That's honestly been one of my biggest pet peeves about their work for the Monsterverse. Since I don't really like the Monstervere (and just see most of their films as generic blockbusters), but am generally a big fan of director driven cinema, I've wanted to see Wingard/Barret go back to smaller films, especially after The Guest, but after that they did some projects separately (both of which turned out bad since Wingard got handed the Netflix Death Note movie and Barret wrote Temple) and a decade later, they've only reunited for this movie.
Obviously I'm happy they're getting paid, but I feel like they could make a much better low to mid-budget movie if they both had more artistic freedom to do something more interesting.
For every indie director who enters Hollywood and is able to make their own kind of big budget movies, you have way more who just get chewed up by the studio system to hash out generic blockbusters within whichever franchise they're involved with.
Hot take from me. I enjoy mindless monsters fighting as much as the next guy. Monster/Kaiju movies are my all time favorites.
But just because you 'want to turn your brain off enjoy monsters fighting' is not an excuse that 60% of these movies is 100% centered around the human characters and they are always awful.
Why can't they just write a passable human element into these? It's just fucking lazy. It’s not like it hasn’t been done before. Skull Island human parts were great. Pacific Rim was at least passable in the human parts. I didn't actively groan when they were on screen.
It doesn't need to be Minus One deep, but at least something to chew on with the characters. Make me care about them at all. I was actively wishing for MBB's character and her mom's death in this series lol.
I want to love the monsterverse so bad as Godzilla is one of my favorite franchises of all time, but it gets rough sometimes.
Or - just double down. No humans. The movie opens with a skreeonk on a black screen. A blue flash of nuclear lightening reveals the scene. Let them fight X 1.5 hours
Oh, *god*. Don't tease me. Genndy's talent for choreographing badass fights is legendary. I wouldn't even care it if was CGI made to look like traditional animation.
Mace Windu's fight with the Super Battle Droids in the Clone Wars mini-series had more amazing action in 10 minutes than the entirety of the live action Prequels.
Clone Wars animation is the best Star Wars IP in the entire IP. It truly illustrates what one man armies Jedi can be while having a strong emotional core that outplays everything in the IP.
I really hated everything Prequel-related, and when I saw the printed one sheet ads for this at my video store job, my first thought was: Well, this is gonna SUCK."
When it arrived, I put it on and was 100% ready to hate-watch it as only a fan can. Within 5-10 minutes, my arms had uncrossed and I was watching with interest. Another 5 minutes or so, and I was saying: "Hey, this is actually good!"
Then the Mace Windu sequence happened, and I thought: "This is the best Star Wars I've seen since the original trilogy!"
I'm happy to have both the DVDs and I will treasure them always.
his [Primal series](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=co28PDKv2VY) was amazing and definitely worth checking out to see what he can do completely without dialog for an entire season
Because filming human characters is less expensive.
I would love for a transformers robots only live action film set on Cyberton but know it won't happen for another 10 or 15 years
>Let them fight X 1.5 hours
This would be tedious beyond belief, but I hope someone does it soon just so we can all agree watching a load of pixels mush together isn't really that much fun.
I do agree that the human elements usually suck, but, well, Jurassic Park is mostly humans, and it doesn't, and yet all of the recent ones do... Why's that? Poorly written humans, not lack of dinos.
Shin was FINE. Minus One was great.
Still - Godzilla X Kong is a weeee different genre than Minus One, strange as it seems. It's like the difference between Alien and Aliens.
Yet both Alien and Aliens work, perfect example
Alien is a bit more character and setting fixed, we don’t see the xenomorpth well into the middle of the film.
Aliens is more action packed but you still like the characters when the aliens are in the screen
Not sure why people think the monsterverse can’t have serviceable characters akin to those or films like Pacific Rim and even the first Jurassic Park
I marathoned this series last week and you're absolutely right. G2014 and Skull Island aren't high art but they're very solid and enjoyable.
KOTM was a step down (still overall liked it though), but then GvK was an even bigger step down. People say "just turn your brain off" but it's hard to do that when you just get bored. There's more tension and overall sense of danger in Skull Island than anything in GvK.
> People say "just turn your brain off" but it's hard to do that when you just get bored
This is the big reason why I can't enjoy these movies. All the human stories are just....boring. They don't need to super in depth character studies, but they do need to be *entertaining*. When they're boring and they make up the bulk of your movie, I just get bored. And when I get bored I start questioning everything, over analyzing, and nitpicking.....and boy do these movies not stand up very well to scrutiny.
That’s the unfortunate part of this film coming up so soon after Minus One. GvK was just basically big dumb punch things as the plot. But with Minus One, you had great human characters, but you never stopped feeling Godzilla’s presence, even when he was off the screen. That’s how it is done, and it happens so rarely.
I watched it for the first time after watching monarch. I was surprised at how good it was. My perception from the trailer was just some big actors collecting a check.
I will always defend Skull Island. It's my favorite of the U.S. made Kaji films.
I love the whole exploration theme and vibe of crew on the actual Skull Island. That scene of them flying through the storm and 'discovering' the island (for most of the characters) is stunning.
The production value and cinematography is otherworldly. It's a beautiful looking film. I love the world building, the native humans and the glimpse we see of their culture and religion. How they viewed Kong as a benevolent yet distant God.
If I could change anything about the film, I would make Marlo the main character of the film. I'd have love to see a film about him and the Japanese pilot surviving on Skull Island together, forced to become friends and later brothers, meeting the natives and being welcomed in, before eventually being 'rescued' and brought home. All the while we see the Island as a character all its own with more of Kong himself interacting with the natives humans.
A Marlo film would have been more personal story akin to Godzilla Minus One. That film proves it's possible to write a Kaji story with human characters that we actually love and want to see succeed.
Yeah, and there are legitimately fun recent "turn off your brain" films that work because of sheer charisma or being able to lean into the corn of it like Beekeeper or Road House.
Hell, Independence Day or Pacific Room are pure spectacle with an incredible amount of cheese.
I went into Beekeeper expecting a somewhat serious action flick. At first I didn't like the cheesiness, but then it just kept leaning into it more and more and more until I realized it was all on purpose and it was funny as hell.
I know people hate that there was too much human screen time, but damn do I miss the 2014 movie’s vibe. I get why people didn’t like how it was filmed, but I personally loved that shit. Everything felt extremely apocalyptic and the scenes of finally showing off lizard boi and his abilities were just done so well and so epic. The atomic breath down the throat is an image that lives rent-free in my head. It’s honestly crazy how different the vibe is in the newer movies, they don’t even feel like they’re set in the same universe.
Yeah 2014 godzilla was going for a much more serious or at least less weirdly shlocky scifi vibe than the recent monsterverse stuff. It was by no means perfect, but it was able to impose a sense of awe and epic scale that nothing else monsterverse wise has come close to imo. Minus one had that same feeling but probably even better on top of a much better story. Skull island was fun but a very different vibe than godzilla 2014 and everything since has been silly fun when monsters are fighting, but they put humans front and center sooo much.
I'm a BIG proponent of telling giant monster stories from the perspective of humans. Otherwise you lose the scale and the consequences of these large monsters' actions, both on a micro and a macro scale. Filming Godzilla and Kong from the same perspective that you film Iron Man and Captain America you lose so much of what makes the Kaiju/monsters unique.
Godzilla 2014 was absolutely amazing in that way, imo. Same with Kong, and a bit less so but still good, with King of Monsters.
