Godzilla: King of My Heart

Starring: Millie Bobby Brown, Vera Farmiga, Kyle Chandler, Ken Watanabe, Ziyi Zhang, Bradley Whitford, Sally Hawkins, Charles Dance, Thomas Middleditch, O'Shea Jackson Jr., David Strathairn, Aisha Hinds, Anthony Ramos

Director: Michael Dougherty

This might be a controversial statement but Godzilla is the Beyoncé of monsters.

If you disagree, I'm not saying you're wrong, but you're definitely not correct. Godzilla is possibly my favorite creature that's ever been created, so I'm always down to watch a movie of him being the scaly badass that he is. This sequel to the 2014 movie that introduced us to chubby Godzilla is leagues better than its prequel. At the same time it has a similar issue. That issue is people.

If you haven't seen the movie, you should stop reading now, because ya girl is about get real spoilery. You've been warned.

This is gonna sound kind of ridiculous, but the worst part of these Godzilla movies is the people. If there was just non-stop monster action with no human interaction whatsoever, other than their terrified screams as they run away from the destruction, this movie would be perfect in my eyes. Instead, the movie spends a little too much time with its human characters, whom I didn't feel particularly connected to. So when Sally Hawkins is killed off quickly and in a kind of dark shot, I don't really feel a thing except relief that we have one less human character to attempt to care about. At the same time I suppose I understand why we need humans in the movies.

The story mostly follows a family who suffered the loss of their son and brother when Godzilla first surfaced to fight the MUTO's. Five years later, Godzilla is nowhere to be found, to which my husband asked "how the hell do you lose something as big as Godzilla?" All the while, people are fearing the rise of the Titans ruling the earth once more. Monarch is trying to convince the trigger happy government that they need to put our trust in Godzilla to keep them safe from the other Titans.

Meanwhile, paleobiologist Emma Russell (Vera Farmiga) and her daughter Madison (Millie Bobby Brown) are seeing the rebirth of the beautiful Mothra when they are kidnapped by eco-terrorists who want Emma's invention, the Orca, which emits frequencies the Titans respond to. Mothra manages to escape to finish her hibernation in a waterfall.

Monarch enlists the help of Emma's ex-husband Mark (Kyle Chandler) to help find her and Madison. On the way, they run into our King Godzilla who can feel that something is coming and so they follow him, which leads them to Emma and Madison. Emma sets Ghidorah, the three headed nemesis of Godzilla, free and starts a fight, during which Vivienne (Sally Hawkins) is killed.

Mark and the good people of Monarch are shocked to find out Emma has actually been working with the eco terrorists to release the Titans because she feels that is the only way to preserve our earth. I hope I'm not the only one who inwardly groaned at the stupidity of that thought process. But onward.

The next Titan released is Rodan who is a grown up, fiery, angry version of Petrie from The Land Before Time. He's my least favorite Titan because he's just a large Pterodactyl with a superiority complex. Imagine trying to go up against a three-headed dragon the moment you wake up from your volcano sleep. That's bold. Rodan is quickly put in his place and then good old Godzilla shows up throwing scaly hands on sight.

This fight is slightly better lit or lit enough for us to see Godzilla remove one of Ghidorah's heads and toss it aside like yesterday's jeans. That trigger happy government seen earlier decides to drop a bomb on the monsters that's designed to wipe them out and spoiler alert: it does not work.

Ghidorah acts as unbothered as a cat that's just knocked a glass off your table and flies away while Godzilla seems to have died. Ghidorah not only grows his freakin head back, but also takes his place on his volcano throne and awakens the rest of the Titans who begin destruction all over the world.

Madison is no longer feeling her mother's incredibly stupid logic for the release of the Titans, so she steals the Orca and lures the Titans to Fenway Park, where she decides to stay even though she knows literal monsters are on their way. Wouldn't be my choice, but to each their own.

Meanwhile, Mothra is being fully reborn as a beautiful butterfly and ready to reclaim her throne as Queen of the monsters, but before she can do that she helps a weak Godzilla, who thankfully isn't dead, get back to fighting shape. Unfortunately she can't do that alone and it takes the help of the humans I don't care for, which means the only human character I have even an ounce of respect for, Serizawa (Ken Wantanabe) gives his life to blow up a nuke next Godzilla to give him the radiation he needs to kick some three-headed dragon ass. It's shockingly touching watching him say goodbye to Godzilla, whom he clearly loves and trusts to save the world.

Godzilla rolls up to Fenway all 'roided up and buffer than your neighborhood gym bro, ready to throw down with Ghidorah, who I'm sure is sick and tired of fighting at this point. Ghidorah's newest henchman, Rodan comes on the scene, trying to jump Godzilla, but not on Queen Mothra's watch! She handles Rodan and takes on Ghidorah herself. By far the saddest death is that of Mothra's by Ghidorah's probably moist and rough hands. In her final moments, she gives her radiation to Godzilla who was already five seconds away from being nuclear.

Things are still not looking good for our king when we go back to the uninteresting humans on the ground. Emma makes the decision to sacrifice herself and use the Orca to lure Ghidorah away from killing Godzilla so he can get himself together. For some odd reason the movie attempts to make us care about the death of a character who was lowkey a villain the whole time, but she went out a sort of hero.

Godzilla has had enough of playing games and starts radiating all over the place, once again removing a head, but this time making damn sure it's gone for real this time, along with the rest of Gidorah. He takes his rightful place as King of the monsters and of my heart.

The credits are amazing because the headlines give us little updates about how the earth is getting better and Godzilla is keeping all the other Titans in line. It also teases the incredibly anticipated Godzilla VS. Kong.

Obviously I loved this movie. The monster action was everything I wanted it to be, I just wish there was more of it. I wasn't crazy about the acting, honestly. I found Kyle Chandler to be kind of wooden and I didn't find Millie Bobby Brown as charming as usual, however Mr. Ken Watanabe came for his check even with not much to do. Charles Dance was pretty over the top and had one tone, which can only be described as mildly inconvenienced British man whose tea got cold this morning. And as usual I enjoyed O'Shea Jackson Jr. (or 'Mini Cube' as my husband likes to refer to him as).

The one other unexpected thing is that this is great movie representation for women. Emma is an intelligent, though misguided badass, Madison is a brave young girl, who helped save the world. Dr. Chen (Ziyi Zhang), Colonel Foster (Aisha Hinds), and Lieutenant Griffin (Elizabeth Ludlow) are all powerful women of color who all handle their business. And Godzilla most definitely would have never won without Queen Mothra.

My hope is that Godzilla VS. Kong will be even better and my husband is hoping that they're building up to Mecha Godzilla, which is another showdown I can definitely get behind.

I'm biased as all hell, so I give this movie an A-.

Lastly 'Godzilla' by Kesha was not played once in this movie, and for that I am incredibly disappointed.