Godzilla: King Of Monsters – the latest in the long line of Godzilla movies that got it wrong.
I fidget in my recliner. It takes discipline to stop glancing at my watch. With every fiber in my being, I hope that all the human characters die.
With any long-running franchise, there will be some hits and misses stuffed into the catalog. Godzilla King of The Monsters, from Warner Brothers, is a low point in the hallowed Japanese monster movie franchise. Here is a top ten list below highlights some of the reasons why.
Two of the more recent Godzilla films gave me high hopes for KOTM. Godzilla (2014) and Shin Godzilla (2016) were high points in the storied monster lizard’s catalog. Each had different treatments of the King of Monsters but were equally enjoyable. Japan’s Shin Godzilla proved that it was possible to make a Godzilla movie with heaps of dialogue and keep the movie interesting.
In all fairness, Godzilla KOM has some decent battle between monsters.
BEWARE: Spoilers lie ahead.
10. Product Placement. I’m looking right at you Canada Goose Project.
9. Bad parenting. Seriously, half of the plot-triggering events are set in motion by one whiny, spoiled kid. If the screen writers had simply left the angst riddled teen out, of maybe just let Mothra kill her in the opening sequence, the movie would have been infinitely better.
8. Planes that defy laws of physics. Maybe it was all the time I lived in San Diego and watched the Osprey pilots training at USMC School. Godzilla KOM treats the convertible hover plane more like magic that an actual hybrid jet/helicopter. I get it- Osprey’s are super cool, but when you animate them to fly around like toys it brings me out of the movie. (More about planes – See #5)
7. Ken Watanabe is owed an apology. Without even getting the chance to utter his signature line from the from the 2014 Godzilla “Let them fight“, Wantanbe’s screen time is cut seriously short. Drowning in terrible one-liners from a crowded cast of lesser-actors, Wantanbe is a mere stick figure compared to his perforce in the 2014 monster movie.
6. Gareth Edwards left the project in May 2016. Edwards, the talented director who delivered the 2014 Godzilla, was replaced by Dougherty and the movie went through a series of rewrites. That was the red flag that signaled the movie was going to be in development hell. The expected output
5. An Osprey crash landing inside another plane. EVEN with giant monsters, aka Titans, waging war on each other, I couldn’t get over how ridiculous this scene was. Seriously!? Crash landing an Osprey – on an ascending path nonetheless – inside the hanger of a flying steath bomber?! Who fucking green lit this idea?!
4.
3. PC Army cringy-ness. In the true spirit of the absolute worst of Battleship, the military in this movie is comprised of every stereotype in the book. It was like they sat down with a list of every oppressed minority group in the world and gave them each a character in the infantry, or air force.
2. Way too long. This movie drug on, and on, and on… Was there a summer blockbuster running length quota to fill? If the creators of Godzilla King of Monsters had simply cut the items from this top ten list, the movie’s run time would have been a much more tasty 90 mins.
1. Stupid. Fucking. Humans. I hate to beat a dead horse, but every review that – every review that wasn’t paid off by marketing that is – drones on about the same point: The humans ruin this movie. A force fed story about family problems takes center stage over two beloved monsters smashing up Tokyo. You lost me by the time the mother and daughter had their second on-screen spat.
More Top Ten Lists
Top Ten Countries for mail-order brides