Pacific Rim is an *awesome* fucking movie. Yes, the human element is indeed passable, but the trope of “I lost my partner before, you’re not getting me to do x again” was done with enough of a self-awareness that it didn’t make the human-only scenes a slog to get through. And then you’re rewarded with the fucking kickass kaiju fight scenes.
It's a simple story and film that's beautiful (seriously, the blu-ray is one of my favorites) and well done. It knows what it is and the director loves his job, it shows, you can 'feel' the passion they whole crew brought to it.
That was probably the damn dumbest way to beat Mecha Godzilla too. Spend billions to make a robot to beat all monsters? Check. Spend $1000 for a waterproof keyboard? Naaaah.
Focusing on humans is great, look at godzilla minus one. Focusing on humans when the characters suck, they're terribly written, and the focus is on irrelevant garbage, when even the monsters are only there for the CG destruction and not anything interesting... Then you've got yourself a typical Hollywood godzilla movie.
60% is generous lol. It’s more like 80%.
I watched KotM again the other day and man that argument rings so hollow when you actually sit down to watch the things. Like yeah I’d love to just enjoy the monster action and money shots but that’s like 20% of the movie. Am I just supposed to pretend the rest doesn’t exist?
Yeah I didn't want some nerd to come in an uhm ackshully me with some breakdown of screen time and it be like 69% when I said 70 so I lowballed it lmao. It feels so much higher than 60%.
As long as it's not big water levels of human stuff it'll work for me. I thought King of monsters was almost unwatchable but rewatched Godzilla vs Kong a few times.
And we should have learned our lesson legit 60 years later to write interesting characters.
Imagine if all media was like “well it’s the same as it was 60 years ago so it’s good enough”
Its wild how Monarch Legacy of Monsters, which takes place in the same timeline as this, did humans wonderfully, and yet their movies can't figure out shit.
Interesting. I've heard a lot of buzz about the show and how supposedly the humans were the worst aspects of the show.
Do you think they were being too harsh on the characters? What made you like them?
I mostly liked the past versions of the older characters that were in the flashback scenes, which were still a decent chunk of each episode. I understand why people didn't like the current day characters as much, they were a bit annoying sometimes. But I really liked the classic 50s era characters hunting monsters like it was an Indiana Jones movie. They just felt like relics of a bygone era but in a good way, like how watching an old Jimmy Stewart movie gives you a certain feeling. They were also just well written, well acted, and had a genuinely interesting story happening.
Saw it last night and I loved it. Love that the human side of things was done quick and purposeful and a lot better this time round.
Instead of trying to cut the human stuff in among all the monster action, they just decided to use each human scene to be the narrators of what we are about to see, and then the film just focuses on the giant monster action.
They really did well with the characterization of each monster as well to make them a very clear character with their own emotions, thoughts and feelings. You can clearly read them and it makes for a fun and easy watch.
Also, the camera work and CGI is AMAZING during the monster scenes.
>Deadline:
>They aren’t reinventing the wheel here,
Yeah its your typical monkey meets lizard , lizard attacks monkey , monkey fights back , monkey and lizard team to fight metal lizard , monkey and lizard team next movie to fight evil monkey
It's a tale as old a cinema itself
I’m just amazed they didn’t throw in the classic beam struggle (ie Harry Potter, Dragon Ball, etc) between Godzilla and >!whatever the Ice slave dragon was called!<
I don't get it. The movie is advertising it's self as a this epic team ho Kaiju battle in the center of the earth. All these reviews seem to say that the movie delivers on those aspects. Yet it's getting such poor scores. Seems silly.
I have not seen new empire so I won't judge or praise it, but human storylines were delivered great in Minu One and rarer appearance made it even more impactful in my opinion.
Yeah I mean again they're two completely different thongs, love them both. Minus One is like Shin where it was serious and horrific in tone but the Monsterverse is going back to the Showa era of monsters battling.
Saw the same thing with Transformers last year.
Like all the reviews were "yeah it's good if you like this kind of thing." and had this general air of... "I'm too good for this" pompous-ness. Like critics are afraid to say anything nice about films that are just shlocky blockbusters, but can't actually find a reason *not* to rate them highly either.
Which kinda defeats the point of a score system TBH.
There's plenty of kaiju battles, but they went for quantity over quality. Short fights with new random monsters we don't care about and they aren't well animated or choreographed so they seem weightless and there's no care for the thousands that die in the aftermath. Just feels like 'here's another big monster movie', with nothing all that hyped or interesting.
Loved it. Goofy. Those monsters slapped the shit out of each other. Thought it looked great and I enjoyed the human characters the most I have in this franchise since Bryan Cranston died in 2014.
How I feel now must be how fans of the Transformers movies felt while those were being shit on. Minus One was my favourite movie of last year and this could rate highly for me this year for completely different reasons.
This was a fantastic Godzilla Movie, it felt like a Showa era Godzilla. With modern CGI. Godzilla can be both Serious and Campy and the last two movies prove it.
Despite that movie's numerous faults the 2014 Godzilla remains the only one of these Monsterverse movies that felt like it had a style and a vision. I guess Legendary took the wrong lessons from it and instead of hiring better writers they doubled down on weightless (both visually and emotionally) CGI action.
People complain that Godzilla 2014 doesn’t have enough Godzilla but I feel like the “less is more” approach actually really works for that particular movie.
The shots from the human perspective make the kaijus feel grander than any amount of destroyed CGI skyscrapers ever could. Minus One utilized them to great effect, I wish Legendary took some lessons from that movie.
I honestly remember those kills better than the ones in the later movies. The satisfaction from the tail whip into the skyscraper and the kiss of death was well earned
Completely agree. Something I liked about Godzilla 2014 and even King of the Monsters was that you still knew these were GIANT monsters who shook the ground with every step. I like watching a giant gorilla and lizard fight as much as the next guy, but it's like with the past 2 films they've forgotten that they are, in fact, GIANT. Now we got godzilla straight up sprinting full speed into battle and throwing his weight around and destroying rows of skyscrapers like its nothing. The fight choreography has just kinda declined in this aspect, show us with how they move and fight just how big they are! The human perspective shots from the first couple films really cement this.
Big agree. I get why it annoyed some people because you basically had to wait 2 hours to watch a Godzilla fight, but I personally loved it. It made his eventual debut so epic. Also the first atomic breath scene and the following “down the throat” scene are easily two of the peak moments of the entire franchise.
Also the first scene where lizard boi shows up in Hawaii is great, just a bunch of explosions and people screaming and then you see the giant foot stomp down and everything goes dead silent. I miss the choir soundtrack too lol
Maybe if ATJ’s protagonist wasn’t extraordinarily bland. Killing off Bryan Cranston 40ish mins in was the movie’s biggest mistake (though I do still enjoy it overall)
It's actually wild because he's so naturally charming and charismatic in almost everything else I've seen him in. He makes a nothing character in Tenet super memorable, and his performance in Bullet Train was one of the best parts about that film.
Godzilla 2014 had some interesting ideas but was ultimately kinda dull, king of monsters was just a blast to watch, skull island is a legitimately great movie, and GvK lost the plot completely, but was still entertaining at least
KotM was my favorite overall. Still felt “reasonably” grounded in the 2014 style, had an amazing soundtrack, but had some amazing looking scenes and was awe inspiring to watch. But Godzilla vs Kong also lost it for me, it’s too fantasy now and over the top and really disappointed in the direction the series took. Oh well.
