King of the Monsters thoughts

[Joelist]

I got to see Godzilla King of the Monsters on opening night. Here are some of my thoughts about the film.

First, it is a direct sequel to Godzilla 2014 and also Kong Skull Island and has elements and characters from both in it. The story follows an ecoterrorism operation that has catastrophic consequences and the efforts of the Monarch organization to bring things back under some sort of control.

First, the good points:

- More Godzilla and more monster action.

This film has a lot more of Godzilla and you see him much earlier in the film than in 2014. It also has monster battles involving Godzilla, Ghidorah, Rodan and Mothra plus city destruction scenes involving other monsters including a MUTO (from G2014). If you felt Godzilla was on too little in the last film it is not true here.

- MUCH better pacing

The two main issues with G2014 were the pacing where the First and Third acts were crisp but the Second act was quite sluggish and the human characters particularly Aaron Taylor Johnson. Interestingly, both the movie Gareth Edwards made before G2014 (Monsters) and Rogue One which he also made had the exact same issue.

Well, that was fixed here in spades. The human based and Kaiju based scenes are interspliced so that you don't get any feeling of downtime. The result is the film is much more evenly paced.

- SOME of the characters and acting

I have to start by applauding the plot decision to make all the human characters we see either directly a part of the ecoterrorist group or Monarch. There really are no "everyman" characters here and in a Kaiju movie that works better in my opinion.

Second, far better acting out of some of the cast. Kyle Chandler was worlds better than Aaron Taylor Johnson and his character's connection to Monarch and to Godzilla helped a lot too. Ken Watanabe was a show stealer as Serizawa and he had some very well done and emotionally impactful scenes. I also liked Vera Farmiga and Charles Dance as villains and Millie Bobby Brown was better than I expected.

- The SFX

Nowadays with CGI and motion capture having good SFX has become par for the course. Where this film stood out was both in how some shots were just beautiful (like Mothra) and the sense of scale - of how massive these creatures are - was conveyed. Yes a lot of the fights were again at night or in the snow or rain but the contrast was enough to keep everything visible and the bioluminescent accents on the Kaiju helped as well.


Next, what did not work so well

- Bradley Whitford and inappropriate humor

This character took me out of the picture and spoiled the tone of every scene he opened his mouth in. I like a good pun, but these were just too jokey and hampered setting the tone of the film.

- Too many human characters

Really they could have combined some characters to improve the focus. I would have kept Kyle Chandler, Serizawa and the two doctors Chen played by Zhang Ziyi and lopped off all the other Monarch characters. On the villain side the character count is fine as is.

- Slow the fights down just a bit please?

I loved the sense of scale on the Kaiju and in many ways the fight scenes were impressive. But one thing I did miss from the way Guillermo Del Toro did them in Pacific Rim was he slowed all the movements down just a little which gave them more of a feeling of power. The fight speed here was fast, and as a result a couple of times it made keeping track of the action harder.

Conclusion.

I like this film with a caveat. And that caveat is it really, REALLY feels like a love letter to Kaiju movie fans and especially Godzilla fans. It has callbacks to classic Toho Godzilla in its visuals and in its musical score which incorporates Ifukube pieces in several places. In the same vein there are Easter eggs and callbacks in the plot itself as well. The difference between what was done here and what JJ Abrams did in NuTrek and Star Wars is these felt organic to the film and not like simple name dropping.

If you're not a fan of this genre and/or Godzilla then this film may not appeal to you to be honest. It felt a bit like a big budget Kaiju fan film with advanced SFX.

 

[Overmind One]

This is interesting:

 

[Joelist]

By the way the director has confirmed that:

Spoiler

Zhang Ziyi’s twin sister characters are indeed the Shobijin

 

[Overmind One]

By the way the director has confirmed that:

Spoiler

Zhang Ziyi’s twin sister characters are indeed the Shobijin

Why didn't Doomcock like this movie? I strongly disagree with his review of it and I won't post it here. It tells me he is really not a hardcore kaiju fan.

 

[Joelist]

I couldn't figure out what Doomcock was talking about - I literally started saying "did we watch the same film?".

 

[Joelist]

So how many different Gojira films were there callbacks to in this one?

I noted the following at least:

Godzilla v Destroyah
The Original Gojira in 1954
Mothra
Godzilla v Biollante
Godzilla v King Ghidorah

Musically it had beats from a lot of the Showa era films.

 

[Overmind One]

By the way the director has confirmed that:

Spoiler

Zhang Ziyi’s twin sister characters are indeed the Shobijin

Thinking about it, that is obvious now. But it was still very low key, because the Shobijin are actually supernatural beings and can do magical stuff. They can shrink themselves down, and they can shrink Mothra down too and even ride him in his moth form. They can summon him, and they can hatch the eggs and control the larval form.

