Godzilla: King of the Monsters

The sequel to 2014s Godzilla and the third film in the MonsterVerse series by Legendary Pictures, Godzilla: King of the Monsters sees the legendary kaiju return along with many old and new monster from the long running franchise. Besides Godzilla, you get to see modern and updated versions of Mothra, Rodan, and the main antagonist King Ghidorah. The main plot is started by an ecological terrorist wanting to free a frozen Ghidorah so that the fight between the monsters could help heal the world from the human's natural destruction, but because the three headed monster is an extraterrestrial being that wants to destroy the world, humanity allies with Godzilla to help defeat their similar enemy. While the first film focused more on the humans than the actual monsters and their fighting, this one has a better balance of the two. The monster fights are intense, fun, and everything you'd ever want in a giant kaiju rumble, although one drawback is that most of the fights are done at night and not very colorful. While everyone involved gives a very good performance, from returning favorites like Ken Watanabe to new additions such as Millie Bobby Brown, a lot of the humans are very stereotypical and not as well developed as a few others, while certain actions don't make sense from what we learn later. Director Michael Dougherty, replacing Gareth Edwards, does a great job with the very simple but very thin story. One big flaw is that while the cinematography is good and clear, certain parts are very dark and murky which happens a lot with the monster fight and their designs are great but hard to tell what their color is. While there are numerous references to the mythology of Godzilla and the other monsters, sometimes there are just too many that occur too often and can feel forced. One has to wonder with how intense the events of the film are, what will the MonsterVerse show in the future without becoming stale. A film like this should have been done a little later after a few other films with Godzilla and other monsters. But if Legendary manages to figure out how to keep the films interesting then I hope they do a good job. A big flaw with King of the Monsters is that we're repeatedly told that there are now seventeen confirmed Titans, with more being unearthed, but most of those we don't see fully other than in the news. This entry is not as great as the first film, but it does manage to become fun and enjoyable with better action scenes. Over all: 99%

2019 top list so far:
1. Avengers: Endgame

2. Shazam!

3. How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World

4. John Wick: Chapter 3 - Parabellum

5. Godzilla: King of the Monsters

6. The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part

7. Us

8. Aladdin 2019

9. Pokemon Detective Pikachu

10. Captain Marvel

11. Pet Sematary 2019

12. The Upside
13. Cold Pursuit
14. Glass