Godzilla: King of the Monsters vs. The World

It should come as no surprise that I absolutely adored Godzilla: King of the Monsters; I found its simplistic characters and whacky story very cheesy and old school in a good way, but more than that, I was completely and hopelessly sold on its monsters, which the film portrayed beautifully and masterfully. But it seems that my position that this film is awesome is not one held by professional critics; the majority of which having spent the week of the film's release bashing it, and despite being an amazing film, its opening weekend box office numbers were worryingly low and in the following weeks, it's only gotten worse. So what happened to King of the Monsters: why are the critics hating on it, why are they wrong, because of course I think they're wrong, and why did this Godzilla film suffer at the box office? Well, me, a fool with a blog, an opinion, and an out of control obsession with Godzilla, will now try to provide you with some answers, and I'll be doing this while dabbling in spoilers for King of the Monsters, which is your obligatory warning, I'm going to talk about the scenes in Godzilla: King of the Monsters that turned me into a weeping mess, talk about bias.

Let's get the grimmer topic out of the way first; the Box office. Godzilla: King of the Monsters was projected to gross fifty to sixty million dollars domestic on its opening weekend, in reality it fell a hair shy of those projections at forty-seven million. It fared better internationally, grossing one-hundred and thirty million with half of that coming from China, thank you China. The film opened in the top spot in America, dethroning the previous champion; Aladdin, and the same is true in China, but in my miserable neck of the woods, it failed to kick Aladdin off the top spot, I knew I should have seen it a fourth time. But why are these numbers worrying, apart from the obvious, well; the 2014 Godzilla opened to ninety-three million domestic, which was crazy good, right there you can see the issue though, its behind its predecessor by basically half, almost fifty million dollars. Compounding this issue is the fact that King of the Monsters could have cost as much as forty million more to make than its predecessor, which has no doubt given investors far and wide the heebie-jeebies. Things didn't get better at all in the second weekend where the film dived to forth at the domestic box office with a dismal fifteen-million dollars, though the drop in the international market wasn't quite as frighteningly sharp. But let's be realistic, this isn't bomb territory, not yet at least, the film managed to claw in its alleged production budget in its opening weekend, but it is hard to deny that the film is failing at the box office, or that it even managing to break even is getting more unlikely with each passing week, even with an extended run in China, its most successful market.

This is very disconcerting for this budding cinematic universe, one I fully want to see succeed because it's Godzilla, of course I do, but the third instalment and the lead in to its Avengers event; next year's Godzilla vs. Kong, falling short of even breaking even at the box office, yeah, not good. I feel that the reason for this is unfortunately simple however, and that would be the size of this film's audience. Like a lot of Japanese properties, Godzilla's core audience isn't very big, and outside of that core audience, there just isn't enough mass appeal. Now, you may be wondering, it's selling itself as a big, loud, spectacular monster mash, how could this go wrong, well, Godzilla and Kaiju as a whole just isn't that big in the west; obviously everyone's heard of him because he's a sixty-five-year-old icon of culture, but in western, English speaking countries, people who have actually watched a Godzilla film are much harder to find, and if you ignore the two American films, that number shrinks massively. As a favourite YouTube channel of mine; Midnight's Edge hypothesised, the 2014 film was most likely boosted at the box office by the novelty factor of it being the new American Godzilla, and that's almost certainly right. This film however doesn't have that novelty factor, nor does the novelty factor of it starring Ghidorah, Mothra and Rodan carry much weight because these guys are practically unheard-of outside of Godzilla's core audience, and since the first film was so restrained with its monsters, making it very divisive, that certainly turned off a good chunk of the film's potential audience.



A blurry photo I took a few years ago at my local supermarket
I was so surprised when I saw it that I, well, took a photo

It's here that the film's nature becomes an issue too, because it being so unapologetically Godzilla doesn't exactly make it accessible; it being a film in the spirit of Godzilla's goofier, more absurd adventures of the 60's and 70's, its outlandishness was never really going to stick with any massive, modern audience of normies who's favourite film franchise is the MCU, and that's despite this film not even being that weird compared to the old Godzilla films it's so lovingly paying homage to. In the UK, where the film opened in second place at the box office, the matter of Godzilla just not being that popular is made all the more apparent. You can't even buy Godzilla films on DVD and Blu-ray over here, outside of the original, Shin Godzilla and the two American films, they're stupidly inconvenient to get your hands on unless you're prepared to pirate, not that anyone cares because no one gives a shit about Godzilla. Being a fan of Godzilla has been a very lonely existence for me and this is still the case, despite the 2014 film and despite King of the Monsters. Godzilla and the kaiju genre as a whole just isn't big enough in the west, it's still a very niche genre that still hasn't and probably never will reach the same level of success as the Superhero genre for example. That being said, next year will probably be an exception to this rather depressing rule, since the novelty factor that propelled the 2014 film to success may very well return for Godzilla vs. Kong, a clash of two of the oldest and most iconic monsters of cinema, of east and west, of King and God, either that or it'll be in the same boat as King of the Monsters, a very rickety, unstable boat where breaking even is a best case scenario. But was the film's box office effected by the critical response, to be honest, I'm not sure.

