Godzilla II: Rey de los Monstruos

Sería una tontería tener expectativas exageradas para una película sobre una pelea de monstruos gigantes, pero hay que tener al menos unas expectativas mínimas. Pero es reprobable que los personajes sean caricaturas unidimensionales conformes a los clichés de las películas de catástrofes (hija en apuros, padre heroico rescatador, científico decidido a sacrificarse por los demás) y reciten como robots nombres pegadizos de monstruos, para que nosotros, los estúpidos espectadores, sepamos cómo llamarlos. Luego resulta que el malo interpretado por Charles Dance, que era el que más esperaba, no tiene nada que hacer. Y no se puede decir que las escenas de acción y los efectos especiales desarmen tanto como para tapar el deslucido guion. No es más que otro producto rápido de la franquicia que hace de puente para la tercera película, y deja al espectador del todo descolocado. (05.09.2019)

Un gran comienzo y una introducción visualmente impresionante de los monstruos individuales, limitada por un trabajo con historia poco interesante, subestimando el intelecto del espectador. Gracias a Gareth Edwards, la Warners ha reactivado el culto a Godzilla de forma digna, combinando con éxito los motivos y la atmósfera del mito cinematográfico japonés con el bombardeo técnico de las superproducciones de Hollywood en su anterior película. Y en lugar de esforzarse por cumplir con las expectativas del público, confían los dos siguientes episodios a los creadores de películas de terror mediocres y sin interés. Basta con un alto presupuesto vertido en CGI de primera categoría, el público objetivo es estúpido y solo necesita monstruos bonitos. Veremos si ese enfoque cambia con el nuevo director general. (05.07.2019)

In his previous effort, Edwards handled the legacy of the Toho films much more deftly. He stretched the cues effectively and delivered a clear action set-piece with some iconic moments at the end. But this? This sequel has a fantastic, exciting trailer, with a wonderful musical theme “Somewhere Over The Rainbow” that will make you swoon. Unfortunately, the film itself is not fantastic, let alone exciting. In every one of the 27 Godzilla movies I've seen so far (not counting Emmerich's crap that has nothing to do with Kaiju), I've had more fun than here, including the worst of them, the infantile Son of Godzilla, which was at least a pleasant guilty-pleasure. This film is just guilty, but without any pleasure. You don't care about characters who have a mouthful of family values, visually it's not great either. The golden-hued color filter is downright ugly and the action is cluttered, with a shaky camera that's often a clump of pixels you don't care about. It has a few moments, a few references to Toho's predecessor, which are nice (the woman is also the catalyst for plot twists, and we can hear about three times the notorious Godzilla arrival motif we know from Japanese Kaiju), but that can't be enough even for the most diehard Toho/Godzilla fans, among whom I count myself. It's a disappointment that I hope won't break the lizard's neck in the future. (31.05.2019)

Wow, I didn't enjoy it. Like, so very, very, very much. The other Godzilla shows that it cost a lot of money, and the monster battles are actually pretty good, at least the final one, which cleverly works with scale and alternates spectacular shots of two dueling titans with action with human characters running at their feet. But that's pretty much it. The new Godzilla has about fifteen human characters, but finding a single one among them that was the least bit interesting or likeable was a task beyond me. A few hours after the screening, I actually remember the names of about two of the protagonists. The trouble is that despite all the declamation and certain attempts to conceive Godzilla II a little differently, it is ultimately very much about those human characters, who of course are the ones who, by their dullness, flatness and absolute unwillingness to take themselves even a little bit less seriously (this is a film in which a giant lizard fights an even bigger three-headed dragon, dammit!) they get boring at first, and then just annoying. The grandeur and elegance promised by the trailers isn't there in the end, and while the fights are fun to watch, the rest of it really doesn't work. In fact, as a viewer, I'm not really interested in seeing another film conceived in this way. (30.05.2019)

Dougherty must be the only person on the planet who is approached by the people form Warner Brothers with a huge budget and an unmissable offer “to play games with Godzilla and all his fellow cult monsters in the backyard during their awakening and the end of the world", so he can't think “hmm, it could be from the perspective of people, as Edwards tried but failed to do, or bitter satire in the style of (Shin´s) Japanese Godzilla or a catastrophic B-movie full of ultimate monsters and titanic battles referencing the classics". No, what comes to his mind is “cool, I'll finally be able to shoot an interior conversational movie from the Avengers Helicarrier and satisfy all the scientists who have to say the weird nonsense with a straight face in similar movies, and I'll do it by not making them say that in a few sentences, but it will last tens of minutes and even the nonsense they talk about will be even more stupid than it normally is and I will intersperse it with dull CGI action, where everyone will constantly keep running out of collapsing buildings, and it will be full of such generic shots of falling skyscrapers that even the animators themselves won´t be able to tell whether this scene of a crumbling big city happened in the last Marvel or DC movie". And he did as he said he would. The childish quasi-scientific piffle and solutions meant to restart the civilization of Mother Nature are an integral part of the genre. But only If they form the background/prologue to the battles of the Titans, not if they are the cornerstone. No one gives a shit about monsters anymore. Except Dougherty. And when they just have mercy on the audience here and there and offer what the viewers are looking for, it lacks ideas, cool moments, dynamics and scale. The exception is a few moments during the decent ending, when the film almost becomes what it wanted to be (and should have been) the whole time. McCreary's music, paying one tribute to another, is the film's biggest asset. And yet it is very specific in every respect. At least he understood “what is going on", even if the director didn't. (28.09.2020)