I’ve got to hand it to Hollywood; they lured me into another summer blockbuster shit-show of epic proportions and ponderous duration. Fool me once, shame on me, fool me time and time again and well…I must just be a fool, or a masochist. This time around it was a colossal nuclear turd called Godzilla: King of the Monsters. The distilled message of the movie is that it requires the horrifying deaths of a solid two billion people and the annihilation of every major city on earth (Hooray, Boston is one of them!) to re-forge a bond between the two most negligent parents on the planet played by a couple of B-list actors and their utterly confused and emotionally torn daughter played by the exciting newcomer Millie Bobby Driscoll. The bulk of this destruction is wrought by the busiest beast above or below ground, Godzilla, his flaky moth girlfriend and a three-headed dingus dragon from outer space. Apparently all the monsters in the world, Titans as the movie refers to them, enjoy listening to their favorite beats on the transistor radio until mass murdering Mommy Dearest, aided by Peter Cushing’s eco-terrorist (whatever that is) little brother go and change the station. Then the monsters all go batshit crazy, kind of like that 3 Stooges short where Curly would go berserk in the boxing ring when Larry played pop-goes-the-weasel on the violin. 

Too muddled to actually provide a sensible outline, I’ll just throw you a few of the highlights. Several thousand South Americans of humble origin get vaporized in Rodan’s slipstream but God Bless America ‘cause our fighting men and women manage to save two of them. Ken Watanabe commits nuclear hari-kari ostensibly just so he has an excuse to exit this mess of a movie. Kind of selfish though to blow The Lost City of Atlantis to kingdom come along with yourself, just because he has a “my career is over” death wish. Now even Donovan hates you. At least it is in keeping with the tired old theme of the movie, which is … wait for it…. yep, you got it, humans are responsible for the destruction of the planet and ruin everything they touch and it takes 17 slumbering, cranky old monsters to bring ‘balance’ back to the world. Hippy, dippy, baloney. 

Airplanes, submarines and helicopters chock full of the ‘good guys’ go crashing, smashing and careening into every obstacle imaginable without ever springing a leak, fuel or otherwise, due to the Sully Sullenberger heroics of every pilot. We are also asked to believe that the country that can’t find the energy to replace its crumbling 100 year old bridges has the industry to construct infrastructure on the scale of The Great Wall of China plus the Pyramids plus the Pentagon about 75 times over in every far flung corner of the globe. People, that is a butt load of concrete! 

The biggest douche in an ensemble of douchebag actors from The West Wing gets trotted out to be the requisite quipping, quirky scientist who we can only pray will fall down one of the secret earth holes he keeps yammering about. Not to be out-quirked however is the world’s greatest living thespian, Sir Thomas Middleditch whose simpering twerp acting chops are on full display. He pretty much steals the show while boldly exhibiting his entire range which stretches all the way from an, ‘I pooped my pants and am bemused’ expression to ‘I pooped my pants and am scared.’ What a gift he is to the movie going public. The great David Strathairn meanwhile gets little screen time as the necessary bull-headed General who drops the pointlessly ineffective ‘No Oxygen’ bomb and has to drone out dialogue like “May God have mercy on us all.” My thoughts exactly as the movie moved slower than Baby Godzilla with a radioactive diaper rash. 

Even the tiny Japanese double-mint twins, who were so fetching in their Jackie Kennedy fashions as Mothra’s muse in the films of the sixties, get a little screen time but alas, sadly they are all growed up. The only thing missing from this turgid, monster mash stew, and I’m deeply disappointed that it didn’t happen, was to see Godzilla dry humping that other Big Green Monster in Fenway’s left field, after for reasons unknown, the movie’s climactic final battle is staged there. Fun at the old ballpark. 

Godzilla belches atom bomb digested radiation like a kid talk-burping his abc’ s within a hundred yards of our heroes but no one gets cooked but Monster Dud and even he just barely. If I recall correctly this little trick used to be Godzilla’s ace up his sleeve but now he tosses it around like parade candy. No wonder he loses his charge as quickly as my iPhone 6.  

Let’s see did I miss anything? Nuclear weapons go off with the ease and frequency of snap ’n pops on the sidewalk with no ill effect. Monsters rule, humans suck. King Kong is coming, so we have that to look forward to. Timid Tommy Middledick is Oscar bound. Millie Bobby Troupe gets to display her best 11 grimaces and sweet smile. Meanwhile her mommy played by that one actress from that one movie, I think her name is Alotta Fagina, lays trampled under foot and radiated which means almost certainly that she will appear in the next sequel. I suppose that about covers it. Finally, as Rodan takes a courtly bow worthy of Little Lord Fauntleroy, we can breath a sigh of relief that the movie may be nearing its merciful end. The only time I felt like leaping from my seat and cheering man or monster was while watching Washington D.C. laid to waste. I just hope congress was in session at the time.

I loved the old Godzilla movies, they possessed real charm. That black and white, man in a rubber suit, Godzilla coming over the rise of the hill as the villagers scatter in the original film was infinitely more chilling and effective than the achingly stale CGI overload of this new one. I realize that summer blockbusters are supposed to be mindless fun and Godzilla: King of the Monsters flat out nails the mindless part, sadly though it is completely devoid of the fun.