Godzilla: Minus-One

So I finally caught Godzilla: Minus One on streaming.

Simply outstanding!

This movie was so far and again superior to the latest Godzilla and Kong flick that it defies description. They're completely different in just so many ways.

Godzilla: Minus One, set in the last days and the first few years after World War 2, centers areound a Japanese kamikaze pilot who opts to not do the whole kamikazee thing. He initially encounters pre-radioactive Godzilla on an isolated Pacific island and survives an attack that kills pretty much everyon other than him and one other guy. The story then follows the pilot as he makes his way through post WWII Japan and tries to make a life for himself, helping a young woman who is a fellow survivor, and adopting a little kid.

Yes, there's human interest in a kaiju film and it's actually engaging and interesting. Hollywood could stand to take some notes here.

Anyway, the story follows the familiar tropes. US nuke testing mutates Godzilla and we get a radioactive fire breathing monster that's decided to stomp on Japan for some reason. There's attempts to stop Godzilla. They don't work. And then they do.

All told, it's simply the best Godzilla flick I've seen in years. I'm curious about the last few moments with the human characters. There's something that happens to a character that's a bit mysterious. And, of course, there's the indication that Godzilla will be back.

I hope this studio does more. That movie was just outstanding.

Godzilla x Kong: The New What-now?

So, I just went to see Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire.

That was a thing.

It's good to see the studio is learning not to waste money on big-name actors in kaiju films. I couldn't tell you who any of the lead actors were. Not at all. The only one I recognized was the little girl from the previous film who could do sign language with Kong. Now she's a sullen teen. That's a thing.

Yeah, so... Godzilla x Kong... what to say about it. Hm... let's start with the good stuff, shall we?

• Kaiju dentistry. Yes, I'm being serious.
• Kong getting his Kong on a lot.
• Baby Kong.
• Utterly pointless destruction of humanity's creations from ancient times (good-bye pyramids!)
• Godzilla's preferred bed.
• Crystal gravity pyramids.
• The little girl has superpowers.
• MOTHRA!
• Lots of monster on monster action. Eventually. Like in the last half hour or so.

Right, so the bad...

• Waaaaaaay too much pointless exposition.
• Just who the fuck were all these people on screen?
• Really awkwardly-bad attempts to add human interest to the film. I'm fairly confident the audience gave zero shits about the main heroine and her relationship with her daughter.
• Hippie kaiju dentist.
• Taking waaaaaaaaaay too long to get to any sort of point.
• Technobabble.
• Camera angles. Unnecessarily weird camera angles.
• Kaiju cavities.
• The script could have benefited from any sort of editorial process to trim down the bullshit by a good 90%.
• Incredibly awkward title.

So, in the end, I enjoyed seeing Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire. More accurately, I enjoyed the last... oh... 25% of the film. There were some nuggets earlier on, but the film was mostly a meandering hot mess that tried to hard to come up with a plot that wasn't there. I'll admit, I was a bit unimpressed with the villain monsters, too. Oh, the fights were good, but they lacked the real oomph that Ghidorah or Mecha-Godzilla had. Such is life.