On one hand, Rotten Tomatoes, which will once again by our punching bag of the day, has been losing credibility for years; with its verified critics getting more and more out of touch, the divide between them and the general public getting wider and wider, and of course the time they torpedoed their own integrity in response to the Captain Marvel controversy, which only happened a few months ago. On the other hand, however, people outside of, shall we say, certain circles don't seem to have caught on that Rotten Tomatoes is cancer or, for that matter, what's really going on every time we get a situation like Captain Marvel or Ghostbusters. This side of the movie going public doesn't exactly have their finger on the pulse of the culture war or any similar internet conflict, either not knowing, not giving a fuck, or mindlessly toeing the line every time a backlash bubbles up. it's this group that has me worried since they're much more inclined to take RT's Rotten rating at face value or worse, misinterpret the RT score as an objective measure of the film's quality, which isn't even remotely the case. Making the problem worse is the existing public perception of Godzilla which, outside of his depressingly small but fanatical base audience, isn't good, with Godzilla being seen as a cheesy, dumb movie about a rubber dinosaur crushing buildings which, ironically, is the strain of Godzilla this film homages. The obvious downside to this is that while the film would almost certainly be embraced by that fanatical fanbase, it would never have been accepted by either the snobby, politically correct intelligentsia of film critics, or by the normie army that made Captain Marvel a smash hit despite it being a mediocre movie with an aggressive and corrosive political message.

That being said, we once again have a huge split between the RT Critic and Audience scores, which isn't surprising in the slightest because it's such a common occurrence on this piss-take of a site. It's a meme at this point that the critics are completely and utterly out of touch when it comes to this film, and films in general but particularly this one, because the RT critical consensus reads; "Godzilla King of the Monsters delivers spectacular Kaiju action and reaffirms that cutting edge effects are still no substitute for a good story." I'm sure the meme potential of this is obvious, the critics seem to not like that this movie about giant monsters fighting each other is dumb, which is kind of ironic given that many of these critics probably wouldn't give any Japanese Godzilla films outside of the original and Shin Godzilla the time of day because they're cheesy and dumb. But that might not be fair, after all, it's only Rotten Tomatoes' silly consensus, so what are the individual critics saying. Fortunately, some critics can see the glaring hole in criticising this film for its silliness, unfortunately, they're in the minority, hens the Rotten score. The big issues are issues that most people, even including me, would concede exist, like the boring human story and the heavy exposition scenes, not to mention that were all of this real, bringing Godzilla back from the dead by blowing up a nuke in his face is one hell of a stretch, even if that doesn't break the rules of the Monsterverse and isn't even close to the dumbest thing a Godzilla movie has pulled off. But that's just the thing; none of this would be very shocking if these critics gave the "cheap" and "schlocky" Japanese films a chance, unless they did and they didn't like them because they are "cheap" and "schlocky," though admittedly, the film isn't doing itself any favours by being so blunt in its respects to Godzilla's past, a past that many critics ignore, wilfully or otherwise.

The film's reliance on exposition is a more pressing issue in my eyes, but like all the issues with the film, the critics are putting far, far too much weight on that crutch. I say crutch as it is one for both the film and the critics; for the film, it's cramming in as much lore and world-building as possible to the point that it risks hampering the audience's enjoyment, for the critics, it's singling out this narrative issue and using it as a stick to beat the film. Both of these things are true; King of the Monsters does have a lot of scenes of people explaining things which are bound to bore some people, but on the other hand, the critics are making a much bigger deal of it than I think they should because this exposition heavy method of storytelling is something that a lot of casual movie goers don't notice, it's only a film-breaking issue when it's done badly, take this year's Hellboy for example. But King of the Monsters' expositional scenes aren't that intrusive in the film, they don't crash the film's pace or insult your intelligence, nor do they stray away from the point of the film; the Monsters. I will admit that a lot of it's very convenient; giving Monarch a supersonic flying fortress is very silly, but who cares, it's cool and it means the human characters are always conveniently on the scene when the monster shit goes down. The human characters have plot armour and always manage to avoid getting stomped or eaten or gravity beamed, once again, who cares, it's cool; sure, Ghidorah could have just flattened Fenway Park and killed her that way, but Gravity beams, man, come on, and this franchise tried to be realistic in its depiction of mortality last time and everyone complained about it, they already killed Walter White, they wouldn't dare kill Eleven.

