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So yesterday I finally watched Legendary's second Godzilla movie, King of the Monsters. So yes, I have lots of feelings about it.
For the non-spoilery reactions, check out my tweets XD. But since this post was supposed to be reviewing this, of course there'll be spoilers. So thread at your own risk.
First thing off... I have to lay this out first. Prior to watching the movie I had the slight fear of the movie not being that great. Well... blame it to the most recent trailer. Frankly, I just hate the possibility of the movie pulling a Jurassic World on me. That aside, I'm not really that interested on random human characters going making snide comments on how they're at the mercy of these giants etc. Actually, I can't really describe the feeling tbh.
Anyway, the movie started with a flashback from the 2014 movie, with the focus on this family (was this the same fam from the movie that was the main focus of the narrative, I'm not sure. Because I can't remember! I need to rewatch that 2014 thing!) whose parental figure were part of Monarch, and they're looking for the their missing son. In vain.
Well, speed up to the present, the mum and the remaining daughter was living separately from the dad, whose of taking pictures of wolves in some random forest cos HE CAN. Turned out dad was leaving everything behind him while the mum was obsessed with kaiju. Oh, that besides the fact that the country was hyper aware of the kaiju issue now and there are people being concerned about their safety... and all that jazz. Usual stuff. Back to this fam, well... the daughter was still corresponding with dad, and she almost about to talk about how the mum start behaving strangely. We'll get to this later... apparently this was an important thing. But I guess, mum can't help it PTSD and stuff... and losing your son can't be fun.
Anyway, Monarch got into some shit now... what with the shit about the MUTO part (and I still effing hate those OC monsters DX) and all the jazz. So now the Monarch tryna argue with the military about NOT tryna exterminate the monsters and to try understanding them. In which, I appreciate the reference... like it's kinda reminiscent of the scene with Dr. Yamane presenting his discovery to the big brass as a scientist. That's fine, I guess... 'cept near the mid of it when they got an urgent call and hastily left, a random dude just HAD to make the scene slightly 'comedic' with 'sorry gotta go but here's a short vid you might wanna watch to try consider these kaiju like your average zoological creatures' kiddy docu. WHY?
Anyway, turned out the mum scientist (and her team) was monitoring a sleeping Mothra larvae who started awakening. And while Mothra-chan's not being too happy about that, mum scientist pull out this device to try to 'calm' her. It seemed not working as the daughter feared for the mother and ran to help the mum, but then it worked. Mothra-chan got calmed. All seem fair and lovely... but then in come some terrorist. People die... and mum/daughter got kidnapped. So this, was THAT urgent thing.
So what to do but call daddy back, and apparently the device was originally a created by daddy... and destroyed. But mum put it back together again. Why? Angry dad is angry. And resentful. And wanna all kaiju dead. Godzilla too. Cos yanno, dead(?) son. I dun really care much about the human plot... so move along. Basically the device was called ORCA and it's supposed to mimic the monster cries to try communicate with them. And now the bad guys got them. Bad guys apparently some eco-terrorist that kinda like PETA too since they also tryna 'profit' on the kaiju too, like yanno... black market stuff? They apparently into collecting monster DNAs and freeing them and stuff. And apparently they've got their hands on other monsters before this. But Mothra still escaped tho?
Anyway, later on bad guys went to Antartica... cos the're after Monster Zero aka... hello King Ghidorah. And good guys not far behind.
The good guys were at some new underwater base, cos... monitoring Godzilla. Who'd not really missing. But then, Debu-zilla came over to say hi a bit anyway to freak the good guys a bit. And some bloke wonder if it's a 'sign' and they saw he's been hovering/restless over some location and good guys go oshit, Monster Zero!
