Godzilla King of Monsters: Mini-Review
Yesterday, for the Labor Day Holiday here in America, my parents and I watched Godzilla King of Monsters. I actually found it to be a pretty good movie, far above the lowly Rotten Tomatoes score (43% critics, 83% audience). I feel that the critics were overly harsh with this movie and that, while it has problems, still is a better movie than the critics give it credit for.
The Good
There is much to like about this movie, but the acting and the special effects are very good. Sure, like all things, there are exceptions within the movie, but I really liked the actors and their performances in this movies. I think the actors do a fine job with their roles in this movie. I thought the hero/protagonist was interesting, if a little one note at the beginning of the movie. Think “grieving dad” and you’ll have a pretty god idea the performance for the 1st third of the movie, but then the role opens up a little for the actor and gives him more to do. The same is true for most of the actors’ roles in this movie.
Another highlight was the special effects. This movie definitely prefers spectacle over characterization and emotions. Most of the visual effects in this movie seem to be computer generated (CGI), but it didn’t look fake to me. So many CGI movie monsters look a bit “rubbery” meaning that the folds of the skin, the coloration, the way they move, and other factors make the monster (or CGI) creation look as if they aren’t real. Usually this is because of a “rubbery” look on the part of the CGI creation where nothing moves underneath the skin as it would in real life. For the most part, the CGI monsters avoid this in the movie, although Godzilla walking sometimes doesn’t move like I would expect and so it breaks that “suspension of disbelief,” but on the whole, this is one of the better examples of CGI and an example of how CGI should be done in movies. In fact, the flying monsters were done so well, that the movie’s best, and most intense scene, is depicted in a flying chase between one of the monsters and the plane of the heroes. It manages to keep the tension high as well as clearly defining what’s happening on the screen and where everyone is in relation to one another. Good stuff!
The Bad
The script.
Yet again, the script lets down the movie. While there are many differing opinions on why the movie isn’t good. Of the 3 critics that I turn to watch their internet reviews after I watch the film, only one liked it. One was mixed, but leaning towards the dislike camp, and the other liked elements of it, but overall didn’t seem to care for it.
While setting up the main characters’ problems, the script does that old trope of setting up a scene and letting us infer what happened without us having any emotional investment in the characters. They don’t want to take the time (waste time) setting up what happened to the main protagonists’ child, but we are expected to “care” when they are sad.
Nope. Doesn’t work like that Hollywood. That’s why Star Trek (reboot) worked so well. In 10 minutes of screen time, they set up what happened to Kirk’s father and why it mattered that we empathize with Kirk, who let’s face it, for most of the movie, until he finds “Spock the elder,” is an out of control “brat.” We want Kirk to succeed because his father sacrificed to save his mother and Kirk, and his father wanted him to succeed.
That is how you do it, Hollywood. Now there are many more problems than just character motivation. The story isn’t great and the way it jettisons old characters from the storyline is, borderline disrespectful. However, the plot holds together well enough to tell a story of “titan” fighting each other and humans caught in the middle and that’s what a Godzilla movie should do.
The Ugly
Critics vs audience. This is another movie that isn’t as bad as its Rotten Tomatoes score indicates. I can usually see why a movie has a low RT score, but this one is a bit of a mystery. Sure, San Andreas featuring the Rock has a higher RT score, but its audience score is directly aligned with the critical consensus (currently, 50% critic, 52% audience). That is how you can tell the movie probably isn’t good.
However, in the case of this movie, there is an insane 40 point difference in opinion. I can only think that, for this movie, spectacle = boring, which it isn’t, at all. Again, I’ll note that critics don’t seem to understand, or care, that watching “real life” drama can be fun and intense, we see much of this in everyday life. Godzilla is literally a property about a larger than normal creature, wreaking havok on cities, created/restored by man’s use of technology. The newest movie includes these tropes and shouldn’t be penalized because it isn’t The Joker or The Dark Knight Rises with equally “silly” concepts (a man with a painted face like a clown who is “criminally insane”) just because it doesn’t delve into the nature of violence acts or the reprehensible qualities of human nature when people are under duress. Spectacle doesn’t automatically equate with bad, which seems to be the case with most critics.
I’ll stop here as I feel a critics “rant” coming on, but I found the movie to be enjoyable despite its flaws in the storytelling department.
Overall Rating: B (83-85)
Rating: 4 out of 5.
I thought long and hard about what I would give the move, but settled about where everyone else settled. The characterization and the story elements alone would have earned a C, but because the acting was good–the actors tried their best with the weak material and the special effects created tension where the story could not, I found it to be a satisfying experience (and maybe that’s the difference in audiences and critics–the audiences are able to accept tension in other places outside of story/characters, where critics are not–they see story (plot) and characters–especially characters–as the end all, be all tension makers in the story). For me, the scenes with the monsters were strong enough to balance out the flaws elsewhere in the movie and the movie, while not the best iteration of Godzilla I’ve ever seen, it was still a fun movie to watch that I wouldn’t mind watching again (unlike The Dark Knight Rises which I will never watch again if I can help it, or The Joker which I’ve still yet to see and have no real desire to see any time soon).
Sidney
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