Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *
Cast: Kyle Chandler, Vera Farmiga, Millie Bobby Brown, Ken Watanabe, Ziya Zhang, Bradley Whitford, Sally Hawkins, Charles Dance, Thomas Middleditch, Aisha Hinds, O’Shea Jackson Jr., David Strathairn, Anthony Ramos, Elizabeth Ludlow, Jonathan Howard, CCH Pounder, Joe Morton, Randy Havens.
Rarely does a film’s main premise reflect so accurately the place in which the actor’s sit in relation to the story unfolding around them but then few films have the absolute fortune to have one of the greatest cinematic monsters of all time filling the screen with its gigantic legend sweeping all before it, and the power to hold an audience’s attention even when the camera looks deep into the eyes of the human participants who are in effect bit part players to the creation unleashed.
Godzilla: King Of The Monsters does more to play to the fears and realisations of just exactly we have done to our planet than perhaps more than any other, so much so that you cannot help but feel even in the middle of what is essentially one big choreographed fight scene that would make two wrestlers blush, of just how right the message behind the film actually is. Humanity can be so beautiful, we can create insanely stunning pieces of art and solve the puzzling complexity of the Universe, but we also act like a virus, destroying everything in our path, gutting the space around us, plundering the oceans, disembowelling nature as if it our right. Godzilla may be fantasy, but there is no denying that at times humanity is the greatest of monsters.
Five years have passed since this new fascination with Japanese cinema’s biggest hit became a staple for the American studios to take advantage of. In that time it is fair to say that the fans have been waiting eagerly for Godzilla’s return, a far cry from the days when it looked as if any project was doomed because of the awful showing of the Roland Emmerich 1998 studio release which gave credence to seeing the creature as a wild savage beast which was a result of man’s recklessness with nuclear testing, rather than seeking a way to utilise the Japanese studios who had seen him grow and develop.
It is to this that Michael Dougherty’s take on the monster is far more thought-provoking, even stimulating, a concept in which to grapple with, the audience is given free rein to see that the under-developed human angle is intentional, that we are the on-lookers, unable to directly do anything to save our version of civilisation from the dominant creatures of the past.
Where the film lacks in plot, it more than makes up for in effects, a film that has your heart missing a beat occasionally as you watch in awe at the savage clash is not to be argued with, and with good performances by Kyle Chandler as Mark Russell and Bradley Whitford as Dr. Rick Stanton giving the film the permission slip of human touch it needs, there is a lot to enjoy in Godzilla: King Of The Monsters, as long as you remember it is the message rather than the acting that is the power behind the throne.
Ian D. Hall