I grew up watching giant monster movies, from Them!, It Came from Beneath the Sea, and Might Joe Young to King Kong, Godzilla, Mothra and Gamera. List of films featuring giant monsters. I also watched so many other "B" horror films as a kid on Saturday afternoon horror movie shows that I became immune to the shock, gore and strangeness of the genre that it's almost impossible to scare me with them or give me nightmares. The last time I can remember a movie giving me a nightmare was about 30+ years ago after watching John Carpenter's "The Thing" with Kurt Russell - I had tentacles growing out of my sides!
In recent years, it seems like Hollywood has gone insane and repeatedly redoes the same movies, like Spiderman, Batman, Superman and Godzilla, to name a few. They even remake famous films from overseas.
It turns out that this film is somewhat of a remake of the old film "Destroy All Monsters". Godzilla and many of the titanic monsters (kaiju in Japan) that we're familiar with are from Japan's imaginative film industry. Although the cast of monsters has changed somewhat, and the alien invaders have been replaced with eco-terrorists (led by Alan Jonah), Rodan, Mothra, Ghidorah and Godzilla are still the same, a secret government agency that watches the monsters exists, and the worldwide rampage of a host of giant monsters still happens. Ghidorah, as in DAM, is an alien, although I would submit that its actually just a latecomer given that each monster is unique and can survive for thousands of years feeding off of various energy sources. The Battle Royale (oblique reference to Japanese film) between the titans (which are all taxonomically listed in the genus "Titanus", except Ghidorah, which is just labeled "Monster 0") focuses on Ghidorah and Godzilla, with guest appearances by Mothra and Rodan. I'm not going to spoil the film for you (it's rotten enough as it is) by telling you any more about its plot.
Other monsters, which you'll be hard-pressed to figure out the names of are occasionally shown, appear - including what looks like a massive wooly mammoth (Behemoth), a spider (Scylla) and something I cannot figure out, dubbed a M.U.T.O or Massive Unidentified Terrestrial Organism. If you want to know about each of the monsters, check out Newsweek's attempt to list them. But don't expect to see photos/clips of most of them - they didn't go that far.
It isn't easy to believe in massive monsters - especially since dinosaurs have been gone for a long time - but that's part of the fun. Unfortunately for me, they attempt some pretty pathetic pseudo-scientific explanations for things in the movie. Top that with some very contrived events, too many last-moment saves and ridiculous scenes, and a few other flaws and it is hard to use your brain while watching this film. In fact, I'd urge you to turn your critical thinking off before you watch this because that's the best way to watch it - with no brain - if you want to have fun.
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