I’m the target demo for Godzilla vs. Kong. I should love this movie, but I found it boring, as I did Godzilla (2014), Kong: Skull Island (2017), and Godzilla: King of the Monsters (2019). Each one of those movies were stunning to behold, but I failed to connect with any of them.

When I was a boy, my dad introduced me to Godzilla. We watched Destroy All Monsters on Creature Double Feature one Saturday afternoon, and from that point on, I was hooked on giant monsters (or kaiju). Godzilla, Rodan, Gamera, Daimajin, etc. I loved them all. But even then I recognized that all those movies were boring. They moved at a glacial pace. Also, CGI did not exist, so everything you saw on the screen was either filmed using models or people wearing rubber suits. The effects were practical and low budget.

That was then, and this is now. Like you, I am a sophisticated movie viewer. I’m used to rapid cuts, tightly written dialogue, and compelling characters. I guess the latest batch of monster movies has those things in spades, but they fail to excite me.

It’s not the genre, though. Guillermo del Toro’s Pacific Rim (2013) had me diverted from beginning to end. And the movie moved like a freight train. Not only was Pacific Rim a spectacle to behold, but I cared about everything single character, no matter how silly or outrageous. del Toro proves that guan monster (and robot) movies don’t have to be plodding bores.