In all fairness, 2019’s “Godzilla: King of the Monsters” has a lot of positives. The third installment in Legendary Pictures’ MonsterVerse continuity ditches the original MUTO titans from 2014’s “Godzilla” in favor of a veritable kaiju buffet. The movie marches out franchise veterans King Ghidorah, Mothra, Rodan, and a slew of other giant beasts. It features numerous hard-hitting battle sequences and massive, apocalyptic stakes. On paper, the film should be rubbing shoulders with the greatest Godzilla movies ever made.
While audiences like the movie for the popcorn flick that it is, something about it doesn’t quite click. The best kaiju films have a great story to back up the super-sized action — just ask King Kong. Unfortunately, “King of the Monsters” didn’t get this particular memo, and opts to do the bare minimum to justify the admittedly impressive titan battles, wasting great actors like Charles Dance, Vera Farmiga, Ken Watanabe, and Millie Bobby Brown on a threadbare disaster movie plot.
Had “Godzilla: King of the Monsters” bothered with a decent story, fans and critics might treasure it as an all-timer. However, the movie is the fifth-worst Godzilla movie ever made, with a lukewarm Rotten Tomatoes rating of 43%.