Godzilla: King of the Monsters does do some dumb things, that's not for debate, but why is that so offensive in this film when critics were eating up Avengers: Endgame, a film with a plot so convoluted that to even try to make sense of it risks dismantling the entire MCU, a film where one of its most emotionally gratifying moments hinges on a plot hole so wide you could fit Brie Larson's ego in it. That's a point that all of the negative critics have ignored, all of them, this film has emotional gratification in it just as Avengers: Endgame does, the issue is that it inevitably appeals to a much smaller audience than Avengers: Endgame, as while normies and critics have been getting wrapped up in the MCU for the last decade, Godzilla's audience is comparatively tiny but every bit as invested. For many of them, including myself, simply seeing these monsters on the big screen and seeing them done justice is enough; King of the Monsters' interpretations of the Toho monsters is perfect. Call me a bit tinfoil-hat for this one, but there's a notion floating around on the internet regarding the critics and this film and I think it's true; the critics wanted to hate it. Godzilla's later Showa years came to define the franchise in a way that undeniable damaged it; as the films became weirder and dumber and more family friendly, and while this created multiple generations of people who became G-fans as kids, it left a lot of people out; people who never got into it as kids and wouldn't even give it a chance as adults because to them, it's cheap schlock, it's garbage.

It's from this position of borderline ill-intent towards Godzilla that a lot of the film's critics exaggerate its flaws; the character drama sucks for example, even though it doesn't and is entirely functional, the characters are flat and undeveloped, even though they're not, they're just simple and, again, functional, and my favourite, the film is too dark and there's too much rain. I saw this complaint be made against Pacific Rim as well; that the film's action is not only obscured, but outright ruined by the overuse of weather effects, which would be an issue for both films if it was true, but it isn't. There is an abundance of weather effects but it's nowhere near enough to obscure the action, nor is it too dark. I've seen it compared to the Game of Thrones episode; The Long Night a few times, an episode that was bad for many, many reasons, not least of which being how dark it was, but King of the Monsters isn't even close to that level of dark, it also doesn't completely waste its villain and render its heroes indestructible retards, but that's a rant for another time, if I can be bothered. But the lighting has to be really, really bad for it to hamper a film when you're watching it on the big screen, looking at you, Solo, and King of the Monsters is not that bad, critics saying it's too dark and rainy are making a mountain out of a molehill, as they are with the rest of the film's flaws. Godzilla's human characters being little more than functions of the plot is nothing new, and not only is it nothing new, but the Russels, Jonah, Serizawa and company are on the stronger end of human characters, and none of this film's characters come even vaguely close to the level of cheese and annoyance of Roland Emmerich's Godzilla, this film has no Audrey.

Really, the only thing I kind of agree with them on is exposition, but even then, it's not as bad as they say it is, as I said before, this isn't Hellboy. And none of the critics who make this case seem to remember the entire Hollow Earth sequence, a sequence so good that it almost makes up for the exposition dumps in my opinion, or maybe all they remember from that scene was the nuke, not the complete reinvention of Godzilla lore and the film showing instead of telling. Oh yeah, then there's that; I'm sure I've seen this complaint be made somewhere, I can't find it in such explicit terms but I know the Mary Sue review of the film alluded to it, the notion that the film is somehow pro-US Army and that this is an insult to the origins of the character. Well first of all, I've always had trouble buying into the whole 'it's pro Army' argument; naturally, there are films out there where it's a bit too on the nose, usually films from the 90's and or directed by incompetent fools, think Roland Emmerich or Michael Bay, but, and correct me if I'm wrong, this argument feels more to me like people who are anti-US Army taking issue with it being positively represented. This isn't surprising given that, shall we say, certain parts of society today are generally anti-USA, you know the people I'm on about; progressive and communist activists who spend their time bashing the fascists with Twitter hashtags and comedically ineffectual protests, and since sites like The Mary Sue possess a blatant bias in favour of this ideology, it's not surprising at all that the US Army being the good guys would upset them a bit. But does this being the case in a Godzilla movie somehow undermine the meaning of Godzilla, well, that's kind of complicated, but I'd argue no.

