'Godzilla: King of the Monsters' Fulfills Its Transcendent Monster-Action Purpose

If one would like to see a monster movie with less human drama and more monsters taking down other monsters, this is it. Everything else is just secondary. Director Michael Dougherty maximized the use of CGI and turned this movie into an immaculate display of detail-oriented beasts and titans walking the different sides of, over and under the Earth. It's immersive, jaw-dropping and overwhelming that the movie's other aspects, most especially its screenplay, get the short end of the stick.

Warner Bros. Pictures

It couldn't be taken against it, though. It's super self-aware of its megablockbuster capability that it fully embraces its witty but cheesy lines that we used to hear from a Bay or Emmerich war/disaster movie. Somewhere in the movie, you'll hear Zhang Ziyi uttering a soft but aggressive "That bitch!" referring to Vera Farmiga, and a number of times Ken Watanabe will say 'Gojira' in the most random, often funny, and sometimes touching moments.

It's also complete with the sarcastic computer and ship navigator--who's to blame for the "Oh my God", "...zilla" line, and a feisty but vulnerable daughter played by the perfectly cast Millie Bobby Brown. The rest pretty much ticks the plethora of disaster movie archetypal characters checkbox.

King of the Monsters is also set in unbelievable conditions that include people the middle of a blizzard in Antarctica while two monsters are thrashing each other on the side, Ken Watanabe's Dr. Ishirō Serizawa barely sweating while walking amidst the lava-filled ancient civilization in the hopes of reviving Godzilla, and a military troop slash globetrotters who can go at one continent to another in what seems like a snap. They're all designed to be pretty invincible for human standards.

Then again, it's Godzilla. Authenticity is its least priority, or so it seems.

Warner Bros. Pictures

It's not without a coherent plot, though. It continues where 2014 Godzilla left off while introducing a new family who lost one of their members because of the destruction. Vera Farmiga plays the matriarch, Dr. Emma Russell who works for 'Monarch', a crypto-zoological agency that studies the world's monsters. She built a device that could communicate with them via touchscreen clicks and taps. Kyle Chandler plays her estranged husband, and Millie Bobby Brown plays their daughter Maddie, who's torn between her two parents with different intentions. This plays out repeatedly until new monsters appear on our screen. Monsters that apparently bring them all back together in the end.

These monsters vary from King Ghidorah, a three-headed Hydra, which Monarch refers to as Monster Zero, a pterodactyl-looking demon who resides in a Mexican volcano, a beautiful Mothra who's dubbed as the Queen of the Monsters and more. With how each of them was introduced, and how they epically collided with each other, King of the Monsters fulfills its maximum monster action purpose. All complete with great visual effects and a profound score by Bear McCreary.

To say that King of the Monsters' spectacle didn't work as much as Godzilla may be valid, but this one held its own compared to its predecessor. At least in terms of its visual imagery because it has outdone any of its previous work. It's one that will not underwhelm anyone, and I must say it's good enough to sustain what this film is lacking in other facets.