On the side of the bad guys... as expected, they wanna free KG.Like good yo, very 'brilliant' idea. Godd guys came over and fight. Dad wanna save mum and daughter... but PLOT TWIST! Mum's actually with the baddies and free KG. Yooooooooooo
And stuff happened afterwards with KG rampaging and good guys got eaten, die... almost die. But Debu-chan came to help! But baddies ran away (mum tryna control KG a bit, daughter too cos wanna save dad... but nah) Good guy backup came and survivors lived. Mum later contact the dudes but dudes be... I dun trust you. LIke duh. Said wanna restore balance in the world cos humans did shit. The usual. Anyway, epic battle come and KG turned out more than baddies can handle. Kg woke some other kaiju too and HELLO Final War flashbacks. The story's basically Final War 2.0 at this point tbh. Round 1 KG vs Godzilla, Godzilla lose. Cos some stupid human wanna kacau, thought can kill both but kill wrong kaiju. THEY REGRETS! They even using 'ol Serizawa's pirated Oxygen Destroyer to tops! The nerve... (I still cried at the refs tbh)
Back at China, apparently Mothra-chan finally evolving to moth form! Ya...and it appeared that one of the earlier scientist that appeared earlier had a twin, and they're from a long lines of twins family that had worked at Monarch for ages! Gonna talk about this later. Turn out, Godzilla wasn't really ded and apparently Moth-chan can help look for him cos Ghidorah's just bad news man. So stuff leads up to Round 2 battle, the daughter of protag escaped with ORCA and make a huge phone call to get all the kaiju to hand together. Apparently that was the baddie's idea but she stole that and roll with it.
So good guy tryna locate Godzilla and found some underground hiding spot. And tryna help revive Godzilla. And since we have a young Serizawa candidate anyway, you know the rules... all Serizawa's had to be all heroic and go on suicide missions. But hey! Big boy revives! So Round 2 later and it should be obvious who's gonna win.
Well, that's the gist. Basically. I just kinda glaze over the details but then again people should just watch the damn thing anyway than reading this to know the plot. ANYWAY...
Yes, I'm still glad that the movie didn't suck. Much. And that the battles are GOOD. I still don't like how the mum lady going 'Jurassic Park' on me and thinking wanna be the kaiju savior and thinks she's all good. Ah well, she sorta redeemed herself later but whatever. I still don't like the statement where the dad going 'we're gonna join the fight' line cos, honestly...you think you're really equal to Godzilla? Seriously? Maybe you didn't intend to sound like that but it still gives off that feel to me. But human plots here are not important much anyway so that's fine. I dun like tat female general too, come to think. I dun like her way of talking... but that applies to A LOT of dialogues in this movie actually. The lines for the baddies were written nicer...
And yea. I cried a LOT in the movie. Because Mothra is LOVE and Godzilla too while he's still kinda Debu (but the lame Oxygen Destroyer at least helped him to slim up a bit and the extra juice Serizawa gave later juiced him up). But that also because the Goji/Mothra theme also gave all the feels. I EFFING CRIED AT THE FACT THE OXYGEN DESTROYER WAS BROUGHT BACK WTH!!
Still. That pirated Oxygen Destroyer was a SHAM. Thank goodness for people in the movie anyway, but yea. The original Oxygen Destroyer literally reduced Godzilla into bones in a few minutes! But I guess, other people can't replicate the original Destroyer hahahahaha. Good then. And I definitely expected the Serizawa sacrifice tbh, that's typical of all Serizawa people seriously. I called it the moment ppl say the weapon system down and have to send the nuclear heads manually and it's a suicide mission. Serizawa was feeling down anyway since earlier one of his closest colleague got eaten by Ghidorah. Yea...
Though, as much as I LOVE that Mothra was in this movie, I'm still kinda iffy at some stuff. Like how in some scenes Mothra showed some aggressions? Which is so unlike her since she's docile most of the time but I guess it's deserving COS WTF THERE'S NO SHOBIJIN/PEANUT TWINS BY HER SIDE??? No wonder she's ANGER. Well... on that. Also another mixed feeling about that. Since the Shobijins were kinda there and not really there at the same time? Cos YES, the Dr. Ling and Dr. Chen twin! If there's any subtle hints about the shobijins it's THERE! Like... see all the female twins lineup! And the fact one half of the twin was guarding Mothra before she gained her wings! But seriously... why DON't they be actually Shobijins???????? Cos then at least to Mothra you can communicate with her properly without that vague ORCA thing that's don't really allow proper communications. Or more like pseudo mind control stuff. Like I get it you dun wan to bother with the song et al, but why? The Shobijins were what makes Mothra unique compared to the other Kaijus? Also, Mothra in the movie was more like Battra at times. Even during her larval state. Like Mothra's attacks are usually the soft/passive types... and not literally stab people with her sharp legs whut? Hmmm.