This notion pisses me off, I'm just coming to come clean on that and explaining why will make me sound like a gatekeeper but I don't care. If we go back to 1954, Godzilla had a very clear anti-nuclear and anti-war message, that not only worked in the film's favour but was an unreplaceable part of its magic, If we fast forward to 2016, Shin Godzilla still has a clear anti-nuclear message but with a different focus, not on war but on Man's abuse of nature, but it's also a commentary on Politics and an expression of the idea that war isn't the only answer and once again, this is one of the film's strengths. These are, as I said before, the only two Godzilla films that non-Godzilla fans take seriously, and in the sixty-two years in-between is where this notion crashes and burns. Godzilla is nothing if not flexible, he's been everything from a force of nature risen to punish humanity, to a morally ambiguous antihero, to a demon fuelled by the raging vengeance of the dead, to a necessary evil in the battle for Earth, to a hero for children and a guardian of the Earth, all the way up to a physical embodiment of nature's dominion over all things, Godzilla has meant and can mean just about anything, and this isn't even considering the Monsterverse. If this American Godzilla somehow ruins the meaning of Godzilla, then it doesn't matter because Japan ruined him half a century ago, somewhere between sending him to space and making him a hero for environmentalism.

Which brings us to another criticism I've definitely heard about the film, it's ham-fisted environmental message, and once again, I'm going to throw this King of the Monsters defence into the ring of Politics. In my review for Aquaman, I made the joke that a lot of progressive types would be confused about the film because of its villain's fanatical environmentalism, that turned out to be unfounded, but fast forward to King of the Monsters and it's actually ringing true because this film's human baddies are eco-terrorists. I'm honestly baffled that people find the film's environmental message too aggressive, as if the villains' plan to end the world with giant monsters is even supposed to make sense. That's the point of their plan, it doesn't make sense, they're bad guys who want to end the world, their motives and methods don't really matter at that point. But somehow the critics seem to think these guys and their plan should be taken seriously, how. Going back to my joke from Aquaman and to my point about people being anti-USA, a lot of these critics have a strong, left-wing political bias, and just as the political left seems to hate America, they seem to just love saving the world and fighting climate change because they're just so virtuous. Similar to Black Panther's villain, Killmonger, it's a question of the ends justifying the means, Kilmonger wanted to end discrimination and oppression of black people, which is very virtuous and progressive, but his means of doing this was potentially killing billions of people in a race war. Jonah and Killmonger both want to save the world but they both intend to do it through genocide, which is why the Progressive left latch onto them so much because they are sympathetic to the ends and, in many cases, too morally deficient and collectivistic to see the inherent evil in the means, which sounds extreme, I know, but #KillAllMen was a real hashtag.

But unlike Killmonger, whose plan to arm the world's black population with sci fi weaponry and send them to kill the white population apparently made sense, Jonah and Emma's plan to level civilisation with kaiju and let them restart the world's natural order is stupid and silly. The notion that the Titans will rebirth the world with their 'good radiation' is daft, especially to anyone who's recently watched people's skin rot and melt off in HBO's Chernobyl, but unlike Chernobyl, King of the Monsters is science fiction, it's not real, and it's about giant radioactive dinosaurs that were worshiped by ancient humans, creatures whose radioactive footprint could very conceivably trigger the growth of prehistoric, radioactive plants in their wake, which effectively makes the Kaiju of the Monsterverse walking terraformers, creatures that create their own environment rather than adapting to it. It's silly for sure, but it isn't out of the realm of possibility for a film in which the heroes nuke Atlantis. Oh yeah, there's another thing, nukes, because the Japanese Godzilla films, or at least the two important ones, are very anti-nuclear, yet in King of the Monsters, not only do they use a nuke, but they actually do good with it; reviving an incapacitated Godzilla so that he can get back in the fight. This is undeniably a twist on Godzilla's history, given that he was originally an allegory for the nuke, a walking manifestation of their terrifying power, but as I explained before, Godzilla's flexible, his meaning has changed, his personality has changed, and most importantly, his relationship with humanity has changed. In the Monsterverse, Godzilla is portrayed as a literal god, an all-powerful, ancient force that protects the natural order and, by extension, mankind, who once worshiped him and build entire cities in his honour.