 

[Joelist]

Some of which apparently will happen in the next film.

 

[Overmind One]

Some of which apparently will happen in the next film.

Every single new kaigu film has been a joy to me. This includes Pacific Rim, but not so much Pacific Rim 2. With the REAL kaiju back, I find the Pacific Rim series less appealing. I can't wait to see the next Godzilla film! We need Spiga (Kumonga the giant spider) to show up. He is one of my favorites too.

 

[Joelist]

I love Pacific Rim. Pacific Rim 2 on the other hand was a disaster.

As to this film, another thing I liked was that while there was some exposition from characters it was actually setup WHY they would have the knowledge they are sharing.

For example:

Spoiler

When Kyle Chandler's character speaks of the Titans exhibiting pack behavior it makes sense for him to notice it as he was studying pack animals (wolves) when Monarch grabbed him and reactivated his employment. This led to them looking at myths and archaeology and realizing Ghidorah was a False King

 

[Overmind One]

I love Pacific Rim. Pacific Rim 2 on the other hand was a disaster.

As to this film, another thing I liked was that while there was some exposition from characters it was actually setup WHY they would have the knowledge they are sharing.

For example:

Spoiler

When Kyle Chandler's character speaks of the Titans exhibiting pack behavior it makes sense for him to notice it as he was studying pack animals (wolves) when Monarch grabbed him and reactivated his employment. This led to them looking at myths and archaeology and realizing Ghidorah was a False King

I liked how they were giving explanations in Pacific Rim as well. It helped lend strength to a suspension of belief that I never really needed as a kid camping out in theaters to watch the kaiju triple-headers. . I still love Pacific Rim, but this new Godzilla movie has taken the "best kaiju film made" crown away from that whole Pacific Rim franchise and given it to the nu Kaiju movies featuring the real deal. In my opinion, of course!

 

[Joelist]

It is interesting how this film feels a LOT like a classic Godzilla film from the Showa era. It has the tone, the pacing and everything correct.

 

[Overmind One]

It is interesting how this film feels a LOT like a classic Godzilla film from the Showa era. It has the tone, the pacing and everything correct.

Yes, it does. It is as though the whole kaiju genre needed to wait for technology to catch up in order to show it in it's full glory. Back in the day, they used the miniatures and suits to try and get the epic portrayal of the kaigu but did not have the tech to do it right. Now they do, and WOW! I am still not over Ghidorah.

 

[Joelist]

I've been reading that the box-office for King of the Monsters is not disappointing its producer and now Mr H has posted a video going into the details:


The gist is basically that Warner Bros is the distributor not the producer of the Godzilla films and of Kong. These are produced by Legendary Films. Legendary is owned by Wanda Group, which both owns a lot of Asian theater chains and has a MUCH more lucrative deal in terms of the percentage of the theatrical gross they get from overseas (especially Asian) theaters than other producers do. As a result, to them the US is a secondary release market not a primary one.

 

[Joelist]

So how did you like Fire Godzilla? And the ending?

 

[Overmind One]

So how did you like Fire Godzilla? And the ending?

Well, I thought the Fire Godzilla was okay, and I did like the fact that they showed Spiga and a little of Mothra's capabilities, but after watching the movie a second time I felt that the Shobijin were too muted and vaguely represented to count as being in the film. They are the guardians of Mothra. They would never have let Emma and her team keep Mothra's larva in captivity. I thought the family storyline in the 2014 movie was much cheesier than the one in this movie, but I generally am not happy with them making ANY family the root of the story, which is what they did here...again. I did not care about Madison or Emma, and the Orca device was a deus ex machina IMO. Still, they did very well and I thoroughly enjoyed the movie. I wish they had not ended Serizawa the way they did. The second time, I found myself wondering why the Oxygen Destroyer was mentioned in this movie. Also, there was not enough explained about Mothra in this film. I thought the notion that locations of all of the kaiju were known but kept secret was kinda cringey. They should have saved that! I thought that Rodan "bowing down" to Godzilla, as well as Spiga and the others, was sorta contrived. But damn, this is such a great kaiju movie! Right back to the original feel of the kaiju films I remember as a kid, explosions and fire and destruction galore! My toy Godzilla destroyed my LEGO cites time and time again.

Thoughts about the future...

I wish they would stop thinking it is necessary to make some family the core of these Godzilla films. I DO NOT CARE about the Brody family, or this Russell family or any other family in any kaiju film. I would rather have a romance than a family. Like Katsuo and Kyoko in Destroy All Monsters. Bring them back! Dump the sprinkling of wokeness they had in this film too. They tried to nuance it, but the military commander and Emma the scientist and Madison took more important roles than Serizawa or Mark Russell in this film. I think they can get it right, but the formula needs tweaking.

