Hatton here – with Netflix’s drop of Godzilla Minus Zero, my wife and I have gone deep into the monster universe the last two weeks. Starting at 2014 American Godzilla, and working our way up to the newest of Godzilla x Kong: Round 2. Along the way, we’ve also started watching the Apple TV ‘Monarch’ about the secret covert organization that lives beneath all of the movies and will take a Tokyo Drift over to the Toho Godzilla series that was relaunched with Shin Godzilla.
Now, I could go and simply make a list of our favorites, but I think I’d like just throw out some high and low points because, honestly, if you are a monster movie fan.. good or bad, you’re going to watch them much like I’d watch the animated series SAW: TRAPS ARE MAGIC and Rob would watch FAST & THE FURRY’OUS: TOKYO YIFF.
Firstly, our favorite has been Kong: Skull Island by a mile. The initial Godzilla feels fun, but dark, like they really didn’t trust the CGI to not look a bit silly. With Kong, you are 15 minutes into the movie and you are seeing a giant f’n monkey swat at helicopters. That movie, a period piece in a post-Vietnam 70’s feels like a true to life adventure movie with big weird creatures, comedy beats, and a strong ending that leaves you knowing there could be more stories told there. It’s just a lived in kind of movie and I recommend it above all the others.
The rest are fun. They are ‘check your brain at the door’ fun and it all feels like it leads up to the moment in Godzilla x Kong: One where they are fighting in the neon neo-Japan and Kong gets to do parkour of of giant skyscrapers. The plot? Oh, I called the plot before I even saw the movie because it is the archtype of every CHARACTER v CHARACTER story in comic books. We fight over misunderstanding, we have a common enemy, we lose separately, we win together. – jazzhands –
Here’s where I’m going to get hatemail…. I didn’t like Shin Godzilla. I KNOW… I KNOW.. stop yelling, I know. You don’t have to tell me how poignant it is talking about how the government failed to protect its people during natural disasters or how it is being utilized the same way Gojira was used to comment about WWII. I get it. Of course I get it. How could you not get it, 80% of that movie is people in sterile rooms telling each other ‘we need to do something’ ‘we can’t do something’. Over. And. Over. AND I KNOWWW… there’s an aspect where there is homage to the old rubber suit monsters with all of the lengthy talking segments, but even when little Timmy was trying to tell us that Godzilla is his friend, there felt like there was plot movement. We jumped 45 minutes forward of this 2 hour movie and felt like we didn’t miss a single damned thing.
Last point, I am deeply saddened that we only see Mothra briefly as she is the best monster and we’ve not seen Gamera at all. I know he’s a different franchise, but I don’t care. I need my cartwheeling turtlemeat, dammit.
So, what are you thinking of the new monsterverse? How bad is my take on Shin Godzilla… let me know in all the places.
