‘Godzilla: King of the Monsters,’ a merry monstrous mess

Summer movie season has been kicked into high gear with the return of one of the screen’s most iconic monsters in “Godzilla: King of the Monsters.” Despite some mixed thoughts, the 2014 film “Godzilla” was a massive hit and breathed life into this nearly 65-year-old franchise, reintroducing Godzilla to American audiences in a way that honored the character and his time-tested traditions. Now, with its much-anticipated sequel out and the promise of a shared Monsterverse following 2017’s “Kong: Skull Island,” can the monster mania continue to rise, or is it true that the bigger they are, the harder they fall?

Five years after the events of the 2014 film, the world is in an uproar as the secret organization known as Monarch continues to track and discover more monsters hidden throughout the planet. Emma Russell, a mother stationed and working with Monarch, and her daughter Madison, develop a tool that can communicate and potentially control the monsters. However, a seedy organization gets their hands on the machine and use it to awaken the dreadful three-headed dragon King Ghidorah. Now, Monarch and a communication specialist must team with the mighty Godzilla to restore balance before the world goes into pure chaos.

For those upset with the 2014 film’s lack of monster action, then its sequel will more than make up for it. The best aspect of this film are its monsters and sequences involving them. Successfully capturing a sense of spectacle and awe while still maintaining plenty of high octane fun a film in this genre should have, the various monster action set pieces are a glory to behold. The kaiju themselves are updated appropriately while still keeping their defining characteristics.

Godzilla and King Ghidorah’s rivalry is as classic as ever, and fortunately, the film focuses a lot on these two, almost allowing the film’s momentum to be dictated by them in a sense. Ghidorah is disgustingly evil, always shot in a way that immediately fills the scene with a sense of hellish dread that never lets up. Godzilla, on the other hand, is far more heroic here and his many introduction scenes are paced out perfectly to give the desired impact. Rodan and Mothra, while not given quite as much focus, are equally well treated, with a dogfight scene featuring Rodan being a highlight. Much like the 2014 film, the clever cinematography and sound design give the monsters an immense scale, even if it’s a not done with quite the punch as its predecessor. Bear McCreary’s musical score also added to the excitement, with numerous pieces of classic music from the franchise being revamped in a way that is sure to give goosebumps to fans hearing it in a theater.

It is a shame, however, that for all the immense spectacle, enthralling action and excellent production values, the story and characters here are as weak as ever. The plot only exists as a way to get the monsters together and fight, throwing away any sense of logic or comprehensible character motivation in the process. The pacing of the film doesn’t aid in this. The film is so concerned with getting the monsters on screen at times that crucial plot details or major character deaths are either never mentioned again or are given no time to develop properly.

The villains and their subsequent plan are the ultimate victims here. There feels to be some kind of idea the film is trying to get across when it comes to the plan, but the motivations are so muddled that it ends up feeling like an idiotic idea from a Saturday morning cartoon. The other characters on screen, outside of Ken Watanabe’s Serizawa who is given one of the most beautiful scenes towards the final act, are either given little to do or are obnoxious attempts at comic relief. Despite the solid cast on board doing their best, the straight up stupid dialogue and heavy reliance on exposition to tell its story brings their characters down by a lot.

Through all its messy flaws, “Godzilla: King of the Monsters” is a movie that is still pretty hard to hate on. The lazy plot, characters and pacing don’t do this film any favors and ultimately will disappoint many, especially given the amount of time this film had since its predecessor. However, for those looking for grand B-movie, off-the-wall goodness, this film delivers. This may not be quite the stomping success that we were all hoping, but at least in the process, we got a fun monster flick that will undeniably entertain.