“My God…”
“ZILLA!”
It’s difficult to pin an exact tone on Godzilla: King of the Monsters. There’s that delightful exchange between Bradley Whitford (we are here for all of his commentary) and Kyle Chandler. But there’s also a soulful instrumental rendition of “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” to announce the return of 17 (and counting!) titans amid the final showdown between King Ghidorah and Godzilla himself. And we’re not sure if the “ONE KING TO RULE THEM ALL” tagline is a joke for Lord of the Rings fans, but we were tickled regardless.
Check out the final trailer, full of storms and titan clashes and humans screaming for their champion slash pet owner to survive to Godzilla vs. Kong, dammit:
Here’s the official synopsis from Warner Bros, with the reminder that this will be the middle installment in a quartet of MonsterVerse films that began with Godzilla and Kong: Skull Island, and will conclude with Godzilla vs. Kong in 2020:
Following the global success of Godzilla and Kong: Skull Island comes the next chapter in Warner Bros. Pictures’ and Legendary Pictures’ cinematic MonsterVerse, an epic action adventure that pits Godzilla against some of the most popular monsters in pop culture history. The new story follows the heroic efforts of the crypto-zoological agency Monarch as its members face 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. When these ancient super-species—thought to be mere myths—rise again, they all vie for supremacy, leaving humanity’s very existence hanging in the balance.
Godzilla: King of the Monsters comes to theaters May 31.
It certainly looks more promising than the 2014 movie; although I am concerned about that “set free” Godzilla line, which seems to imply that the pathetic squishy humans are more competent than they ought to be in a Kaiju movie. I dunno, I might still just wait for a home release rather than the cinema one. It takes more to get me to the movies these days, not even Avengers Endgame is managing it (unless some cinema decides to go rogue and put an intermission in it, because I am not sitting for three hours plus credits to catch the phase four setup which will probably introduce the next version of Wolverine). And Avengers Endgame is the movie everybody on the planet will be going to the cinema for.
@1/random22: There are quite a few kaiju movies built around the competence and resourcefulness of human scientists, military, and authorities in fighting the monsters, just as there are others built around their fundamental inability to cope with something so far beyond us. Many are about both, in that the humans do their very best all around but are ultimately outmatched, or conversely in that they’re outmatched for most of the film but finally devise a winning strategy.
In fact, I can’t think of many kaiju films that are dependent on a lack of human competence. I suppose some of the more bitingly political/allegorical films take that tack to a degree. Godzilla 1984 was somewhat about how the Cold War brinkmanship and screw-ups of the Western superpowers made the Godzilla threat worse. Godzilla vs. Megaguirus was somewhat about government incompetence and corruption allowing banned energy experiments that lured Godzilla to attack, as well as inadvertently letting the latter title monster into the world through a botched anti-Godzilla experiment. Godzilla, Mothra, King Ghidorah: Giant Monsters All-Out Attack was an allegorical critique of how Japanese society had forgotten its culpability for the crimes of WWII, and so it showed the populace taking Godzilla for granted and not treating the kaiju menace seriously, so that they were caught off guard when the attacks came. And then there’s the recent Shin Godzilla, which is largely a procedural about how the meeting-obsessed Japanese government is too slow and unprepared to deal with an unprecedented threat. However, all these films center on a core cast of ultra-competent protagonists who manage to save the day through their skill and fearless dedication.
I suppose the human characters in the Godzilla anime trilogy are pretty lacking in competence and way out of their depth. The trilogy is one of the darkest, most cynical and nihilistic Godzilla stories I’ve ever seen, with the message basically being that we’re doomed to self-destruction if we ever allow ourselves to have technology more advanced than the Stone Age.