Godzilla in the Monsterverse is a good guy; in the first film, he is shown having no trouble killing humans in his way, but never deliberately killing or attacking people, even when they're shooting at him, yet in King of the Monsters this is changed, he goes out of his way to spare humans in the sequel, and the film very clearly establishes a history of him being worshiped by ancient humans. As I keep saying, Godzilla can mean and has meant many things, to the Japanese of the 1950's he was a terror; a manifestation of Japan's deepest anxieties and of Man's scientific hubris, but when interpreted by a different culture sixty years later, it's not only forgivable but expected that he would change, just as he did in 2016 with Shin Godzilla, and speaking for myself, I really love this interpretation of Godzilla as a hero, and can see his heroic quality winning over a lot of people because he's a badass. The same cannot be said for one aspect of Godzilla's history that's thrown into Godzilla: King of the Monsters, the Oxygen Destroyer, which is far less flexible in its meaning, not that that matters because it has no meaning in this film at all. I said as much in my review; that the ethical conundrum of Serizawa and his doomsday weapon isn't done justice in King of the Monsters, and that it being the creation of the US Army is a complete rejection of what it once stood for, I stand by that. But curiously, I haven't heard a single person bring this up, especially all the critics who love Godzilla but hate this movie, not to name any names, right, Chris? I'm not going to beat around the bush with this one, if anything the critics aren't saying about the film exposes their real thoughts on this series, it's this, because it's something the film undeniably does wrong, but they're too ignorant to see it because they're not actually fans and they cannot be trusted, I'm just going to say it.

This is starting to get really long now, so I'm going to start wrapping this up. I said earlier that the film has emotionally gratifying moments, comparing it to Avengers: Endgame, which has them in spite of glaring holes in its storytelling that many a critics have wilfully ignored, and if they can do it, so can I. Except it doesn't matter anyway because the plan to end the world with Ghidorah isn't supposed to make sense and the plan to resurrect Godzilla with a Nuke doesn't break the rules of the Monsterverse, outside of little things like the idea of good radiation, the film makes a lot more sense than the critics claim, and it certainly makes more sense than Endgame. And at the end of the day, even if nuking Atlantis to save Godzilla was stupid, I wouldn't care because I'd be too busy sobbing over Serizawa's goodbye and how his sacrifice was worth it in the end. That's what I mean when I say emotional gratification; the film has multiple moments that are almost designed to burrow into the hearts of Godzilla fans, you could call them fan service if you want, but at the end of the day, it's all about effectiveness and King of the Monsters is a very effective film. It's why the characters only being functional doesn't really matter when the whole film is taken into account, if they were bad characters, it'd be different but they're not bad, they get the job done and deliver a passable human drama, one that's ultimately just there to reinforce the monster drama, which with where it's at. The passable humans matter less than the execution of the monsters and as I've said many times, if the execution of the monsters sucked, the film would suck, but Dougherty clearly understands what makes these monsters tick and more importantly, what makes them so loved, giving us monsters that live up their Japanese counterparts and I'd argue even surpass them in some ways.

A scene I didn't want to spoil in my review was the scene where Mothra dies, it's the scene that got the strongest, most undignified reaction out of me because I was crying like a baby when it happened. Mothra's bravery and sacrifice cemented her as my favourite monster in the film as she, now barely able to fly after her fight with Rodan, suicidally charges at Ghidorah so that Godzilla may have the strength to beat him, and that magic, that absolute beauty, is something no one who hates this film seems to see, because to them, a big Moth just turned into magic dust that made Godzilla magically supercharged. That is what happens, but the emotional gratification of seeing it happen is something I can't put into words, just as simply seeing Mothra on the big screen and done justice is something I can't put into words, and maybe the novelty of seeing it just isn't enough for some people, but it is for me and no doubt countless others, because if this film was a Tour De Force that completely ruined the monsters, I'd have hated it, I'd have never forgiven it, whereas if this film was a Tour De Force that did them justice, I'd be calling this one of the best films ever made. It's all a matter of priorities; critics who want every film to make them feel smart will ignore what the film gets right because it doesn't suit their highly sophisticated tastes, Godzilla fans who just want to see their favourite monsters lovingly brought to the big screen will ignore what the film gets wrong because Big Monster, and I proudly find myself in the latter camp, because Long Live the Fucking King.


One King to Rule Them All
So yeah, the critics are wrong, Godzilla: King of the Monsters isn't some egregious sin of Hollywood, some abomination of writing that can't even be saved by the monsters, this is an attitude towards the film that is informed either by ignorance and inherent disliking of Godzilla, or by the misguided notion that the Godzilla film was ever supposed to be Oscar worthy. As I said, it's about priorities; the stuck up critics are looking at its simplistic and unremarkable human drama as if that's all that matters, the Godzilla fans meanwhile are looking at the monsters as if they're the only thing that matters, and I know that neither side is entirely wrong because the film could have been better, but that doesn't matter because Monsters, I'm a Godzilla fan and for better or worse, that's all that matters to me. It's just a shame that the film has suffered at the box office like it has, because it in no way deserved to, and while I think things will get better with Godzilla vs Kong, we'll just have to wait and see, either way, there's a good chance I'll be in the film's corner and, more importantly, that the critics won't, because they know nothing.