It’s a big year for Warner Bros. and Legendary Pictures’ MonsterVerse: Godzilla The movie that kicked off Shebang celebrated its 10th anniversary in early May. its direct sequel Godzilla: King of the Monsters It has now entered the five-year mark. The latest MonsterVerse entry, Godzilla x King Kong: A New Empire, Released in late March, it is both the second-highest-grossing film of 2024 so far and the highest-grossing film in the entire history of cinema Godzilla brand.
These movies are all new movies Transformers movie, released with such consistent editing and making money so reliably that you can almost secretly see how far this movie has come in the past decade. Gareth Edwards Godzilla had fans back in 2014, but many felt the film didn’t quite live up to its trailer’s sales potential. The tide really turned in 2017 Kong: Skull Island, thrown aside Godzilla’s A grey-brown color palette and the haunting story of a soldier trying to connect with his family. Instead, Jordan Vogt-Roberts’ 1973 set skull island It keeps popping up: whether it’s Tom Hiddleston slaying a bird monster with a samurai sword, an army soldier getting impaled in the mouth by a giant bug, or Shea Whigham sacrifice of goodwill, the whole motto of this movie is to have fun with it. You have a giant monkey as your protagonist, so why not have him stomp around an island full of monsters even more evil than he is, and put some poor humans in the middle of it all?
This energy is so contagious that it carries throughout the entire film skull islandof wake. Michael Dougherty’s 2019 Godzilla: King of the Monsters, Part of it functions as a soft reboot of the Godzilla iteration, with so many monsters and thunderous setpieces that you have to roll with it even before Rodan incinerates Mexico by simply flying over it. How did the MonsterVerse get to this point? Warner Bros. and Legendary would be wise to give these movies a breather. There was a gap of two or three years between each installment, which doesn’t sound like much until you remember that the franchise was allowed to disappear. Unlike companies like Marvel or DC, you’re not actually asked to think about them 24/7. Warner Bros. and Legendary Pictures clearly love the series, but they’ve been surprisingly restrictive about what the MonsterVerse is and could be, and are in no rush to overwhelm audiences.
Another favorable point is how each director manages to bring something new to the table from a stylistic perspective. While not all of the films speak to each other, it does feel like they all have a unique identity and were given free reign by the director to do whatever they wanted. you can tell Godzilla’s halo jump It’s Edwards, because it’s played almost like a descent into hell, and Vogt-Roberts’ skull island yes often mean to its role. The spectacle Adam Wingard staged in his two “King Kong” movies reset his shoulders Crash it into a skyscraper or an entire skyscraper new empire The arc of a reluctant old man fighting what is essentially a neighborhood bully is a lot of Unlike Doherty who is close to the Titans king of monsters as majesticTerrifying beasts will make you stop and stare when you really should be heading to the mountains. Mainstream franchises are often criticized for having a homogenous cast of directors, but thankfully that’s not the case here.
Featuring a rotating cast of directors and characters, as well as a recent TV spin-off Monarch: Legacy of Monsters and skull island, The MonsterVerse has racked up a surprising amount of mileage but hasn’t really worn out yet. Perhaps the biggest weakness of the whole thing is Godzilla himself: After king of monsters, He appeared primarily as a special guest and eventually became primarily a vehicle for King Kong and Monarch. The two cross The movie isn’t quite as interested in him as it is with Kong, a feeling further heightened by the fact that the two monsters haven’t really gotten out of each other’s orbit yet. Some of this may come from any rights issues with Toho, but given that we may be looking at The third joint film This is an issue that needs to be addressed as quickly as possible over the next few years.
Or maybe not; part of what makes the MonsterVerse so interesting is that five movies and two TV show For now, it has not established a new clear end goal. Godzilla vs. Kong It feels more like a midpoint, placing these two monsters in a new status quo that hasn’t been fully explored yet. The lack of clear direction is more effective than it should be, and fits in with the series’ overall goal of simply delivering a good experience that completely destroys one city at a time.
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