Being a fan of film, I'm of course a fan of kaiju films. But definitely not a huge fan. I feel like most of these films fall into the same trap: forgetting that cool visuals and action setpieces can only take you so far. You can win awards and push the boundaries of the industry all you want, but if you don't pair that with an actual good story and characters your movie will fall short of being memorable. 

And that's assuming that the visuals are even that revolutionary. Was this film heralded as a visual masterpiece when it came out? I certainly remember lots of people talking about it but watching it today it doesn't amaze me. Maybe there's just been so many CGI creatures in the years since that the space is oversaturated now. The worldbuilding isn't much better, if you count the film showing a series of larger-than-possible animals as worldbuilding.

The story is just so weak. There's a few good moments but almost all of them are just Kong aura farming. Any scene with the humans is just boring and predictable. I also love each individual actor in this but none of them have any interest in this film. 

Still an enjoyable film overall and I'm excited to see the other kaiju fights in the following films of this series. The story? Not as excited.