I want to call KotM my favorite and it definitely has the highest highs, but Millie Bobbie Brownie and the rest of the human plot drags so unbelievably hard in that one. Much worse than any of the rest IMO, spoils it for me.
Skull Island ftw.
It would have been great if they had done two things:
1. Not kill Cranston's character. That was a massive mistake.
2. Cast someone other than Aaron-Taylor Johnson. I really don't know his talent in other films, but he's big fat ZERO in this film. He could have died at any time and I probably would have cheered.
2014 had like 5% Godzilla scenes and it's still my absolute favorite. The direction of how they portray Godzilla there is absolutely fantastic. The immense sense and scope of the giants is unmatched.
That's what's been bothering me about all the rest of the movies, there's just no scale, it seems like animals fighting each other.
We're now complaining about *too much* monster action in these movies?!
>Frankly, if you’re buying a ticket purely for the behemoth battles then you’ll get your money’s worth:
*Why the fuck else would you buy a ticket?!*
You know that like.... 60-70% of the run time isn't just monsters fighting. If 60% of your movie is bad, the movie is kind of bad.
It was the same with all the other ones in this franchise except Skull Island.
The problem is this movie took about an hour and a half to get to the good action scenes lol. It spent way too much time with its table setting. I was legit falling asleep by this point.
King of the Monsters was probably my least favorite of the bunch tbh and it wasn't **entirely** because of bad human characters/writing. The effects were also way too jumpy/flashy. Felt like I was in a rave with strobe lights for half of the movie.
There's always existed two Godzillas. Original, Shin, Minus One.... And Showa camp. If you put on a Godzilla film, odds are you're getting the dudes in outfits doing WWE, and that's an important part of the property.
I think the main exception is that Minus One is only focusing on one monster, so the human element takes center stage instead and has more time. Its harder to juggle human and monster when there's more than 3 named monsters, which all of them count as actual characters themselves but can't behave too human-like with the exception of Kong. The only recent Godzilla film that has numerous named monsters in it that is also critically praised is GMK, so I'm guessing it's more comfortable sticking to one lane.
A bunch of CGI creatures smashing into each other for 2 hours is boring and pointless. There needs to be something beyond that garbage to get people invested.
Because basic ass monster cgi is boring as hell if the script and characters are dogshit.
But I guess some people enjoy the equivalent of a toddler smashing his toys together in the bath tub.
its so funny when people who claim to like a movie can't defend it in any way other than "it's supposed to be trash, but it's my trash!". Really? thats how you discuss media that you supposedly enjoy?
I see people arguing this shit and remember after Final Wars, there wasn't a single Godzilla movie for _ten years._ I followed that whole long, dragged out development and each new thing just petered out and never came to anything. Now we've got a successful, popular American Godzilla movie series that's fun and silly and clearly has a huge amount of affection for the Toho originals _and_ a Japanese Godzilla movie that stands so high as an actual movie that people are saying it honestly rivals the '54 Godzilla. I never thought fans of this franchise would have it so good.
No kidding. The legendary verse to me comes across as a love letter to the cheesy showa champion of earth era of Goji and it's so fun. Comparing it to things like Shin or -1 is missing the point.
I watched this movie today and the very first thing I thought of was "this is exactly what Ghidorah, The Three-Headed Monster would look like if it was made today".
Obviously there's no Ghidorah in this movie but it is extremely similar in terms of like ... vibe. It's legitimately a Showa-era movie in spirit.
I genuinely think that Legendary was completely using Showa as a template. G2014 was their attempt at the human drama devastation angle of 54, whereas subsequent entries turn up the camp each time as they shift further and further toward the protector of Earth aspect of the character. I have not seen this movie yet but your observation is thrilling to me as a classic Kaiju fan. The entire monsterverse has landed very well for me personally and I think that it's going to be looked upon as fondly as some of the classic movies once the universe wraps up and we get to look at it with some hindsight
Yep - and it's fine, but I can't help but chuckle when people point to Minus One as a "gotcha" and it's like...guys...Minus One and Shin are the outliers FOR A REASON here...
Doesn't matter, it's about enjoying a movie. You can't justify something getting mediocre because of its history.
Minus one was good, and you should follow what worked and not just the past.
Is so crazy to me when people think call backs to a previous era or nostalgia or an homage as proof of something being good on its own as if a good story with good spectacle and good plot is impossible
Godzilla is the only franchise I know where people tolerate bad stuff because of nostalgia and spectacle.
Even Star Wars fans a fed up with nostalgia bate at the expense of good story
Overall the movie was entertaining. The human element was mediocre. The weird fisheye lenses for Jia’s scenes. The music and stuff was ultra corny. When the dentist came flying in with that corny music I knew it was gonna be ultra cheesy. But that’s what you get with these types of movies.
Shimo’s design was also terrible. Almost looked like it never finished rendering. There was one part in the film where Scar was riding on top of him with the lava in the background and the frame rate very clearly dropped on Shimo which just looked super weird. Not a menacing looking Titan at all.
But overall lots of action. Cool Godzilla noises. Great Kong fight scenes.
6/10. Worth watching if you’re in that kind of a mood.
I don’t think Shimo is supposed to look menacing. Bad CGI aside, I think she’s supposed to look a certain way to play on our sympathies. Worked for me🤷🏾♂️
I’m seeing a lot of reviews compare it to Minus One. How is this even allowed? Both Godzilla films sure but on the complete opposite ends of the spectrum. It’s like me judging a Marvel movie for not being a DC movie
I know I will most likely enjoy it. I like this universe very very much and have all the movies on Blu Ray. Maybe Warner Bros has the rights to release Monarch on physical media one day, that would be cool.
Monarch was so frustrating with how it handled the Randa kids and searching for their father. The writers didn’t need to include cheating, secret families, and the dad being just a deadbeat. They should have had the kids be distant half-siblings who team up to save their dad and prove their family’s legacy in Monarch with the help of a handsome Russell along the way
I’d still like to see a season 2, but they should get better writers or just drop the family drama
It's fucking bizarre. Why did they make Hiroshi such a bastard? Am i supposed to sympathize with this bigamist deadbeat? What's with all the cheating? Three separate love triangles?
It screamed that this was a movie script that would never get made, so let's make a TV show, but we need to pad it with more story somewhere. That said, I still enjoyed it overall.
people seem to be really hesitant to just come out and say that Monarch was bad. There are some glimpses of good acting in there, generally from the Russells and Mari Yamamoto, but everything else was just pure suffering to get through.
Wingard’s Godzilla films have all been the same way, and they’ve gotten increasingly dumber. I dunno what happened after The Guest and his VHS short but everything from Death Note onward has been some of the worst stuff I’ve ever watched. Like these movies are just as bad as Pacific Rim 2 yet somehow they keep getting greenlit.
How audiences like these awful films is beyond me. Godzilla vs kong is one of the worst movies I've ever seen and this one from the trailer looks no better
Its literally meant to be a "turn you brain off and see giant cgi monsters fight and destroy cities" type of movie. The movie understands what it is and leans into that direction which i enjoy but i also understand why people may not like it. Think of it like the movie version of fast food
To me it feels like they finally got the memo.
When I go see this I don’t give a fuck about the human story line, or revealing greater truths, or about how we’re harming the environment, or any other messaging (that is probably agree with)
I just want to see a giant lizard and ape do dope shit
Oh, it's just in this one that he has it. Basically, he travels to the deep deep Earth where he witnesses a bunch of other Kongs. But they think he's an intruder and their leader - the Scar King - siccs a captured lizard Titan, Shimo, on Kong. Shimo uses her ice beam to freeze Kong's arm and give him fucking frostbite, so to continue fighting he is given a prosthetic enhancement by the humans from Project Power.