Rodan got their cool points too but i'm not really familiar with them so yeah. There's some other familiar other kaiju making cameos too... or lookalikes. I mean, there's one that kinda give off the Ebirah vibe but not really? Also, the Final Wars wibe, like really... KG is kinda like the position Gigan was in and the others were like doing the same thing like wrecking havoc all over the continent. A random MUTO (wth, I thought ppl killed them off last time!) sorta filled the same role as Zilla's appearance in Final Wars. There's a random mammoth looking OC too, I'm like... wha?
No King Caesar tho. Which is a shame. Like you have 17 (currently) known kaiju locations... and one was in JP, yet you didn't use this chance to have King Caesar there? But then again in Mothra's case too, the location where the egg was hidden was NOT on Infant Island, but somewhere in China. Heh.
Oh yes. As much as this movie didn't pull the 'main kaiju motive is to mate' plotline that was on the 2014 movie as well as 1999 horrid one, I'm kinda miffed as to why you STILL wanna list that out as a potential motive? Like DUDE! As much as both King Ghidorah and Rodan had wings, I doubted that either of them wanna hook up together. And as much as Godzilla is King and Mothra-chan is Queen of the monsters, I DOUBT their relationship was like some inter-species king/queen couple. STOP!
That said, liked the fact that they used the term Titans as the english version of the term Kaiju. Cos the weebooism can be out of place here.
Movie also had a post credit scene, which was reminiscent of past few Toho ends. It'll be interesting if Mecha-King Ghidorah pop out in future movie.
For the non-spoilery reactions, check out my tweets XD. But since this post was supposed to be reviewing this, of course there'll be spoilers. So thread at your own risk.
First thing off... I have to lay this out first. Prior to watching the movie I had the slight fear of the movie not being that great. Well... blame it to the most recent trailer. Frankly, I just hate the possibility of the movie pulling a Jurassic World on me. That aside, I'm not really that interested on random human characters going making snide comments on how they're at the mercy of these giants etc. Actually, I can't really describe the feeling tbh.
Anyway, the movie started with a flashback from the 2014 movie, with the focus on this family (was this the same fam from the movie that was the main focus of the narrative, I'm not sure. Because I can't remember! I need to rewatch that 2014 thing!) whose parental figure were part of Monarch, and they're looking for the their missing son. In vain.
Well, speed up to the present, the mum and the remaining daughter was living separately from the dad, whose of taking pictures of wolves in some random forest cos HE CAN. Turned out dad was leaving everything behind him while the mum was obsessed with kaiju. Oh, that besides the fact that the country was hyper aware of the kaiju issue now and there are people being concerned about their safety... and all that jazz. Usual stuff. Back to this fam, well... the daughter was still corresponding with dad, and she almost about to talk about how the mum start behaving strangely. We'll get to this later... apparently this was an important thing. But I guess, mum can't help it PTSD and stuff... and losing your son can't be fun.
Anyway, Monarch got into some shit now... what with the shit about the MUTO part (and I still effing hate those OC monsters DX) and all the jazz. So now the Monarch tryna argue with the military about NOT tryna exterminate the monsters and to try understanding them. In which, I appreciate the reference... like it's kinda reminiscent of the scene with Dr. Yamane presenting his discovery to the big brass as a scientist. That's fine, I guess... 'cept near the mid of it when they got an urgent call and hastily left, a random dude just HAD to make the scene slightly 'comedic' with 'sorry gotta go but here's a short vid you might wanna watch to try consider these kaiju like your average zoological creatures' kiddy docu. WHY?
