Godzilla: King of the Monsters reviews roundup – Critics label the sequel a 'monstrosity'
'A hollow piece of business masquerading as something necessary'
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Your support makes all the difference.The reviews for Godzilla: King of the Monsters have come crashing onto the internet.
Despite director Michael Dougherty harnessing the powers of Mothra, Rodan and the three-headed King Ghidorah, the sequel to Gareth Edwards’ Godzilla has not landed well with critics.
“It is dismaying to see actors of the calibre of Ken Watanabe, David Strathairn and Sally Hawkins giving such cartoonish, one-dimensional performances,” write Geoffrey Macnab in a two-star review for The Independent. He goes on to call the film “deeply confusing” and even “dismaying” to watch.
Likewise, The Guardian‘s Benjamin Lee was equally damning, labelling the film “a hollow piece of business masquerading as something necessary”.
The two-star review criticises the highly-anticipated fight sequences between the monsters: “It’s frustrating to see Dougherty fail to capitalise on this, the odd epic visual lost in a sea of confusingly choreographed chaos.”
Entertainment Weekly‘s Chris Nashawaty was equally damning about the action sequences, writing: “The monsters are too darkly shot and edited too frenetically as if [Dougherty]’s trying to hide something. Plus, it takes too long to get to them. It’s the cinematic equivalent of getting stuffed on bread. We’re never given the opportunity to truly soak up the grandeur of Godzilla and company.”
Ben Travis, writing for Empire, awarded the film one star. “What you’re left with is a catastrophically dumb, thunderously boring blockbuster as numbing and unsatisfying as the worst Transformers movies,” Travis writes. “King Of The Monsters should be monster fun — instead, it’s a bit of a monstrosity.
IGN posted a more positive review: “This is a Godzilla movie, and what we’re really here for is to see him kick some serious monster butt. And King of the Monsters pays off in that regard time and again, including an explosive, extended final battle royale between all the monsters. But the film also finds it in its monstrous heart to provide some fairly… dare we say it… contemplative bits as well.”
Godzilla: King of the Monsters is in cinemas now.
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