Complete A-Z list


Godzilla King of the Monsters

4/10

Stars: Kyle Chandler, Vera Farmiga, Millie Bobby Brown, Ken Watanabe, Charles Dance, Bradley Whitford, Aisha Hinds, Ziyi Zhang, Sally Hawkins, O'Shea Jackson Jr, David Strathairn, CCH Pounder, Joe Morton

Director: Michael Dougherty

Forget the monster tag: Godzilla is the good guy in this one. He's Earth's last hope after batty scientist Farmiga, who's cuddling up to the enormous Mothra when her facility is invaded by mercenaries led by power-hungry Dance, decides to revive all the monsters of Japanese folklore and restore the original balance... 'to the natural rulers - the Titans'. All that results, of course, is monsters killing each other off in between decimating mankind...

At any rate, back come the bird-like Rodan, Mothra, various spidery things and especially the frozen-in-ice Monster Zero, who turns out to be none other than King Ghidorah, a sort of three-headed dragon whose heads regrow immediately if one is chopped (or chomped) off.

There follows a massive monster mash, saddled with a chaotic story, incoherent narrative and dialogue that's often more worth a laugh than a thrill.

Although Ghidorah and Mothra are particularly well realised in impressive detail, one of the series' chief flaws - and it's more noticeable here than before - is that Godzilla himself never seems real: more of a robot with scales than a prehistoric creature.

David Quinlan

USA 2019. UK Distributor: Warner Brothers. Technicolor.
126 minutes. Widescreen. UK certificate: 12A.

Guidance ratings (out of 3): Sex/nudity 0, Violence/Horror 2, Drugs 0, Swearing 0.

Review date: 08 Oct 2019

DVD review