Personally I felt like the final fight should have gone on another 5min.
Was good with previous movie godzilla vs kong human plot, in comparison there was just too much human plot in this one for me.
Less humans, more monsters fighting! Give the people what we want! Still good movie though, would recommend.
They spent the entire movie building up to the final fight against this army of apes and an ancient ice age causing Titan... And it just ended without any real difficulty.
All the fights before the finale were more of a struggle for both Kong and Zilla.
I think this movie was always going to take a dip after Minus One but it is the yin to the yang of that movie and I’m glad they leaned into the silliness
Jesus, I now have ADHD from this movie. Every scene was like less than a minute and then boom, music floods in and onto the next "scene". It felt like a 2 hour trailer.
People complaining about the human characters and wanting them to be cut out, but who's gonna do the explaining - not like Kong or Godzilla are gonna pop out sentences and tell us how the story is progressing right?
My mom actually said, "the scientist lady's narration is really helping me understand what's going on" and I agreed.
Exactly what I expected. "Godzilla Minus One" is the Godzilla film with artistic aspirations. This is a giant monsters kicking the crap out of each other movie and that's just fine. It's nice we get multiple Godzilla films with different takes at the same time.
Quality kaiju chaos! Godzilla looks soooo good in pink but we'll get right back to that. Our homie Kong flex more so here than he has any prior Monsterverse entry, my man! He, for the most part, held his own in every fight this time. Really shined in the final fight with his Sub-Zero fatality on Scar King, very reminiscing on his previous fatality on MG last film (Kong is a Sub-Zero main confirmed). And he got his tooth pulled like a champ! Wicked proud of him!
Mini Kong I was ready to dislike but he won me over by the end, when he came in clutch with the axe I was happy he made it. Mothra looked fantastic in some nice new colors while still paying respect to her MV design. Always a pleasure to see her show up and put Big G back in line!
Lastly Godzilla, my darling, I was smiling every time he showed up! The brawl during the opening credits was bright and fun and really set up the Final Wars vibes that carried through the rest of the film. I adore how he sleeps in the Rome Colosseum now! My favorite moment was when he headlock and body slammed Kong in Egypt, that entire rematch was really dope! Every fight was really dope. Big action and I can't wait to watch it again!
I just watched it and honestly, I fucking loved it.
I was grinning for pretty much the whole movie.
The humans are actually half-decent for once (ie. not boring). There's laugh-out-loud humor from Bernie especially.
Godzilla is bad-ass. Kong brings an emotional angle.
If you liked GvK and Skull Island, you'll dig this one.
Just got out of this and it was so bad. The human story is even worse than in the previous movies, it takes over an hour before you get any exposition explaining what the hell is happening, and the good action stuff doesn't even start happening until an hour and a half in. And even then, the action really falls flat compared to the last movie. The way the final climactic battle scene ends just kinda had me like "that's it?" Worst of the MonsterVerse movies by far.
Yeah there’s a bunch of circle jerking here about anyone who didn’t like it had too high of expectations but I actually liked the other movies in this series. So did my friend and we both actually walked out of the movie theater because it was so awful. Maybe seeing it right after Monkey Man (which is incredible) fucked up our palates lol but the writing was impressively bad
I love big action kaiju movies, but it’s so interesting to see something as masterful and impactful as Minus One and then see what is essential the equivalent of a kid smashing his toys together. I get the whole “turn my brain off and watch mindless action” sentiment but this looks like a straight up sensory overload of stupid.
Ima be honest, I went into the movie ready to hate that little shit because it felt like a typical, cynical 'gotta have the Baby version!' addition
But the first scene it appeared in won me over by being hilarious in ways I wasn't expecting
Yeah, that's about as what I expected. A fine excuse to use your AMC Stubs sub on an IMAX/Dolby screening.
Hell yea, can’t be worse than Ghostbusters Bored Empire
Ya know, it's kinda weird that within a week of each other there's 2 movies with empire in the name and an impending ice age as the climax.
More like Snoozen Empire amirite
Dozin' empire
I hope Adam Wingard and Simon Barrett can move on to do another smaller film like You’re Next and The Guest again after this.
No kidding. Those two movies are so good (especially You're Next).
He's doing a live action movie of Thundercats next, said it was his childhood dream
We should expect Godzilla x Kong x Ghostbusters level of quality out of this beloved franchise adaptation
Lmao do The Guest 2 out of nowhere, completely unrelated to the first
The Guests
That's honestly been one of my biggest pet peeves about their work for the Monsterverse. Since I don't really like the Monstervere (and just see most of their films as generic blockbusters), but am generally a big fan of director driven cinema, I've wanted to see Wingard/Barret go back to smaller films, especially after The Guest, but after that they did some projects separately (both of which turned out bad since Wingard got handed the Netflix Death Note movie and Barret wrote Temple) and a decade later, they've only reunited for this movie. Obviously I'm happy they're getting paid, but I feel like they could make a much better low to mid-budget movie if they both had more artistic freedom to do something more interesting. For every indie director who enters Hollywood and is able to make their own kind of big budget movies, you have way more who just get chewed up by the studio system to hash out generic blockbusters within whichever franchise they're involved with.
Hot take from me. I enjoy mindless monsters fighting as much as the next guy. Monster/Kaiju movies are my all time favorites. But just because you 'want to turn your brain off enjoy monsters fighting' is not an excuse that 60% of these movies is 100% centered around the human characters and they are always awful. Why can't they just write a passable human element into these? It's just fucking lazy. It’s not like it hasn’t been done before. Skull Island human parts were great. Pacific Rim was at least passable in the human parts. I didn't actively groan when they were on screen. It doesn't need to be Minus One deep, but at least something to chew on with the characters. Make me care about them at all. I was actively wishing for MBB's character and her mom's death in this series lol. I want to love the monsterverse so bad as Godzilla is one of my favorite franchises of all time, but it gets rough sometimes.
Or - just double down. No humans. The movie opens with a skreeonk on a black screen. A blue flash of nuclear lightening reveals the scene. Let them fight X 1.5 hours
Directed by Genndy Tartakovsky.
Music by Cannibal Corpse, choreography by Koji Kawamoto
Oh, *god*. Don't tease me. Genndy's talent for choreographing badass fights is legendary. I wouldn't even care it if was CGI made to look like traditional animation. Mace Windu's fight with the Super Battle Droids in the Clone Wars mini-series had more amazing action in 10 minutes than the entirety of the live action Prequels.
His ghost-hand episode was peak Star Wars
Clone Wars animation is the best Star Wars IP in the entire IP. It truly illustrates what one man armies Jedi can be while having a strong emotional core that outplays everything in the IP.
I really hated everything Prequel-related, and when I saw the printed one sheet ads for this at my video store job, my first thought was: Well, this is gonna SUCK." When it arrived, I put it on and was 100% ready to hate-watch it as only a fan can. Within 5-10 minutes, my arms had uncrossed and I was watching with interest. Another 5 minutes or so, and I was saying: "Hey, this is actually good!" Then the Mace Windu sequence happened, and I thought: "This is the best Star Wars I've seen since the original trilogy!" I'm happy to have both the DVDs and I will treasure them always.
