Feature: Negotiating the Monsterverse
Godzilla X Kong releases this weekend! Despite its faults, and there are a lot of them, the Monsterverse series is a fun time, especially if you watch all of it […]
Godzilla X Kong releases this weekend! Despite its faults, and there are a lot of them, the Monsterverse series is a fun time, especially if you watch all of it […]
Skull Island (2017)
As the Vietnam war ends, Bill Randa, the then head of Monarch, gets sign off to redirect a unit of helicopter pilots on their way home to Skull Island. Carnage ensues.
One of the most fun entries so far, with a great cast, a great sense of place and tangible menace. It’s also tonally wacky in a way that the other movies have sometimes toyed with but that actually works here. John C. Reilly as a World War II pilot downed on Skull Island is a lovely combination of terrifying, hilarious and sad and the end scene gag is an all-time great.
That being said, it puts Tom Hiddleston and Brie Larson front and centre and does surprisingly little with both of them so it’s not all fun times. But it does set up some major elements of the universe.
Skull Island (2023)
Set in the early ’90s, this is a Netflix show that largely flew under the radar. Which is a shame because it’s great! The survivors of a shipwreck struggle to survive on Skull Island and run foul of mercenaries who are there for another survivor.
Godzilla (2014)
Gareth Edwards’ update of the original King of the Monsters is honestly still the best movie in the series. It follows Godzilla being awakened by the accidental release of another pair of Titans and does so from the point of view of a bomb disposal expert called Ford Brody. Brody, played by Aaron Taylor Johnson, is a fun, straightforward hero who has some surprising links to Godzilla which get explored both here and in Monarch. The action scenes are all great, the sense of menace and dread is tangible and the movie sprints along. The closing fight in a hellish, devastated San Francisco is still one of the best in the series.
That being said, there are issues here too. Elizabeth Olsen is given nothing to do. Sally Hawkins even less. Literally the entire inciting incident is a woman being killed. Also Edwads is not a director who enjoys lightness of tone so the thing is grim as Hell for much of its runtime. Which fits but still, be aware going in. Here’s what you need to remember.
Godzilla: King of the Monsters (2019)
This is so much fun. It’s pretty much the last gasp for the horror elements of the previous two movies and somehow marries them to the highest budget Saturday morning cartoon in history. The plot involves a group of eco-terrorists led by Charles Dance (who somehow is not playing the older version of Tom Hiddleston’s character from Skull Island) releasing Titans because we need to be wiped out for nature to heal. It’s a lovely, grim concept and it’s executed with some real flair. It’s also the last project in the series besides Monarch to bother to make its human characters interesting. Plus it puts some really fun elements into the world.
Monarch (2023)
The first Monsterverse live action TV show followed two generations of Monarch scientists through the discovery of the Monsterverse. It takes some big chances, not the least of which is working in two time periods at once, and, brilliantly, casting Kurt Russell and Wyatt Russell as Lee Shaw, one of the main characters, in two different time periods. Here’s what you need to remember:
Godzilla vs Kong (2021)
A movie with a truly astonishing cast, an excellent director (Adam Wingard) and a script that somehow doesn’t do very much with either of them. That being said, the action sequences are very, very good and it moves the universe along in some interesting ways, especially the attempted commoditisation of the Titans, which speaks to the way they’ve been accepted despite being a constant existential threat.
Let’s move on before we realise just how much that resonates shall we?
Godzilla X Kong is in cinemas now.
Godzilla Minus One is on home release from May and it’s incredible.
Shin Godzilla, which answers the question ‘What if The West Wing did a Godzilla story?’ is also out on disc right now and is also incredible.