing off, and this movie has only accelerated that for me. Second of all, and I cant stress this enough: Good writing and Good characters give purpose to the action. If the writing doesn’t hold, and the action is just so-so, what exactly is supposed to keep you invested? Thats just asking for me to fall asleep in the theater.

At the end of the day, Godzilla King of Monsters wasn’t the worst Ive ever seen. But it is definitely up there with one of the most baffling and most cliche. Everything about it makes me believe it was cynically written a board room, only trying to satisfy the widest possible audience. And when you to try please everybody, you end up pleasing no one.