Godzilla: King of the Monsters (2019)

You’ve come a long way baby!

SPOLERS SPOILERS SPOILERS All the spoilers all the time.  You have been warned!  SPOLERS SPOILERS SPOILERS

My Thoughts While Watching:

I was underwhelmed.  There WERE some good spots.  But, for the most part, I was underwhelmed.  Mothra was solid.  Eleven put in a great effort. Kyle Chandler will ALWAYS be red mist for me.  Ken Watanabe has a movie coming up about Fukushima (that statement has nothing to do with Godzilla, I just find it interesting and wonder if they will be true to the events as they occurred.)  I enjoyed Bradley Whitford.

If you ever watched the old Godzilla movies, the black and white ones, there was so much campiness in them.  I do believe they were trying to go for some of that camp with this film but IMHO it fell just short (I was not a fan of the one lined zingers they would set up and let fall). The one instance of well-played camp in this movie, which I thought paid proper tribute, was a random pan to Ziyi Zhang where she has this expression of (almost) rapture while the world is falling apart around her… THAT was the camp of the originals.

There was a person behind us who was over the moon excited about Mothra and when she attacked I think I heard a “you go girl” squeal.  I had zero problems with this.  I read a thread which noted that Mothra must be a Drag Queen: She had a transformation, a costume change, a light show, a reveal and was the only titan with her own theme song (other than Godzilla).  Also, have zero problems with that assessment.  I thought the close ups of Mothra were also on the same camp level of the originals.  Of all the titans, I appreciated her and the ever smiling closeups of Godzilla for their feel of original.  Below is her movie poster as well as a throwback to her original movie appearance for comparison.

There were great movie posters for Ghidorha and Rodan.  Below are those posters as well as throwbacks for comparison:

I would love to rewatch all of the Godzilla movies and blog about them.  That might be a thing leading into the 2020 movie… might.

Well, we always have Godzilla v Kong in 2020:

Some Interviews and Extra Video:

IMDB Synopsis: The crypto-zoological agency Monarch faces off against a battery of god-sized monsters, including the mighty Godzilla, who collides with Mothra, Rodan, and his ultimate nemesis, the three-headed King Ghidorah.

Starring:

	Kyle Chandler	…	Mark Russell
	Vera Farmiga	…	Dr. Emma Russell
	Millie Bobby Brown	…	Madison Russell
	Ken Watanabe	…	Dr. Ishiro Serizawa
	Ziyi Zhang	…	Dr. Ilene Chen and Dr. Ling
	Bradley Whitford	…	Dr. Rick Stanton
	Sally Hawkins	…	Dr. Vivienne Graham
	Charles Dance	…	Jonah Alan
	Thomas Middleditch	…	Sam Coleman
	Aisha Hinds	…	Colonel Diane Foster
	O’Shea Jackson Jr.	…	Chief Warrant Officer Barnes
	David Strathairn	…	Admiral William Stenz
	Anthony Ramos	…	Staff Sergeant Martinez
	Elizabeth Ludlow	…	First Lieutenant Griffin
	Jonathan Howard	…	Asher Jonah
	CCH Pounder	…	Senator Williams

I get a kick out of these IMDB notations (I would love for someone to populate those with every movie each has been in):

	Godzilla	…	Godzilla
	King Ghidorah	…	King Ghidorah
	Mothra	…	Mothra
	Rodan	…	Rodan

Director: Michael Dougherty

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My ranking scores –

0-19 Levels of: Ugh

20-39 Levels of: Meh (aka I cannot reach the remote)

40-59 Levels of: I don’t hate it?

60-85 Levels of: That was solid.

86-100 Levels of: I Loved It!

I rank this movie a 62-67.

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Trailer:

Additional Movie Info:

It received a Rotten Tomatoes rating of 39% Rotten.  It received a Rotten Tomato audience rating of 86% liking it.  Average Rating: 4.3/5 with a number of User Ratings: 10,008.

Movie Reviews:

• Roger Ebert
• NY Times

Specs:  Release date: 31 May 2019 (USA) / Runtime: 131 minutes / Budget: $200M

IMDB Trivia:

• Mothra’s eye-spots on her wings were designed to resemble Godzilla’s eyes in order to create a connection between the two monsters.
• Ken Watanabe (Dr. Ishiro Serizawa), Sally Hawkins (Dr. Vivienne Graham) and David Strathairn (Admiral William Stenz) are the only cast members from Godzilla (2014) to return for this film.
• Mothra’s screech in the film is a modified version of her original sound from the Toho series.
• Cranial scans indicate each of Ghidorah’s heads possess different levels of cognitive function and possible independent thought. The middle head is the most intelligent, acting as the alpha, while the left and right heads are more akin to its lackeys.
• Godzilla: King of the Monsters is expected to set up the confrontation Godzilla will have with King Kong in the upcoming Godzilla vs. Kong (2020) film, set for release in 2020.
• As seen on the Monarch Sciences website, Monarch Outpost 56, where Rodan is contained homages 1956, when Rodan was released.
• Godzilla received a slight revamp with his dorsal fins changing in shape, rather than being jagged and straighter in design, the new design features more protrusions, and looks more like the maple leaf design akin to earlier Godzilla incarnations, the director states that his eye color also changes when he uses his atomic breath (a bright blue hue) much like his attack.
• In the film, King Ghidorah stands at 521 feet (158.8 meters) tall, making him 128 feet taller than Godzilla, who stands at 393 feet (119.8 meters). This is the largest American incarnation of the monster in history, and also the second largest incarnation of the monster ever, being almost 62 feet taller than Toho’s Heisei version, which stood at 460 feet (140 meters).
• The nickname given to the location where Rodan is found, “el nido del demonio,” is Spanish for “the demon’s nest.”
• In Godzilla (2014), the news report at the end of the film reads “King of the Monsters”. This is a reference to the subtitle of the American version of the original film: Godzilla, King of the Monsters! (1956), and also foreshadows this film.
• Despite there now being 35 Godzilla films since 1954, this film marks the first time Rodan and Adult Mothra have fought.
• During the credits, Godzilla, King Ghidorah, Mothra, and Rodan are listed as themselves.
• On the map showing the monarch sites for all the found titans, there is an area over Scotland as a nod towards the Loch Ness monster.
• When Dr. Serizawa (Ken Watanabe) sets the nuclear device in Godzilla’s sea subterranean ‘recovery’ location, he lastly glances at his old pocket-watch: it shows the time (almost) 8.15: this is the exact time that the first ever nuclear bomb exploded on Hiroshima in 1945.
• Alan Jonah pursuing King Ghidorah’s severed head in the post-credits scene foreshadows the birth of Mecha Ghidorah, a cyborg version of the Kaiju from Japanese movies.
• When Dr. Serizawa sets the nuclear bomb to revive Godzilla, a statue of Pazuzu from The Exorcist can be spotted.
• There are monsters which were never seen, but their names appear on computer screens and in newspaper headlines. These include: Mokele-Mbembe, Baphomet, Tiamat, Typhoon, Abaddon, Leviathan, Sargon, and Bunyip.