The tussle for power between giant monsters and humans is a timeless theme, tackled by the likes of Transformers, Jurassic Park and Pacific Rim franchises with varying degrees of success. The problem with Hollywood’s latest take, Michael Dougherty’s reimagining of the Japanese studio Toho’s famous kaiju series, is not its predictability, but its utter gracelessness.

The plot picks up after 2014’s Godzilla. A sonar device developed by Vera Farmiga’s Emma to control the monsters has been hijacked by an eco-terrorist; her ex-husband (Kyle Chandler) is drafted in to track it down.

Their teenage daughter (Millie Bobby Brown from Stranger Things) is a distraction, caught in the middle of her divorced parents. Battle scenes occur in weather conditions so extreme that the action is rendered indecipherable (as are the beloved giant creatures, including the three-headed serpent King Ghidorah, bird-like Rodan and winged Mothra).

The ugly visual effects are outdone only by the sound design, which is relentlessly loud and thunderingly tedious. Verbal exchanges between the humans are devoid of wit and barely functional in communicating the story.

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