I learned in the last couple weeks that more people than I realized didn’t like the 2014 Godzilla. I liked it then and I still like it now. People complained about how little actual Godzilla action we got in that movie, but the amount matched up well with a lot of old Godzilla movies and what we did get was amazing. I heard the same complaint about not enough of the monsters leveled at Godzilla: King of the Monsters, which is how I know that some people will never be satisfied. There are flaws with Godzilla: King of the Monsters, but not enough of the monsters is not one of them. As a longtime fan of Godzilla, I loved it. Instead of trying to make Godzilla serious or scientific, the movie is just an old style Godzilla movie with a ludicrous budget behind it. It is big, dumb and loud and I loved every second of it.

Getting the bad out of the way first; nothing any of the people do in this movie makes much sense or is interesting at all. It is a lot of overqualified actors spouting nonsense and giving the viewer a lens through which to watch a handful of giant monsters duke it out. Secret government organization Monarch is fighting against the military’s desire to destroy Godzilla and the other monsters that have been found. This threat is taken very seriously despite the fact that in 65 years of Godzilla movies militaries have killed exactly 0 Godzillas. Meanwhile, Charles Dance and his group of eco-terrorists want to wake the monsters and basically destroy humanity. Caught in the middle is a family consisting of Vera Farmiga, Millie Bobby Brown and Kyle Chandler, who have a device that can kind of control the monsters. Sally Hawkins is there, so are O’Shea Jackson, Jr. and Bradley Whitford. The human who matters is Ken Watanabe as Dr. Serizawa, who reveres Godzilla and seems to have some understanding of how the newly named Titans work.

The real draw are the monsters, and those are great. King of the Monsters loosely follows the outline of Ghidorah: The Three Headed monster, one of my favorite Godzilla movies. It keeps the same four main monsters from that movie. You have Godzilla and Ghidorah, of course, but there are also the other two monsters featured in that movie: Rodan and Mothra. Mothra is a Godzilla staple, Rodan was one in the 1960s. I would hesitate to say that any of the four have been reimagined for this movie, though I do have things to say about some changes to Mothra, but they have been updated. Something that this movie, the previous one and Kong: Skull Island have all done well is give each monster personality. They aren’t just big CGI nothings, they are characters. Godzilla acts the same here as he did in the 2014 movie. He is a brute; he fights mean. Instead of being more dinosaur-like, in these movies he reminds me of a kind of scaly bear. With Ghidorah they did an excellent job of making each of his three heads somewhat distinct. They all act a little different from the others. Ghidorah is cruel and sadistic. While Godzilla fights mean, Ghidorah is simply mean on his own. Rodan is probably the least distinct of the big four, but he has his own air of petty cruelty. Rodan is kind of a classic bully. He appears to get pleasure out of taking down the tiny fighter jets flying around; he’s not destroying them because they attacked him, but because they can. Rodan also crumples like a wet bag when faced with a challenge. The monster that got the most significant update is Mothra. Mothra still does the life cycle, starting as a worm like larva before cocooning and then hatching into a giant moth. Here, though, Mothra is not just a moth, she is also kind of a wasp or hornet. Mothra is also the only monster that appears to be benevolent to humanity.

The monsters fight. And they are great fights. Godzilla and Ghirodah go three rounds, and Mothra and Rodan get in there for some serious action as well. The only part where the movie struggles with this is that three of the four monsters can fly, with only Godzilla stuck on the ground. While this is used against him, it does make for the occasional unevenness in the fight scenes. I loved all of the fights. It delivered everything I wanted from them.

I haven’t really described anything that could be called plot, because there really isn’t anything worth describing. The most interesting part of the actual story is when King of the Monsters subverts the original Godzilla. In that movie, a Dr. Serizawa develops an oxygen destroyer that kills Godzilla. In this movie, Dr. Serizawa fights to save Godzilla, eventually helping him recover from an oxygen destroyer. While his sacrifice is complete nonsense, it is interesting how here he gives his life to save Godzilla rather than destroy him.

The movie left me numbed, but euphoric. It was thrilling and exhausting. I can see the inanity of the plot turning some people off, but it is exactly the big budget Godzilla movie that I have always wanted.

****