Movie Review: 'Godzilla: King of the Monsters'

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Better than Godzilla 2014 in terms of monster screen time and action, but unfortunately contains some anti-human sentiment.

 

My family and I watched Godzilla: King of the Monsters last Saturday. I thought the film was very good with its cast of kaiju (Japanese: "strange creature;" read as "giant monster") and its action sequences. It definitely keeps you glued to the screen throughout its run time.

The basic premise is that a family lost their son Andrew when Godzilla last wrecked havoc in San Fransisco in the year 2014 (the same year Godzilla 2014 was released). Years later, the mother and daughter are kidnapped by an eco-terrorist and his henchmen while reawakening Mothra. (Eco-terrorists are basically extreme environmentalists.) The reason the eco-terrorists kidnapped them was because the mom has a machine called ORCA that can replicate sounds Titans use to communicate with each other. Oh yeah, that's what the monsters are called in this film, Titans. I would have preferred kaiju, but whatever. The eco-terrorists want to use ORCA to awaken the sleeping Titans so that they can wipe out humanity. To do that, they reawaken King Ghidorah, a three-headed dragon that was frozen in ice in Antarctica. King Ghidorah flies to Mexico, awakens Rodan in a volcano, and calls the rest of the Titans of the world to come forth and cause massive devastation. Now it's up to the organization Monarch to find Godzilla so he can stop King Ghidorah and be, you guessed it, king of the monsters.

The best part of this movie are the monster battles, something that was lacking in the 2014 film. I liked seeing the main Toho monsters like Rodan and Mothra, as well as original monsters, though the latter we don't see that much. I do remember one of them looked like a giant mammoth. There was a giant spider, too. King Kong doesn't show up, though; he'll be in the next film where he'll square off with Godzilla.

The music was phenomenal, basing itself on the original Japanese Godzilla score. One of the characters sacrifices himself to give Godzilla his radiation powers back, and that made me sad. (Though perhaps the reason was so the character's actor could leave the franchise and move on to other things.)

The part of the film I didn't like was the blatant anti-human messages sprinkled throughout, which I expected since that's what was stated in the trailers. The mom character believes the reason the Titans are reawakening is because of human overpopulation, pollution, and war. Yep, the same old crap you hear environmental alarmists say. She likens humanity to a disease, and the Titans to the Earth's immune system. One character says humans are destructive carnivores or something along those lines, even though humans are mainly omnivores. In short, the film makes monsters look good and humans look bad.

Despite the anti-human message, the film is definitely a must-see for kaiju fans and Godzilla fans. The humans are forgettable, typical of a Godzilla movie, but the monsters are sure to blow you away with how they look and move, and the action scenes are something to behold. I can't wait to see what the next film, Godzilla vs. Kong, has in store.