‘Godzilla: King of the Monsters’ review: Reboot is too touchy-feely
Godzilla has long been served with a side of preachiness. The big lizard’s origin story in the 1950s was that it was awakened by nuclear explosions to wreak havoc on Japan. Makes sense, right? Then in the 1998 Matthew Broderick film, nuclear tests don’t just wake ’Zilla up, they create him — by affecting the DNA of a normal Gila monster. Broderick’s character even demanded our hearts go out to the vicious beast because, like Lori Loughlin, she’s just a hardworking mother who wants to help her kids survive in a harsh world.
Well, “Godzilla: King of the Monsters” pushes its messaging to belly-aching extremes. In an absurd speech, Vera Farmiga’s scientist, Emma, explains that the destructive force of the Titans — Godzilla, Mothra, Rodan and a menagerie of others — is actually a good thing.
Say what, Vera?
Humans have developed and polluted the planet to such dangerous extremes that the leveling of London, New York, Chicago and San Francisco by a giant moth and a three-headed dragon will “restore balance.”
Yes, within 20 minutes of this film, Farmiga becomes a genocidal maniac.
The filmmakers don’t necessarily endorse her controversial theory, but this third film in Legendary’s MonsterVerse series has nonetheless gotten awfully touchy-feely about huge, uncontrollable killers. Nobody, it seems, wants to even attempt to put them down.
Emma, who works with the top-secret Monarch organization, which keeps the creatures around the world in a state of hibernation, has her switch from responsible lab worker to psycho after being kidnapped by the crazy Alan (Charles Dance). He’s a powerful eco-terrorist whose turn-ons include stealing weapons and punishing mankind.
Emma is also joined in captivity by her daughter, played by Millie Bobby Brown, who accomplishes one major task in more than two hours. It’s lovely to hear Brown talk after being mostly silent on “Stranger Things” for two seasons, even if she’s speaking on-the-nose dialogue such as, “You’re a monster!” to her wacko mom.
Instead of Emma awakening the beasts herself, however, their alarm clocks all surprisingly go off at once — thanks to a previously unknown dragon-ish thing called Ghidorah, who, after Godzilla, is the alpha-empowered to call the shots. Ghidorah commands his crew to destroy Earth, and boy do they.
Meanwhile, Emma’s ex-husband Mark (Kyle Chandler) is still traumatized after the downfall of San Francisco and the death of their son, but is brought back into the fold anyway.
See, there is endless exposition here, when all we want are monster fights. While we get a few very cool monster fights, there are simply not enough monster fights. Next time, please, more monster fights.
The big, final scaly skirmish takes place in Boston, but unlike Roland Emmerich (from Broderick’s “Godzilla”), director Michael Dougherty doesn’t have a flair for clobbering landmarks. While we see Fenway fall, we never get to see Faneuil Hall stomped on or the Tea Party ships in Boston Harbor sent flying. Beantown is indistinguishable rubble before you know it. The whole movie is indistinguishable rubble.
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