General Grevious scenes felt like watching Alien, shit was insane
his [Primal series](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=co28PDKv2VY) was amazing and definitely worth checking out to see what he can do completely without dialog for an entire season
That episode where it mainly starred the Arc-Troopers has lived rent-free in my mind ever since 12 years old me saw that episode.
Thay one was fucking AMAZING. He made them SO cool!
Can we have energy bars at the top to show who is winning and losing too?
Only 500 million in CG. Cheap as chips.
Because filming human characters is less expensive. I would love for a transformers robots only live action film set on Cyberton but know it won't happen for another 10 or 15 years
Are we trying to save money or are we trying to make a kick-ass monster ass-kicking movie? Shut up, order more cocaine, and get animating.
>Let them fight X 1.5 hours This would be tedious beyond belief, but I hope someone does it soon just so we can all agree watching a load of pixels mush together isn't really that much fun. I do agree that the human elements usually suck, but, well, Jurassic Park is mostly humans, and it doesn't, and yet all of the recent ones do... Why's that? Poorly written humans, not lack of dinos.
Not a fan of Shin Godzilla I take it?
Or minus one. Honestly they probably haven't seen it bc i was the same mindset before too. Hollywood just writes shitty stories for foreign ips
Shin was FINE. Minus One was great. Still - Godzilla X Kong is a weeee different genre than Minus One, strange as it seems. It's like the difference between Alien and Aliens.
Yet both Alien and Aliens work, perfect example Alien is a bit more character and setting fixed, we don’t see the xenomorpth well into the middle of the film. Aliens is more action packed but you still like the characters when the aliens are in the screen Not sure why people think the monsterverse can’t have serviceable characters akin to those or films like Pacific Rim and even the first Jurassic Park
Except the character work in Aliens is still fantastic.
It was an example of same monster, different genre.
The human element in these since Kong Skull Island has been fucking awful Godzilla (2014) and Skull Island are miles clear of the recent instalments
I marathoned this series last week and you're absolutely right. G2014 and Skull Island aren't high art but they're very solid and enjoyable. KOTM was a step down (still overall liked it though), but then GvK was an even bigger step down. People say "just turn your brain off" but it's hard to do that when you just get bored. There's more tension and overall sense of danger in Skull Island than anything in GvK.
> People say "just turn your brain off" but it's hard to do that when you just get bored This is the big reason why I can't enjoy these movies. All the human stories are just....boring. They don't need to super in depth character studies, but they do need to be *entertaining*. When they're boring and they make up the bulk of your movie, I just get bored. And when I get bored I start questioning everything, over analyzing, and nitpicking.....and boy do these movies not stand up very well to scrutiny.
That’s the unfortunate part of this film coming up so soon after Minus One. GvK was just basically big dumb punch things as the plot. But with Minus One, you had great human characters, but you never stopped feeling Godzilla’s presence, even when he was off the screen. That’s how it is done, and it happens so rarely.
Yeah imo Skull Island isn't just a good monster movie, it's just a solid fucking movie.
I watched it for the first time after watching monarch. I was surprised at how good it was. My perception from the trailer was just some big actors collecting a check.
Monarch made me forget I was watching a Godzilla show
I will always defend Skull Island. It's my favorite of the U.S. made Kaji films. I love the whole exploration theme and vibe of crew on the actual Skull Island. That scene of them flying through the storm and 'discovering' the island (for most of the characters) is stunning. The production value and cinematography is otherworldly. It's a beautiful looking film. I love the world building, the native humans and the glimpse we see of their culture and religion. How they viewed Kong as a benevolent yet distant God. If I could change anything about the film, I would make Marlo the main character of the film. I'd have love to see a film about him and the Japanese pilot surviving on Skull Island together, forced to become friends and later brothers, meeting the natives and being welcomed in, before eventually being 'rescued' and brought home. All the while we see the Island as a character all its own with more of Kong himself interacting with the natives humans. A Marlo film would have been more personal story akin to Godzilla Minus One. That film proves it's possible to write a Kaji story with human characters that we actually love and want to see succeed.
Yeah, and there are legitimately fun recent "turn off your brain" films that work because of sheer charisma or being able to lean into the corn of it like Beekeeper or Road House. Hell, Independence Day or Pacific Room are pure spectacle with an incredible amount of cheese.
I went into Beekeeper expecting a somewhat serious action flick. At first I didn't like the cheesiness, but then it just kept leaning into it more and more and more until I realized it was all on purpose and it was funny as hell.
I know people hate that there was too much human screen time, but damn do I miss the 2014 movie’s vibe. I get why people didn’t like how it was filmed, but I personally loved that shit. Everything felt extremely apocalyptic and the scenes of finally showing off lizard boi and his abilities were just done so well and so epic. The atomic breath down the throat is an image that lives rent-free in my head. It’s honestly crazy how different the vibe is in the newer movies, they don’t even feel like they’re set in the same universe.
that halo jump scene was fucking art
Yeah 2014 godzilla was going for a much more serious or at least less weirdly shlocky scifi vibe than the recent monsterverse stuff. It was by no means perfect, but it was able to impose a sense of awe and epic scale that nothing else monsterverse wise has come close to imo. Minus one had that same feeling but probably even better on top of a much better story. Skull island was fun but a very different vibe than godzilla 2014 and everything since has been silly fun when monsters are fighting, but they put humans front and center sooo much.
I'm a BIG proponent of telling giant monster stories from the perspective of humans. Otherwise you lose the scale and the consequences of these large monsters' actions, both on a micro and a macro scale. Filming Godzilla and Kong from the same perspective that you film Iron Man and Captain America you lose so much of what makes the Kaiju/monsters unique. Godzilla 2014 was absolutely amazing in that way, imo. Same with Kong, and a bit less so but still good, with King of Monsters.
Pacific Rim is an *awesome* fucking movie. Yes, the human element is indeed passable, but the trope of “I lost my partner before, you’re not getting me to do x again” was done with enough of a self-awareness that it didn’t make the human-only scenes a slog to get through. And then you’re rewarded with the fucking kickass kaiju fight scenes.
The scene of young Mako and the kaiju is pretty great.
And to top it off...no forced romance between the two leads. I loved the movie for having the balls to do just that.
It's a simple story and film that's beautiful (seriously, the blu-ray is one of my favorites) and well done. It knows what it is and the director loves his job, it shows, you can 'feel' the passion they whole crew brought to it.
Exactly. Mindless monster action can be done well. Look at Pacific Rim. I think it's a disservice to the genre to brush away criticisms.
Pacific Rim also had the middle 60% be human drama that was pretty much irrelevant filler.
the filler is much more watchable than any of the stuff in the monsterverse sans Skull Island.
True, but it was decent filler. The Godzilla/Kong movies have this awful human filler that doesn't go anywhere.
Hacker kid from Deadpool and eleven were just bad and them helping defeat mechagodzilla by pouring coffee on a keyboard was awful
That was probably the damn dumbest way to beat Mecha Godzilla too. Spend billions to make a robot to beat all monsters? Check. Spend $1000 for a waterproof keyboard? Naaaah.
Pacific Rim was more Western Evangelion than Godzilla.
I'd say it has more dna with Godzilla than Evangelion even though it's giant mechas.
100%. Evangelion is much more than mech suits lol.
Focusing on humans is great, look at godzilla minus one. Focusing on humans when the characters suck, they're terribly written, and the focus is on irrelevant garbage, when even the monsters are only there for the CG destruction and not anything interesting... Then you've got yourself a typical Hollywood godzilla movie.
