Godzilla: King of the Monsters may not have fared well among critics but it appears to be doing a lot better with audiences. On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the movie holds a 40% Rotten score from 218 critics signifying mixed to negative reviews. However, an inspection of the audience score indicates that the King of the Monsters does significantly better with the common moviegoers, earning an 88% Fresh score from audiences on the website. And since Rotten Tomatoes upgraded its ratings policy in light of the Captain Marvel controversy, this includes scores from verified users who have seen the movie, so there’s no trolling involved here.
King of the Monsters has received unanimous praise for its visual effects, cinematography and musical score, which includes the classic 1954 Gojira theme. Where critics and audiences differ is in their assessment of the movie’s storyline; critics find the plot and characters thin and audiences agree to a certain extent. Yet an issue like this weighs in a lot more on critic ratings than moviegoers who’ve had their expectations tempered and want what they did not get from Gareth Edwards’ 2014 Godzilla – more Godzilla and more, bigger monster-on-monster battles. On that front, the movie seems to deliver as indicated by the reviews.
It’s going to be interesting to see how well the Kaiju movie does in terms of box-office performance. It opened to a fairly good $6.3 million from Thursday previews which added up to a $19.7 million Friday night, nearly the same amount as Kong: Skull Island. MonsterVerse movies are nowhere near the successes of other franchises such as the MCU or DCEU but if King of the Monsters can get close to $500 million, it should be considered a fair hit. It’s expected to earn about $50 million in the opening weekend in the US alone, with the producers hoping to earn a sizeable sum from the Chinese and Japanese market thanks to the popularity of the Kaiju genre with those audiences and the fact that Godzilla is a Japanse creation.
Godzilla: King of the Monsters is running in theaters now. I’ll be seeing it tomorrow and bringing you my review of the movie right here on Appocalypse. Let us know how you found the movie in the comments below and don’t forget to stay back for an exciting after credits scene.