 

[Joelist]

I would not agree that the family was the core of the film. The core was Godzilla and of the humans Serizawa was more core than anyone else. Also, unlike the 2014 film all the characters were directly tied into Godzilla via Monarch or the ecoterrorist group. I also did not feel the Orca was a Deus Ex Machina because it was properly explained right out of the gate, and the idea is right out of nature. The problem with the Brody's was first that they were "everyman" characters with only a tenuous connection to Godzilla and second that Aaron Taylor Johnson was terrible in his part.

Kyle Chandler did a MUCH better job and this time his occupation and work directly and properly tied into the film story.

 

[Overmind One]

I would not agree that the family was the core of the film. The core was Godzilla and of the humans Serizawa was more core than anyone else. Also, unlike the 2014 film all the characters were directly tied into Godzilla via Monarch or the ecoterrorist group. I also did not feel the Orca was a Deus Ex Machina because it was properly explained right out of the gate, and the idea is right out of nature. The problem with the Brody's was first that they were "everyman" characters with only a tenuous connection to Godzilla and second that Aaron Taylor Johnson was terrible in his part.

Kyle Chandler did a MUCH better job and this time his occupation and work directly and properly tied into the film story.

Aaron Taylor Johnson was terrible in the 2014 movie. But worse to me was the writers trying to make The Brody Family happen. There does not need to be any story of a family happening in a kaiju film.

Emma, Kyle and Madison were the core of what was going on in this movie though. The reason the titans were awakening was because Emma built the Orca (which she and Kyle invented together). Madison was torn between mom's virtue signaling for the environment and her love for daddy and poor dead Andrew, and the Russell family was very much at the center of the film. Cinemablend saw this too:

https://www.cinemablend.com/news/24...he-monsters-character-really-hates-the-titans


These films do not need a family story happening in them. Why do they keep doing it? I thought the romance between Tatsuo and Kyoko in DAM was perfect. We saw similar human stories in the original films. But not a family story. The family story in kaiju films are the kaiju themselves. This is the studios trying to create vehicles for recurring human characters other than the ones we want like Serizawa. It's annoying to me. I am not sure how you are not seeing that the Russell family characters are at the core of this film, because they clearly are.

And did Mothra KILL Rodan in this movie? He is not a Phoenix. He has never been killed before. And Godzilla ATE Ghidorah? I am not overlooking any of these things.

 

[Overmind One]

Looper even had this from the movie...

https://www.looper.com/149123/read-this-before-you-see-godzilla-king-of-the-monsters/

Excerpt, summary of the movie plot:

Godzilla: King of the Monsters sees Dr. Emma Russell and her daughter Madison get kidnapped by Jonah Alan's "mysterious organization" that wants to use Emma's intelligence and Titans communication device, as well as Madison's "strange connection" with Mothra, for nefarious purposes. Emma feels humans and Titans can co-exist peacefully, but after experiencing a great loss, her ex-husband Mark doesn't agree. Despite holding a negative view of the monsters, Mark teams with Monarch's Dr. Ishiro Serizawa and Dr. Vivienne Graham to rescue Emma and Madison.

****

Don't get me wrong, they showed way more of Godzilla and the other monsters in this movie than the last movie (especially Ghidorah!). I liked this movie way better than the first one. But they need to improve in many ways. My short list:

1. Turn up the lights. Too much of this film was shot in near darkness or indoors.
2. Lose the blue/green filter tint to the darker scenes. Too much bluish light in the background
3. Move the camera further away from the monsters, but no so far that you are too far away. We saw too many closeups, and not enough light.
4. Longer battles, less explosions, did I mention more light?
5. Stop showing touching moments between Godzilla and humans. Let him destroy Tokyo!

 

[Joelist]

Mothra wounded but did not kill Rodan. Godzilla did not eat Ghidorah - two of the heads he had burned up and bit the last one off - that is what he was mangling and then just disintegrated. In fact remember he literally put his foot through Ghidorah's torso while in Fire mode immediately before the last Nuclear Pulse (another throwback - the ability was introduced in Godzilla v Biollante).

I don't agree that the Russells were the center of the story. Emotionally Serizawa was. Kyle Chandler's character had anger with the Kaiju after his son was killed in San Francisco. But by the end of things he had made his peace and wasn't angry at Godzilla any longer. Yes Emma built the Orca that she and Kyle had designed earlier and yes she came off a bit like a virtue signaler for a bit - then she started to get what she had done was foolish at best and finally tried to fix it. Her arc made sense as did his.

I guess I did not mind having this family because they were properly integrated into the story and were not ordinary people caught up in the battle. That and Kyle Chandler is a much better actor than Aaron Taylor Johnson.

Note my take is similar to other Godzilla fan groups (DMan1954 et al).