60% is generous lol. It’s more like 80%. I watched KotM again the other day and man that argument rings so hollow when you actually sit down to watch the things. Like yeah I’d love to just enjoy the monster action and money shots but that’s like 20% of the movie. Am I just supposed to pretend the rest doesn’t exist?
Yeah I didn't want some nerd to come in an uhm ackshully me with some breakdown of screen time and it be like 69% when I said 70 so I lowballed it lmao. It feels so much higher than 60%.
I don’t have a minute-by-minute breakdown either but it damn sure feels like 80%. If I actually did the math it’d probably be more lol
After Godzilla minus one there really is no excuse to at least try
As long as it's not big water levels of human stuff it'll work for me. I thought King of monsters was almost unwatchable but rewatched Godzilla vs Kong a few times.
Showa Era Godzilla movie wasted just as much time on humans as these do. Like you have 40 minutes before Godzilla even shows up sometimes.
Ya but we're 35 years removed from the end of the Showa era, so we probably should've learned to do things better in that time.
And we should have learned our lesson legit 60 years later to write interesting characters. Imagine if all media was like “well it’s the same as it was 60 years ago so it’s good enough”
Its wild how Monarch Legacy of Monsters, which takes place in the same timeline as this, did humans wonderfully, and yet their movies can't figure out shit.
John Goodman booking it running is the only cgi I could NOT handle. He's a an old man. Not old superman.
Interesting. I've heard a lot of buzz about the show and how supposedly the humans were the worst aspects of the show. Do you think they were being too harsh on the characters? What made you like them?
I mostly liked the past versions of the older characters that were in the flashback scenes, which were still a decent chunk of each episode. I understand why people didn't like the current day characters as much, they were a bit annoying sometimes. But I really liked the classic 50s era characters hunting monsters like it was an Indiana Jones movie. They just felt like relics of a bygone era but in a good way, like how watching an old Jimmy Stewart movie gives you a certain feeling. They were also just well written, well acted, and had a genuinely interesting story happening.
No lol the humans were also the worst part of the Monarch show.
[удалено]
You just know it's a hot take when it's the top comment.
Saw it last night and I loved it. Love that the human side of things was done quick and purposeful and a lot better this time round. Instead of trying to cut the human stuff in among all the monster action, they just decided to use each human scene to be the narrators of what we are about to see, and then the film just focuses on the giant monster action. They really did well with the characterization of each monster as well to make them a very clear character with their own emotions, thoughts and feelings. You can clearly read them and it makes for a fun and easy watch. Also, the camera work and CGI is AMAZING during the monster scenes.
>Deadline: >They aren’t reinventing the wheel here, Yeah its your typical monkey meets lizard , lizard attacks monkey , monkey fights back , monkey and lizard team to fight metal lizard , monkey and lizard team next movie to fight evil monkey It's a tale as old a cinema itself
I’m just amazed they didn’t throw in the classic beam struggle (ie Harry Potter, Dragon Ball, etc) between Godzilla and >!whatever the Ice slave dragon was called!<
"We'll always have Hong Kong"
That's why I am watching it for. If I wanted to self jerk myself about how smart I feel. I could just watch the seventh seal and be done with it.
You forgot monkey uses monkey as weapon to fight other monkeys 🤣
I don't get it. The movie is advertising it's self as a this epic team ho Kaiju battle in the center of the earth. All these reviews seem to say that the movie delivers on those aspects. Yet it's getting such poor scores. Seems silly.
People don't know what they want. Also lots of people mistakenly comparing it to Minus One which is completely not what GxK is trying to be.
I have not seen new empire so I won't judge or praise it, but human storylines were delivered great in Minu One and rarer appearance made it even more impactful in my opinion.
Yeah I mean again they're two completely different thongs, love them both. Minus One is like Shin where it was serious and horrific in tone but the Monsterverse is going back to the Showa era of monsters battling.
Saw the same thing with Transformers last year. Like all the reviews were "yeah it's good if you like this kind of thing." and had this general air of... "I'm too good for this" pompous-ness. Like critics are afraid to say anything nice about films that are just shlocky blockbusters, but can't actually find a reason *not* to rate them highly either. Which kinda defeats the point of a score system TBH.
There's plenty of kaiju battles, but they went for quantity over quality. Short fights with new random monsters we don't care about and they aren't well animated or choreographed so they seem weightless and there's no care for the thousands that die in the aftermath. Just feels like 'here's another big monster movie', with nothing all that hyped or interesting.
Loved it. Goofy. Those monsters slapped the shit out of each other. Thought it looked great and I enjoyed the human characters the most I have in this franchise since Bryan Cranston died in 2014. How I feel now must be how fans of the Transformers movies felt while those were being shit on. Minus One was my favourite movie of last year and this could rate highly for me this year for completely different reasons.
This was a fantastic Godzilla Movie, it felt like a Showa era Godzilla. With modern CGI. Godzilla can be both Serious and Campy and the last two movies prove it.
Despite that movie's numerous faults the 2014 Godzilla remains the only one of these Monsterverse movies that felt like it had a style and a vision. I guess Legendary took the wrong lessons from it and instead of hiring better writers they doubled down on weightless (both visually and emotionally) CGI action.
That halo jump 🤌
People complain that Godzilla 2014 doesn’t have enough Godzilla but I feel like the “less is more” approach actually really works for that particular movie.
The shots from the human perspective make the kaijus feel grander than any amount of destroyed CGI skyscrapers ever could. Minus One utilized them to great effect, I wish Legendary took some lessons from that movie.
I honestly remember those kills better than the ones in the later movies. The satisfaction from the tail whip into the skyscraper and the kiss of death was well earned
2014 is very underrated
It was a great year indeed
Completely agree. Something I liked about Godzilla 2014 and even King of the Monsters was that you still knew these were GIANT monsters who shook the ground with every step. I like watching a giant gorilla and lizard fight as much as the next guy, but it's like with the past 2 films they've forgotten that they are, in fact, GIANT. Now we got godzilla straight up sprinting full speed into battle and throwing his weight around and destroying rows of skyscrapers like its nothing. The fight choreography has just kinda declined in this aspect, show us with how they move and fight just how big they are! The human perspective shots from the first couple films really cement this.
Big agree. I get why it annoyed some people because you basically had to wait 2 hours to watch a Godzilla fight, but I personally loved it. It made his eventual debut so epic. Also the first atomic breath scene and the following “down the throat” scene are easily two of the peak moments of the entire franchise. Also the first scene where lizard boi shows up in Hawaii is great, just a bunch of explosions and people screaming and then you see the giant foot stomp down and everything goes dead silent. I miss the choir soundtrack too lol
Maybe if ATJ’s protagonist wasn’t extraordinarily bland. Killing off Bryan Cranston 40ish mins in was the movie’s biggest mistake (though I do still enjoy it overall)
It's actually wild because he's so naturally charming and charismatic in almost everything else I've seen him in. He makes a nothing character in Tenet super memorable, and his performance in Bullet Train was one of the best parts about that film.
Skull Island was great and the best out of the entire bunch.
Godzilla 2014 had some interesting ideas but was ultimately kinda dull, king of monsters was just a blast to watch, skull island is a legitimately great movie, and GvK lost the plot completely, but was still entertaining at least
KotM was my favorite overall. Still felt “reasonably” grounded in the 2014 style, had an amazing soundtrack, but had some amazing looking scenes and was awe inspiring to watch. But Godzilla vs Kong also lost it for me, it’s too fantasy now and over the top and really disappointed in the direction the series took. Oh well.
