30 May,2019 08:32 PM IST | Los Angeles | Johnson Thomas
Godzilla poster
Godzilla 2: King of the Monsters
U/A: Fiction, Sci-FI
Director: Michael Dougherty
Cast: O'Shea Jackson Jr., Charles Dance, Millie Brown, Kyle Chandler, Vera Farmiga
Rating:
The old monster rears its ugly head in Michael Dougherty's Godzilla: King of the Monsters - a Green screen spectacle blinded by lightning and shadowed by Titans. This sequel to Gareth Edwards' rather serious 2014 film, incorporates Japanese legend in a MonsterVerse that has the Kaiju world infiltrating that of the oversized ape King Kong. At least that's where this franchise appears to be going ( if the post-end-credits sequence is anything to go by).
The radiation spewing monster created by a vast team of digital artists, has numerous competitors to contend with here- including a three-headed super monster, an Alien, that never says die. The story involves a broken family suffering from the loss of their son Andrew. He was one of the casualties of the previous film's San Francisco catastrophe. Andrew's parents, father Mark Russell(Chandler), an expert on Titans, starts drinking heavily and breaks away from his family ties while mother Emma Russell (Vera Farmiga), who has custody of Andrew's sister Madison (Brown), concentrates her grief on building the Orca, a sonic device that can control the Titans by imitating their screeching calls.
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A crew of eco-terrorists led by Alan Jonah (Charles Dance) wants to use the Orca to bring about monstergeddon and restore the so-called natural balance of the species. They kidnap Emma and Maddy, and take possession of the Orca hoping to lend impetus to their avowed plan to cure the earth of wanton human destruction.
Secret sites all over the world where equally dangerous Titans lurk, guarded by a well-funded scientific organization known as Monarch and represented by Ishiro Serizawa(Ken Watanabe) at the Congressional hearing, start erupting. The MonstervVerse unleashed thus has a vivid variety of the giant lizard species including Godzilla, Mothra, King Ghidora etc.
Check out the trailer here:
The writing is a little dry, minus wit and has dialogues that seem a little inappropriate given the magnitude of the tragedy that is unfolding on screen. Dougherty and Zach Fields, who have been credited with scripting fail to instill empathy or coherence in the plotting. There's are far too many titans fighting for screen time and they unleash a chaos that is neither exciting nor lucid. The human elements take a back seat when the Titans show up and the loss of lives are brushed aside in the frenzy to create a giant-sized spectacle - unfortunately, it's not exciting enough. You might appreciate the sized-up variants here but their pathways to a climactic confrontation leave little room for exhilaration or entertainment. Supporting characters, played by Sally Hawkins, O'Shea Jackson Jr. and Zhang Ziyi look impressive but we don't really understand their role in this devastating battle for supremacy. The pacing and execution lack bite, the subplots don't have much impact and there's a distinct lack of consistency and logic in the byplay. Even the rain-drenched, dark and ominous atmospherics fail to create impact. While the fans may lap-up this franchise offering, the true cinema lovers are more than likely to sit this one out!
Also Read: Godzilla II: King Of The Monsters - 5 lesser known facts you should know before you watch the movie
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