Anyway, turned out the mum scientist (and her team) was monitoring a sleeping Mothra larvae who started awakening. And while Mothra-chan's not being too happy about that, mum scientist pull out this device to try to 'calm' her. It seemed not working as the daughter feared for the mother and ran to help the mum, but then it worked. Mothra-chan got calmed. All seem fair and lovely... but then in come some terrorist. People die... and mum/daughter got kidnapped. So this, was THAT urgent thing.
So what to do but call daddy back, and apparently the device was originally a created by daddy... and destroyed. But mum put it back together again. Why? Angry dad is angry. And resentful. And wanna all kaiju dead. Godzilla too. Cos yanno, dead(?) son. I dun really care much about the human plot... so move along. Basically the device was called ORCA and it's supposed to mimic the monster cries to try communicate with them. And now the bad guys got them. Bad guys apparently some eco-terrorist that kinda like PETA too since they also tryna 'profit' on the kaiju too, like yanno... black market stuff? They apparently into collecting monster DNAs and freeing them and stuff. And apparently they've got their hands on other monsters before this. But Mothra still escaped tho?
Anyway, later on bad guys went to Antartica... cos the're after Monster Zero aka... hello King Ghidorah. And good guys not far behind.
The good guys were at some new underwater base, cos... monitoring Godzilla. Who'd not really missing. But then, Debu-zilla came over to say hi a bit anyway to freak the good guys a bit. And some bloke wonder if it's a 'sign' and they saw he's been hovering/restless over some location and good guys go oshit, Monster Zero!
On the side of the bad guys... as expected, they wanna free KG.Like good yo, very 'brilliant' idea. Godd guys came over and fight. Dad wanna save mum and daughter... but PLOT TWIST! Mum's actually with the baddies and free KG. Yooooooooooo
And stuff happened afterwards with KG rampaging and good guys got eaten, die... almost die. But Debu-chan came to help! But baddies ran away (mum tryna control KG a bit, daughter too cos wanna save dad... but nah) Good guy backup came and survivors lived. Mum later contact the dudes but dudes be... I dun trust you. LIke duh. Said wanna restore balance in the world cos humans did shit. The usual. Anyway, epic battle come and KG turned out more than baddies can handle. Kg woke some other kaiju too and HELLO Final War flashbacks. The story's basically Final War 2.0 at this point tbh. Round 1 KG vs Godzilla, Godzilla lose. Cos some stupid human wanna kacau, thought can kill both but kill wrong kaiju. THEY REGRETS! They even using 'ol Serizawa's pirated Oxygen Destroyer to tops! The nerve... (I still cried at the refs tbh)
Back at China, apparently Mothra-chan finally evolving to moth form! Ya...and it appeared that one of the earlier scientist that appeared earlier had a twin, and they're from a long lines of twins family that had worked at Monarch for ages! Gonna talk about this later. Turn out, Godzilla wasn't really ded and apparently Moth-chan can help look for him cos Ghidorah's just bad news man. So stuff leads up to Round 2 battle, the daughter of protag escaped with ORCA and make a huge phone call to get all the kaiju to hand together. Apparently that was the baddie's idea but she stole that and roll with it.
So good guy tryna locate Godzilla and found some underground hiding spot. And tryna help revive Godzilla. And since we have a young Serizawa candidate anyway, you know the rules... all Serizawa's had to be all heroic and go on suicide missions. But hey! Big boy revives! So Round 2 later and it should be obvious who's gonna win.
Well, that's the gist. Basically. I just kinda glaze over the details but then again people should just watch the damn thing anyway than reading this to know the plot. ANYWAY...
Yes, I'm still glad that the movie didn't suck. Much. And that the battles are GOOD. I still don't like how the mum lady going 'Jurassic Park' on me and thinking wanna be the kaiju savior and thinks she's all good. Ah well, she sorta redeemed herself later but whatever. I still don't like the statement where the dad going 'we're gonna join the fight' line cos, honestly...you think you're really equal to Godzilla? Seriously? Maybe you didn't intend to sound like that but it still gives off that feel to me. But human plots here are not important much anyway so that's fine. I dun like tat female general too, come to think. I dun like her way of talking... but that applies to A LOT of dialogues in this movie actually. The lines for the baddies were written nicer...