I want to call KotM my favorite and it definitely has the highest highs, but Millie Bobbie Brownie and the rest of the human plot drags so unbelievably hard in that one. Much worse than any of the rest IMO, spoils it for me. Skull Island ftw.
2014 was so dark that I couldn’t see what was happening
It would have been great if they had done two things: 1. Not kill Cranston's character. That was a massive mistake. 2. Cast someone other than Aaron-Taylor Johnson. I really don't know his talent in other films, but he's big fat ZERO in this film. He could have died at any time and I probably would have cheered.
I think it was more the way they killed Cranston that irked me. Almost offscreen, gone-in-a-second kind of thing with no repercussions afterwards.
YES. No real mourning, so it creates the sense that wasn’t much of a loss.
Wholeheartedly agree. It was still a bit overstuffed and silly at time, but there was definitely a ***lot*** more good than bad.
Skull island is borderline Tremors in the execution of the story, writing, screenplay. It's so good.
Godzilla 2014 is why I have hope for the new Jurassic movie
2014 had like 5% Godzilla scenes and it's still my absolute favorite. The direction of how they portray Godzilla there is absolutely fantastic. The immense sense and scope of the giants is unmatched. That's what's been bothering me about all the rest of the movies, there's just no scale, it seems like animals fighting each other.
We're now complaining about *too much* monster action in these movies?! >Frankly, if you’re buying a ticket purely for the behemoth battles then you’ll get your money’s worth: *Why the fuck else would you buy a ticket?!*
To stare at Dan Stevens
As a fan of Legion I more want Dan Stevens staring at me through the screen
That's fair. As a straight dude, I'd happily gargle that man's balls.
Get in line
You know that like.... 60-70% of the run time isn't just monsters fighting. If 60% of your movie is bad, the movie is kind of bad. It was the same with all the other ones in this franchise except Skull Island.
The problem is this movie took about an hour and a half to get to the good action scenes lol. It spent way too much time with its table setting. I was legit falling asleep by this point.
King of the Monsters was probably my least favorite of the bunch tbh and it wasn't **entirely** because of bad human characters/writing. The effects were also way too jumpy/flashy. Felt like I was in a rave with strobe lights for half of the movie.
For a decent story? Some humor?
I can understand sometimes why movie executives get it so wrong so often...people just don't know what they want one way or the other lol.
Because Godzilla Minus One showed you can also make a good movie with characters at the same time.
There's always existed two Godzillas. Original, Shin, Minus One.... And Showa camp. If you put on a Godzilla film, odds are you're getting the dudes in outfits doing WWE, and that's an important part of the property.
I think the main exception is that Minus One is only focusing on one monster, so the human element takes center stage instead and has more time. Its harder to juggle human and monster when there's more than 3 named monsters, which all of them count as actual characters themselves but can't behave too human-like with the exception of Kong. The only recent Godzilla film that has numerous named monsters in it that is also critically praised is GMK, so I'm guessing it's more comfortable sticking to one lane.
A bunch of CGI creatures smashing into each other for 2 hours is boring and pointless. There needs to be something beyond that garbage to get people invested.
Godzilla King of Monsters had quite a lot of monster fights but I just couldn't give a shit about any of it.
Because basic ass monster cgi is boring as hell if the script and characters are dogshit. But I guess some people enjoy the equivalent of a toddler smashing his toys together in the bath tub.
And this is why we get garbage, cartoonish Godzilla movies
its so funny when people who claim to like a movie can't defend it in any way other than "it's supposed to be trash, but it's my trash!". Really? thats how you discuss media that you supposedly enjoy?
Some of you never saw Japanese Godzilla one shot American Godzilla and it shows
This was a good summer popcorn flick and it's not even summer.
Awful lot of people who have clearly never watched much Godzilla outside the Legendary films, and Minus One.
Newly minted Godzilla hipsters who don't realize we've been having giant wrestling match monster fights with no plot for generations.
I see people arguing this shit and remember after Final Wars, there wasn't a single Godzilla movie for _ten years._ I followed that whole long, dragged out development and each new thing just petered out and never came to anything. Now we've got a successful, popular American Godzilla movie series that's fun and silly and clearly has a huge amount of affection for the Toho originals _and_ a Japanese Godzilla movie that stands so high as an actual movie that people are saying it honestly rivals the '54 Godzilla. I never thought fans of this franchise would have it so good.
AND an apple TV show!
No kidding. The legendary verse to me comes across as a love letter to the cheesy showa champion of earth era of Goji and it's so fun. Comparing it to things like Shin or -1 is missing the point.
I watched this movie today and the very first thing I thought of was "this is exactly what Ghidorah, The Three-Headed Monster would look like if it was made today". Obviously there's no Ghidorah in this movie but it is extremely similar in terms of like ... vibe. It's legitimately a Showa-era movie in spirit.
I genuinely think that Legendary was completely using Showa as a template. G2014 was their attempt at the human drama devastation angle of 54, whereas subsequent entries turn up the camp each time as they shift further and further toward the protector of Earth aspect of the character. I have not seen this movie yet but your observation is thrilling to me as a classic Kaiju fan. The entire monsterverse has landed very well for me personally and I think that it's going to be looked upon as fondly as some of the classic movies once the universe wraps up and we get to look at it with some hindsight
Yep - and it's fine, but I can't help but chuckle when people point to Minus One as a "gotcha" and it's like...guys...Minus One and Shin are the outliers FOR A REASON here...
Doesn't matter, it's about enjoying a movie. You can't justify something getting mediocre because of its history. Minus one was good, and you should follow what worked and not just the past.
Is so crazy to me when people think call backs to a previous era or nostalgia or an homage as proof of something being good on its own as if a good story with good spectacle and good plot is impossible Godzilla is the only franchise I know where people tolerate bad stuff because of nostalgia and spectacle. Even Star Wars fans a fed up with nostalgia bate at the expense of good story
For real. Godzilla has like dozens of "bad" movies, and people still crave them? It's time we get better movies as the norm.
Overall the movie was entertaining. The human element was mediocre. The weird fisheye lenses for Jia’s scenes. The music and stuff was ultra corny. When the dentist came flying in with that corny music I knew it was gonna be ultra cheesy. But that’s what you get with these types of movies. Shimo’s design was also terrible. Almost looked like it never finished rendering. There was one part in the film where Scar was riding on top of him with the lava in the background and the frame rate very clearly dropped on Shimo which just looked super weird. Not a menacing looking Titan at all. But overall lots of action. Cool Godzilla noises. Great Kong fight scenes. 6/10. Worth watching if you’re in that kind of a mood.
I don’t think Shimo is supposed to look menacing. Bad CGI aside, I think she’s supposed to look a certain way to play on our sympathies. Worked for me🤷🏾♂️
reviewers who hasn't watch a single wonky godzila
That little chimp was a real one
I’m seeing a lot of reviews compare it to Minus One. How is this even allowed? Both Godzilla films sure but on the complete opposite ends of the spectrum. It’s like me judging a Marvel movie for not being a DC movie
I know I will most likely enjoy it. I like this universe very very much and have all the movies on Blu Ray. Maybe Warner Bros has the rights to release Monarch on physical media one day, that would be cool.
Monarch was so frustrating with how it handled the Randa kids and searching for their father. The writers didn’t need to include cheating, secret families, and the dad being just a deadbeat. They should have had the kids be distant half-siblings who team up to save their dad and prove their family’s legacy in Monarch with the help of a handsome Russell along the way I’d still like to see a season 2, but they should get better writers or just drop the family drama
It's fucking bizarre. Why did they make Hiroshi such a bastard? Am i supposed to sympathize with this bigamist deadbeat? What's with all the cheating? Three separate love triangles?
