Godzilla: King of The Monsters Should Have Been Mothra: Queen of The Monsters (Blu-ray Review)

Keven Skinner

5 years ago

Own Godzilla: King of the Monsters on DVD Special Edition, Blu-ray Combo Pack, and 4K UHD Combo Pack on August 27. Here is my review of the Blu-ray:

The new story follows the heroic efforts of the crypto-zoological agency Monarch as its members face off against a battery of god-sized monsters, including the mighty Godzilla, who collides with Mothra, Rodan and his ultimate nemesis, the three-headed Ghidorah. When these ancient super-species—thought to be mere myths—rise again, they all vie for supremacy, leaving humanity’s very existence hanging in the balance.

Review:

Michael Dougherty is one of my favorite filmmakers. He directed two of my favorites in Trick R’ Treat and Krampus – both of which I’ll watch every year at least once around Halloween and Christmas. I’m not so sure which season Godzilla: King of The Monsters fits with, but for now let’s consider this one a SUMMER movie. Because that’s what it is – a forgettable summer action flick with just enough doses of insane giant monster mayhem that you can’t help but still have a good time despite the amount of problems.

My main issue here is that although they did address how Godzilla wasn’t in the first film soon enough, I’m still not so sure he’s in this movie all that much, or at least if he was, I couldn’t see him through the smoke. Why in the hell was there so much smoke? I couldn’t see shit. Godzilla 2 makes Transformers 2 look like 12 Angry Men. I don’t know if it was due to budgetary reasons or why the creative decision called for such jarring, close-up and foggy fight sequences, but they just weren’t as impressive as the previews hyped up. In fact – I’d argue that this is one of those movies where they spoiled all the best stuff in the first couple trailers. Shame.

And much like every other Godzilla film in the history of Godzilla movies – the humans are a waste of time. There’s a semi-compelling story of a married couple with some major issues regarding their views on the titans and although I like Vera Farmiga and Kyle Chandler’s performances, the story just wasn’t that interesting to me and Millie Bobby Brown plays their kid who is caught in the middle of an international disaster. Everyone plays their parts fine and I believed in their stress, but I just didn’t… care much.

The movie relies heavily on the scale of these monstrous throwdowns and the final battle is glorious and truly epic in scale. Mothra steals the show as the Queen of the Monsters but I wish I could have seen more of her. That’s kinda my complaint with all of the massive titans really – I wanted to SEE them. When you can actually SEE the monsters, they are beautiful and terrifying, making for some truly remarkable action sequences late in the film. For all my nitpicking, the movie is still a TON of fun. I just wished for more but in the end it kind of just floats at the same level of quality that the first one did, meaning that Kong: Skull Island is still the reigning champion of this new mega monster shared universe. So far.

Special Features:

The special features are stacked, but I did notice that as I went through the list of them that many commentary clips began to repeat. A lot. Still, I really enjoyed the ones where they spoke in length about designing the updated versions of classic Godzilla franchise monsters – including Mothra, which was a combination of several insects.

Director Michael Dougherty apparently owns and hatches praying mantises (that’s not weird at all!) so he decided to incorporate some design aspects of the long-legged warrior bugs into the physical aspects of Mothra (more-so in the leg movement etc). They also slowed done cricket chirping to come up with the angelic sound that Mothra makes throughout the film and I love learning about those little things. If you enjoyed the film (and you really should have in spite of the pacing problems etc), then you should grab the Blu-ray and check this bonus material out. It’s quite cool.