This is the second Godzilla film in the MonsterVerse series, a story about the crypto-zoological agency Monarch finding themselves facing titan monsters Rodan, Mothra, and King Ghidorah, and their ultimate solution is letting Godzilla battle them all to save mankind.
The film is a little reminiscing to Toho Studio's classic 1964 movie, Ghidorah, the Three-Headed Monster, but this time featuring the monsters in the 21st century, with some neat special effects. You get to see each of the monsters' unyielding powers and characteristics, and them battling each other is nothing short of edge-of-your-seat monster excitement. However, the CGI on the creatures were too dark at times, making the monster battles hard to see. It is also difficult to see the creatures' faces and reactions - just a whole lot of head-spinning movements and swift actions.
The human drama was average at best, and the good guys vs. bad guys subplot was a major distraction from the film, I thought. Much of the evil doers' actions were overkill, and our protagonists were too preachy, save for Ziyi Zhang's duo doctor roles, which is a great nod to Mothra's tiny twin priestesses in the classic films. I also liked that the filmmakers incorporated Mothra's Song in this movie.
But, as with much of today's films, there is forced comedy to lighten up the mood, courtesy of Bradley Whitford's St. Stanton character. His humor was extremely annoying and distracting, very out-of-place for the movie.
With all the hard-to-see monster action to the distracting human drama, there is too much in the film to digest and makes it hard to appreciate the main point, which are clearly the monsters. It leaves little room to sympathize with the human characters and leaves you craving for more of the monsters.
Grade D+