And yea. I cried a LOT in the movie. Because Mothra is LOVE and Godzilla too while he's still kinda Debu (but the lame Oxygen Destroyer at least helped him to slim up a bit and the extra juice Serizawa gave later juiced him up). But that also because the Goji/Mothra theme also gave all the feels. I EFFING CRIED AT THE FACT THE OXYGEN DESTROYER WAS BROUGHT BACK WTH!!
Still. That pirated Oxygen Destroyer was a SHAM. Thank goodness for people in the movie anyway, but yea. The original Oxygen Destroyer literally reduced Godzilla into bones in a few minutes! But I guess, other people can't replicate the original Destroyer hahahahaha. Good then. And I definitely expected the Serizawa sacrifice tbh, that's typical of all Serizawa people seriously. I called it the moment ppl say the weapon system down and have to send the nuclear heads manually and it's a suicide mission. Serizawa was feeling down anyway since earlier one of his closest colleague got eaten by Ghidorah. Yea...
Though, as much as I LOVE that Mothra was in this movie, I'm still kinda iffy at some stuff. Like how in some scenes Mothra showed some aggressions? Which is so unlike her since she's docile most of the time but I guess it's deserving COS WTF THERE'S NO SHOBIJIN/PEANUT TWINS BY HER SIDE??? No wonder she's ANGER. Well... on that. Also another mixed feeling about that. Since the Shobijins were kinda there and not really there at the same time? Cos YES, the Dr. Ling and Dr. Chen twin! If there's any subtle hints about the shobijins it's THERE! Like... see all the female twins lineup! And the fact one half of the twin was guarding Mothra before she gained her wings! But seriously... why DON't they be actually Shobijins???????? Cos then at least to Mothra you can communicate with her properly without that vague ORCA thing that's don't really allow proper communications. Or more like pseudo mind control stuff. Like I get it you dun wan to bother with the song et al, but why? The Shobijins were what makes Mothra unique compared to the other Kaijus? Also, Mothra in the movie was more like Battra at times. Even during her larval state. Like Mothra's attacks are usually the soft/passive types... and not literally stab people with her sharp legs whut? Hmmm.
Rodan got their cool points too but i'm not really familiar with them so yeah. There's some other familiar other kaiju making cameos too... or lookalikes. I mean, there's one that kinda give off the Ebirah vibe but not really? Also, the Final Wars wibe, like really... KG is kinda like the position Gigan was in and the others were like doing the same thing like wrecking havoc all over the continent. A random MUTO (wth, I thought ppl killed them off last time!) sorta filled the same role as Zilla's appearance in Final Wars. There's a random mammoth looking OC too, I'm like... wha?
No King Caesar tho. Which is a shame. Like you have 17 (currently) known kaiju locations... and one was in JP, yet you didn't use this chance to have King Caesar there? But then again in Mothra's case too, the location where the egg was hidden was NOT on Infant Island, but somewhere in China. Heh.
Oh yes. As much as this movie didn't pull the 'main kaiju motive is to mate' plotline that was on the 2014 movie as well as 1999 horrid one, I'm kinda miffed as to why you STILL wanna list that out as a potential motive? Like DUDE! As much as both King Ghidorah and Rodan had wings, I doubted that either of them wanna hook up together. And as much as Godzilla is King and Mothra-chan is Queen of the monsters, I DOUBT their relationship was like some inter-species king/queen couple. STOP!
That said, liked the fact that they used the term Titans as the english version of the term Kaiju. Cos the weebooism can be out of place here.
Movie also had a post credit scene, which was reminiscent of past few Toho ends. It'll be interesting if Mecha-King Ghidorah pop out in future movie.
So yeah, basically the movie was fun. I enjoyed it, despite the fact that I really don't like half of the human-centric plots. But the Kaiju side don't disappoint.
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