Written By Dan Gilroy and Max Borenstein and Derek Connolly
Directed By Jordan Vogt-Roberts

File this under “Why Didn’t I See This In The Theater?!”

That was a riot, and exactly what I needed during an exceedingly stressful week. Everyone loves a good spectacle, and monster movies can provide the best of them, when done correctly. For my money, this is one of those examples. The monsters look awesome, the action is unpredictable, violent and fun, and it strikes a good balance between off the wall and tongue-in-cheek. Some of the shot composition was crazy impressive, and made for some amazing cinematography for a film of this kind. The use of slow motion was well-timed and never felt gratuitous, and the movie moves along at a swift pace. I suppose you could accuse it of being overly casted (is that a thing…?), but for me, the story was never about the humans anyway. John Goodman was awesome in his role, as always, Hiddleston played the leading man well, John C Reily was pitch-perfect, Brie Larsen tried to add some depth to a character without a ton of it, and Samuel L Jackson was the perfect choice for the crazed colonel, with shades of Walter Kurtz added to a character made distinctly his own. It’s not the best thing I’ve seen in a while, but it’s exactly the movie I was hoping it would be. I wish I had seen it properly big and loud, because I can only imagine how much more fun that would have been.