Quick Synopsis: It’s a monster movie, is the plot important?

The Monsterverse movies have been a huge success, the fact they’re big-budget movies that keep getting sequels is proof of that, especially since they’re made by Warner Bros, who have a tendency to cancel films and don’t let silly things like “It’s been completed and early reviews have been very positive” get in the way. But anyway, that’s enough about my bitterness over the Batgirl movie. I have watched all the Monsterverse movies at the cinema and reviewed most of them. But here’s the thing; I can’t remember any of them. I can’t remember any of the characters’ names, can barely remember any of the actors, with one exception (Brian Tyree Henry) I’m genuinely not sure if any of the actors from this film were in the previous ones or if they’re all new. Human characters have never been this franchise’s strong point, especially when compared to Minus One which was released last year.

If you’ve seen both this and Minus One, this can’t compare. The visuals are better, yes, but the story, the characters, the entertainment, just aren’t there in this. As I said, the visuals are great in this, the monsters themselves look fantastic, if not incredibly cartoon-like. The sense of scale is occasionally off though. You don’t know how big they are because there’s nothing recognisable in there to compare it to, just trees, which aren’t great for establishing size because (obviously) they can vary in size. This is a huge problem with Suko, the “Baby Kong”. We only ever see him next to Kong and other similarly sized objects, all of whom tower over him. So in your head, you think “Oh, okay, he’s the size of a child”, then when he enters the fight at the end you find out he’s actually the size of a small building. Would it have killed them to have him near a human character to establish his size?

On the subject of it, the final fight could be better. It’s built up well, and does deliver in terms of titans smashing into each other. But again, it lacks the human aspect. We see buildings demolished in the fight, but there’s no sound from them, nobody screaming. Were the buildings empty or is it just lazy sound design? If they were empty, then surely a shot from the inside of one of the buildings would have been a nice thing to see? These films are impressive for what they manage on their budget, but it feels like creatively the directors are so focused on meeting the budget that they leave zero room for creativity. There are no shots which will linger with you once it’s over. There are “fuck yeah!” shots, shots which look great in trailers and on posters, but nothing that stands the test of time. Think of King Kong, the character. Odds are, you’re imagining him at the top of the tower, fighting off bi-planes (and some heteroplanes, but less than you think they’d be), NOTHING in this entire franchise has ever even attempted to be as iconic. It feels bad to say this considering the sheer amount of effort that has clearly gone into these, but creatively it’s all very lazy.

I’m aware those are very pretentious criticisms and ones which most people won’t give a shit about. Most people go into this for dumb fun, and in that aspect, it does deliver. I mean, it does count on you being able to remember far too many details from previous (forgettable) films. This is definitely spectacle film that deserves to be seen at the cinema. It’s just, dumb spectacle is no excuse for low effort. There is zero reason spectacle has to be stupid. Zero reason for it to have characters you can’t name. Zero reason for it to take no risks. That scene of Mothra is dope as fuck though.