“Godzilla: King of Monsters” is directed and co written by Michael Dougherty, who also did “Trick r’ Treat” & “Krampus”. The film stars Kyle Chandler, Vera Fermiga, Millie Bobby Brown, O’Shea Jackson Jr., Zhang Ziyi, Charles Dance & Bradley Whitford. This film is a sequel to 2014’s “Godzilla” and is the 3rd installment in Legendary Studios’ “MonsterVerse” following 2014 and 2017’s “Kong: Skull Island” which is a reboot of King Kong. This film also marks the 35th film in the Godzilla franchise spanning of 60 years in film beginning with its inaugural 1954 film of the same name. With this film serving as sequel, certain actors have returned such Ken Watanabe, Sally Hawkins and David Stratherin from the 2014 film.

After the events of the previous film, Dr. Mark & Emma Russell (Chandler & Fermiga) are left devastated after their young son is killed during the battle between Godzilla & the MUTOs in San Francisco. Now separated, Mark works as animal behavior specialist who has left Monarch, the company from the 2 films studying Godzilla, the MUTOs and other possible monsters out there that they come to call Titans. With Mark gone, Emma along with Dr. Serizawa (Watanabe) , Dr. Graham (Hawkins), Admiral Sentz (Stratherin) and small military group working to find more Titans. However, a rogue MI-6 agent, Alan Jonah (Dance) and his group of eco-terriosts kidnap Emma and her daughter Madison (Brown) in order use her and her new technology to awaken 3 newly discovered Titans. Rodan, the firebird, Mothra, Queen of Monsters & a glowing butterfly and King Ghidorah, a ancient mythological 3 headed dragon. Jonah sees mankind as the real problem with the world, so he plans to unleash these Titans bring balance to the world but his plan goes horribly wrong as King Ghidorah causes more damage on a global scope rather than cleansing the world of pollution and other planet harms such nuclear weapons and plants. With Rodan joining King Ghidorah in his rampage, it’s only matter of time before Godzilla awakens and fights back but when their combined might proves to be too much for Godzilla to handle, he must team with Mothra and U.S. military to prevent global catastrophe.

This film really out does the previous film in the sense of more action among monsters rather than being bogged down by the human characters. The 2014 showed too little of the monsters and focused more the human character to where here, more monsters, more action. The human character are there and serve a purpose without ever over stepping the monsters as far as screen time. They’re blended perfectly. Much like the difference between Michael Bay’s “Transformers” series and the 2018 “Bumblebee” spin-off. Sometimes, less is more.
Chandler, Fermiga & Watanabe give solid performances given the nature of their character and the cliches that come with it. While the pacing of the movie is bit on and off it never once slows down too much. Action, exposition, action, drama, action and more action then finale. The monsters do have that modern day look which is pretty cool which each one having their own unique look and powers. This was a pretty solid summer action movie. It much more entertaining than the first and way better than “Kong: Skull Island”.

Overall, this gives Legendary’s new cinematic universe some hope and definitely a step in the right direction. The problems with the film are same as any other monster or disaster movie. Solid performances from the human character, very unique looks to new monsters and an interesting peek in to what the future within in this universe is going bringing us.