Godzilla: King of the Monsters (2019)

Director: Michael Dougherty

Cast: Kyle Chandler, Vera Farmiga, Millie Bobby Brown, Bradley Whitford

Have I Seen it Before: Na. And I was kind of looking forward to it, too.

Did I Like It: Ah, well… Just another cinematic disappointment for the summer of 2019.

At it’s core, this latest Godzilla movie is a family drama about a divorced parents as they try to raise children under trying circumstances. It’s a tame one at that, a story that has been played out before in a nearly infinite amount of melodramas and have been coopted as the narrative spine of more than a few other big budget movies. ET: The Extra-Terrestrial (1982), and the larger portion of the Jurassic Park franchise comes to mind. 

Such a routine story is not enough to support an entire movie. The only more-than neutral thing I can say about it is that Brown appears believable as a child of Chandler and especially Farmiga). With nothing else to keep the movie afloat, the spectacle of such a movie must rise to the challenge. 

And that’s where things really fall apart.

For one thing, there’s shockingly little Godzilla in the movie. The titular character spends most of the first half missing, and a large part of the second half sleeping off an ass kicking. If that weren’t enough, most of the running time is dominated by characters doing one of several things things. 1) Staring in awestruck wonder at something happening a considerable distance away. 2) Arguing about how much nuclear energy will either destroy or juice up Godzilla. 3) Muttering about some arcane piece of Godzilla lore.

And here is where the film leaps from being underwhelming to be more confidently annoying. The entire film is like being stuck in a conversation with someone well-steeped in the lore of the franchise, and can’t seem to talk about anything else. I’m not sure what I wanted out of a Godzilla movie, but it wasn’t this.

Get Out (2017)

Director: Jordan Peele

Cast: Daniel Kaluuya, Allison Williams, Bradley Whitford, Catherine Keener

Have I Seen it Before: Yep.

Did I Like It: Double yep.

I don’t know if it’s worth having a discussion of diversity in film in the context of a review, but if it ever would be, this would be the film in which to have that conversation. Some might complain about increases in representation. I do not understand these people, and find no other explanation for their attitudes than some degree of prejudice. Truly, a diversification of the types of stories we are exposed to only increases variety. How many more horror movies do we need to see with white guys at the center of the goings on? John Carpenter already mastered that. Let’s try something new.

Now that I’ve gotten that off my chest…

Peele brings every skill to bear that he harnessed in giving Key and Peele a cinematic literacy that one would not expect from a sketch comedy show. While the playing with tension and thriller tropes in this film put him in serious contention as the next Alfred Hitchcock, he now may be angling for being the second coming of Rod Serling, balancing on the line between those two lofty peaks is a worthy endeavor, and Peele is accomplishing the task with an astonishing level of skill. That he has this innate level of talent at the beginning of his feature career hints that we may have already been robbed of years of terrific films. Assuming that he continues to build on those skills in ways that I can’t at this point wrap my head around, promises that we will have a number of years of even greater films left to enjoy.

The more I gush or try to deeply think about this film, the more I start sounding like Dean Armitage (Whitford, channeling just enough of Josh Lyman to keep me eternally unsettled), so I almost wonder if I should keep this simple. This is brilliant, thoughtful, thrilling film executed with profound skill. If you’ve seen it before and loved it, it only gets better with repeat viewing. If you haven’t seen it, you should rectify your error. If you saw it, and weren’t on board with the film, you may need to re-think your life far more aggressively.