The Big G is back but is his movie better this time around or was the 2014 version far superior? Here’s my Godzilla II: King of the Monsters Review starring Millie Bobby Brown, Vera Farmiga, Kyle Chandler, Ken Watanabe, Zhang Zi Yi and Charles Dance. It’s directed by Michael Dougherty and distributed locally by Warner Bros. Pictures Philippines.

Please note that we’ll try to be as spoiler-free as possible for this Godzilla II: King of the Monsters review. In cases that there would be spoilers, we’ll put in a spoiler warning.

Visuals:

Godzilla 2 gets a significant bump in terms of visual effects. The first movie wanted to hide Godzilla till the third act for obvious reasons but for “King of the Monsters”, they don’t hide anything. From the opening moments of the film to the last bit, we see the Big G in all his glory. And not only that, the CGI for these kaijus are, for me, off the charts. King Ghidorah may be all CGI but he’s terrifying. More terrifying than how I saw him decades ago back in the 90s when SM Cinemas still imported films like “Godzilla vs King Ghidorah”.

All that destruction is beautifully rendered too and even those “quiet” scenes with the humans using their tech all had great visual impact. In short, nothing in this movie spells “sucky CGI”. I actually found myself staring at the designs for the new kaijus that make an appearance in this movie aside from the four main monsters namely Godzilla, King Ghidorah, Rodan and Mothra. The battles are gorgeous as they are brutal. One particular battle really set up another Hollywood Godzilla movie and I am loving them for that.

Story:

Some people may say that the plot is nonsensical but that’s far from the truth. The Monster-verse they have been building since Godzilla (2014) works well and is second only to the Marvel Cinematic Universe in terms of success. And while that falters a bit here, it still makes sense, maybe some people just don’t want to see things like “radioactive greenery”.

But seriously, the movie doesn’t fall far from the classic Japanese Godzilla story line with humans (except for Shin Godzilla because that one was a class of its own in a good way). Humans are supporting characters here who both ruin and save Godzilla especially when the threat is too big for them. And as Ken Watanabe’s Dr. Shirizawa character puts it “we’re his pets”. We even have the movie zigzag between various POVs (or what passes as “points of view”) with the main character being Stranger Things’ Millie Bobby Brown.

Agree with other critics with regards to how the new characters play an impact on the story. We just don’t have enough material to actually care for them. So when that big moment for Kyle Chandler’s family comes up (towards the end) we’re like “Ok, let’s move on”.

Spoiler Alert

The also did a great job of tying in some old school references to Godzilla and Mothra like the Zhang Zi Yi being twins and attached very much to researching Mothra. That was a cool moment.

End of Spoilers

Godzilla II: King of the Monsters does suffer from a contrived plot and poorly fleshed out human element but it does not fail in giving spectacle. Two hours worth of spectacle and that’s really what we all want when we watch monster movies right? I liked the Gareth Edwards’ Godzilla but this one really was a big improvement for me.

Musical scoring:

Bear McCreary was the only guy who can do this sort of thing for a monster movie. If you don’t want to believe that, check out the video from YouTube below:

Godzilla II: King of the Monsters – VERDICT

10/10

Godzilla II brings the pain, the destruction and that gorgeous monster fight. Godzilla looks better than ever before and the other monsters were also the same. I had a fun time watching them go at it, see the humans try to make their way into this whole new world with “titans” reigning over them. The movie has a lot of plot points and plot armors that are running around the film. But hey, this is a monster movie before anything else. I still have no idea what generates the negative comments and reviews from other people. I see the film as something that was carefully constructed based on the source material. Again, for me, this felt perfect; totally loved the film.

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