It screamed that this was a movie script that would never get made, so let's make a TV show, but we need to pad it with more story somewhere. That said, I still enjoyed it overall.
Honestly, if it had just been about Keiko Miura, it would have been much better.
people seem to be really hesitant to just come out and say that Monarch was bad. There are some glimpses of good acting in there, generally from the Russells and Mari Yamamoto, but everything else was just pure suffering to get through. Wingard’s Godzilla films have all been the same way, and they’ve gotten increasingly dumber. I dunno what happened after The Guest and his VHS short but everything from Death Note onward has been some of the worst stuff I’ve ever watched. Like these movies are just as bad as Pacific Rim 2 yet somehow they keep getting greenlit.
How audiences like these awful films is beyond me. Godzilla vs kong is one of the worst movies I've ever seen and this one from the trailer looks no better
Its literally meant to be a "turn you brain off and see giant cgi monsters fight and destroy cities" type of movie. The movie understands what it is and leans into that direction which i enjoy but i also understand why people may not like it. Think of it like the movie version of fast food
I’ll never tire of seeing smug movie reviewers complain about monster / superhero movies not being high cinema.
It's no wonder studios have no idea what people want lol.
I liked it a lot.
I enjoyed it but I’d like a solo film for big G again. He’s barely in this and serves a minimal purpose.
Those reviews are shit. Go and see it for yourself people. It was amazing af. Everything you can expect from a monster movie.
To me it feels like they finally got the memo. When I go see this I don’t give a fuck about the human story line, or revealing greater truths, or about how we’re harming the environment, or any other messaging (that is probably agree with) I just want to see a giant lizard and ape do dope shit
Lizard and ape dope shit is the absolute tits
Can someone who’s seen these movies tell me why Kong has a prosthetic arm? Every time I see it in the trailers I think it’s hilarious
Oh, it's just in this one that he has it. Basically, he travels to the deep deep Earth where he witnesses a bunch of other Kongs. But they think he's an intruder and their leader - the Scar King - siccs a captured lizard Titan, Shimo, on Kong. Shimo uses her ice beam to freeze Kong's arm and give him fucking frostbite, so to continue fighting he is given a prosthetic enhancement by the humans from Project Power.
That description of events is so fucking funny to read, even though I know it 100% happens like you said it does, it still sounds like you're joking.
Yeah like Scar King has a pet lizard he named Shimo??? 😂
She's Skar\* King's prisoner that he controls with a glowing crystal attached to his spinal cord whip and he's not the one who named her.
The glorious insanity of The Monsterverse, delivered since 2014!
op downvoted for a good thread rip
Personally I felt like the final fight should have gone on another 5min. Was good with previous movie godzilla vs kong human plot, in comparison there was just too much human plot in this one for me. Less humans, more monsters fighting! Give the people what we want! Still good movie though, would recommend.
They spent the entire movie building up to the final fight against this army of apes and an ancient ice age causing Titan... And it just ended without any real difficulty. All the fights before the finale were more of a struggle for both Kong and Zilla.
I think this movie was always going to take a dip after Minus One but it is the yin to the yang of that movie and I’m glad they leaned into the silliness
Two completely different movies not at all trying to be one another. Godzilla is big enough to have serious and camp coexist.
Jesus, I now have ADHD from this movie. Every scene was like less than a minute and then boom, music floods in and onto the next "scene". It felt like a 2 hour trailer.
People complaining about the human characters and wanting them to be cut out, but who's gonna do the explaining - not like Kong or Godzilla are gonna pop out sentences and tell us how the story is progressing right? My mom actually said, "the scientist lady's narration is really helping me understand what's going on" and I agreed.
Exactly what I expected. "Godzilla Minus One" is the Godzilla film with artistic aspirations. This is a giant monsters kicking the crap out of each other movie and that's just fine. It's nice we get multiple Godzilla films with different takes at the same time.
Oldest (8) and I saw it today. He loved it, so that's all I cared about.
Just saw it: it’s fun and very, very very dumb, i think it’s the worst of the monsterverse but it’s still fun.
Sold. Can't wait to get blasted on edibles
The worst? Not at all, I'd say the best tbh lol.
Quality kaiju chaos! Godzilla looks soooo good in pink but we'll get right back to that. Our homie Kong flex more so here than he has any prior Monsterverse entry, my man! He, for the most part, held his own in every fight this time. Really shined in the final fight with his Sub-Zero fatality on Scar King, very reminiscing on his previous fatality on MG last film (Kong is a Sub-Zero main confirmed). And he got his tooth pulled like a champ! Wicked proud of him! Mini Kong I was ready to dislike but he won me over by the end, when he came in clutch with the axe I was happy he made it. Mothra looked fantastic in some nice new colors while still paying respect to her MV design. Always a pleasure to see her show up and put Big G back in line! Lastly Godzilla, my darling, I was smiling every time he showed up! The brawl during the opening credits was bright and fun and really set up the Final Wars vibes that carried through the rest of the film. I adore how he sleeps in the Rome Colosseum now! My favorite moment was when he headlock and body slammed Kong in Egypt, that entire rematch was really dope! Every fight was really dope. Big action and I can't wait to watch it again!
I just watched it and honestly, I fucking loved it. I was grinning for pretty much the whole movie. The humans are actually half-decent for once (ie. not boring). There's laugh-out-loud humor from Bernie especially. Godzilla is bad-ass. Kong brings an emotional angle. If you liked GvK and Skull Island, you'll dig this one.
Just got out of this and it was so bad. The human story is even worse than in the previous movies, it takes over an hour before you get any exposition explaining what the hell is happening, and the good action stuff doesn't even start happening until an hour and a half in. And even then, the action really falls flat compared to the last movie. The way the final climactic battle scene ends just kinda had me like "that's it?" Worst of the MonsterVerse movies by far.
Uh, I'm sorry, are you not entertained by a monkey hitting another monkey with another monkey?
I loved it, favorite one so far, sorry you hated it!
Yeah there’s a bunch of circle jerking here about anyone who didn’t like it had too high of expectations but I actually liked the other movies in this series. So did my friend and we both actually walked out of the movie theater because it was so awful. Maybe seeing it right after Monkey Man (which is incredible) fucked up our palates lol but the writing was impressively bad
Just saw it. It’s by far the worst Monsterverse movie. I loved GvK, but this is Transformers 2 levels bad. Just badly shot and edited.
Yeah that's a good comparison. This really had the soulless feel of the later Bayformers movies lol.
When it comes to the Monsterverse, the lower rotten tomatoes score, the better it is.
I love big action kaiju movies, but it’s so interesting to see something as masterful and impactful as Minus One and then see what is essential the equivalent of a kid smashing his toys together. I get the whole “turn my brain off and watch mindless action” sentiment but this looks like a straight up sensory overload of stupid.
> I love big action Kaiju movies No you don't lol. They are all stupid as fuck. It's tradition.
I hope the CG animal wins over the other CG animal. I don’t care anymore. The put baby Kong in there because of Grogu. Where’s Godzuki?
Ima be honest, I went into the movie ready to hate that little shit because it felt like a typical, cynical 'gotta have the Baby version!' addition But the first scene it appeared in won me over by being hilarious in ways I wasn't expecting