Windowboxing

Much the same as the first Monsterverse "Godzilla" (2014)--even beginning by introducing new characters, "Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice" (2016) style, at the scene of the last movie's attack--but with more CGI monstrosities fighting each other this time around, which I guess is the point of the thing, so not complaining there. The human drama and confused environmental message are also ratcheted up to higher levels of inanity, unfortunately, though. Eco-terrorists whose apparent solution to pollution, climate change and mass extinction is to kill a lot of people. But, gradually, which, oops, doesn't work out.

The thing to appreciate is the spectacle, which as in the prior burger is a mix of perspectives: the obscure view of the monsters from the point of view of mankind on the ground and in planes or on ships, the fuller god(zilla)'s eye view above, and reflexive shots of the action through windows or screens--a movie within a movie. The human characters are our on-screen surrogate spectators, and the monsters are abstracted as the monster-as-movie, or the CGI extravaganza that they are. It's all very Transformers-esque, but a bit more interesting for the cinematic self-reference.

I noted, too, that Josh Lyman's wacky side character this outing claims to be recording everything, so not only a film-within-film, but filmmaking within it. Meanwhile, the two human sides fight over a computer in order to control the monsters, and that's exactly how these visual effects are really controlled--by computers. I'll be watching to see whether these two threads of meta-narrative become even more integrated when the atomic-bomb of a movie God meets the King captured by colonialist documentary filmmakers in the upcoming "Godzilla vs. Kong" (2021).