King Of The Monsters wreaks destruction on a grand scale but builds few compelling relationships

No, the true monsters are you and me: a parasitic race that has plundered the planet’s natural resources, polluted water and air, and slaughtered millions in the name of liberty, religion, greed and technological advancement.

That’s the cheery message to take home from Godzilla: King Of The Monsters, a spectacular but corny sequel that justifies the title creature’s interventions as the only way to restore a delicate balance between selfish humans and resplendent Mother Nature.

Performances struggle to be heard above the din of Bear McCreary’s orchestral score and a symphony of roars, screeches and caterwauls, which herald each digitally-fashioned Titan in a sprawling monster-verse that includes King Kong.

Stranger Things star Millie Bobby Brown is the sole exception, using limited screen time to plumb the maelstrom of conflicting emotions of a resourceful 14-year-old, who is collateral damage in the feud between her parents. The script, co-written by Zach Shields, expresses relationships in short-hand, galloping from one slick set-piece to the next with minimum character development, clearly focusing the linear narrative on next summer’s showdown between Godzilla and the chest-beating alpha resident of Skull Island.

Animal behaviour specialist Dr Mark Russell (Kyle Chandler) and paleobotanist wife Emma (Vera Farmiga) lost their son Andrew, and ultimately their love for each other, in the devastation of Godzilla’s rampage through San Francisco.

The couple is now estranged and Emma has custody of their spunky daughter Madison (Brown), who supports her mother’s work for “secret monster-hunting” consortium Monarch in the Yunnan rainforest in China.

Former British army colonel turned eco-terrorist Colonel Jonah Alan (Charles Dance) storms the outpost with gun-toting henchmen. He takes Emma and Madison hostage, forcing the mother to rouse a giant beast christened Mothra with her Orca device, which manipulate Titans’ behaviour with sonar waves.

Monarch scientist Dr Ishiro Serizawa (Ken Watanabe), his associate Dr Vivienne Graham (Sally Hawkins) and director of technology Dr Sam Coleman (Thomas Middleditch) inform Mark that his family is in jeopardy. A globe-trotting rescue mission begins in earnest as Colonel Alan uses the Orca to agitate more slumbering Titans including three-headed Ghidorah in Antarctica and winged predator Rodan inside a volcano on Isla de Mara, Mexico.

The film wreaks destruction on a grand scale but only builds one or two truly compelling human relationships. Chandler and Farmiga are servants to the ramshackle plot while Watanabe is wasted as the philosophic mentor, who believes mankind must place its faith in mighty Godzilla.

BOOKSMART (15) Five stars

School’s out for the summer but life lessons about sisterly solidarity and abusing the good nature of a teddy bear never end in the raucous rites-of-passage comedy Booksmart.

Actress Olivia Wilde identifies herself as a high achiever with a riotous feature film directorial debut, strutting confidently down the same corridors of beautifully articulated teen angst as Clueless and Mean Girls.

A sorority of four female scriptwriters cram in a dizzying array of pithy and potty-mouthed one-liners between some deeply touching moments of self-reflection and realisation.

The heartfelt hilarity is delivered with genuine warmth and grin-inducing sincerity by the dream team double-act of Kaitlyn Dever and Beanie Feldstein.

They have us rooting for their sassy, self-aware misfits from the moment they prepare for another day at school with impromptu body-popping on the side of the road. Belly laughs are bountiful, trading in pop culture references and near-the-knuckle humour that never threatens to become crude or mean-spirited.

These girls are sugar and spice and all things naughty but nice. Potentially thorny issues of fat-shaming, sexual experimentation and peer pressure are cheerfully navigated or sidestepped to encourage characters to wear individuality and naivete on their sleeves, next to their hearts. Amy (Dever) and best friend Molly (Feldstein) have studiously forsaken fornication and partying in order to achieve their academic dreams.

Textbooks have been the girls’ steadfast bedtime companions and as graduation looms, Amy is destined for Columbia while Molly has been accepted into Yale.

The gal pals despair at the tomfoolery of classmates so they are gob-smacked to learn that lazy peers have also secured places at coveted Ivy League institutions. The over-achievers resolve to make amends on the night before Molly delivers her valedictorian speech. The friends hatch a hare-brained scheme to gatecrash a party thrown by cool kid Nick (Mason Gooding) in the hope that Amy can finally approach her crush: skateboarding tomboy Ryan (Victoria Ruesga). This haphazard odyssey puts Amy and Molly on a collision course with narcotics, crime, an explosion of bodily fluids and a shocking discovery about their high school principal (Jason Sudeikis). It’s going to take something very special to usurp Wilde’s boisterous romp from remaining top of the class of comedies in 2019.

MA (15) Three stars

Tate Taylor, director of The Help, reunites with Octavia Spencer for a twisted psychological thriller which strongly advises all of us to be wary of the kindness of strangers. Erica (Juliette Lewis) and her teenage daughter Maggie (Diana Silvers) are new in town and are keen to settle into their close-knit Ohio community.

Maggie quickly makes friends and outside a local convenience store, she approaches local woman Sue Ann (Octavia Spencer) to buy alcohol for her underage classmates. Instead, Sue Ann invites Maggie and pals Haley (McKaley Miller), Darrell (Dante Brown) and Chaz (Gianni Paolo) to her large house to party in the basement, which is unused.

The youngsters seize the opportunity and are delighted by Sue Ann’s hospitality.

The owner has three rules: no-one is allowed upstairs in the main house, at least one of the group must stay sober and everyone should address her as “Ma”.

When the agreement is broken, Sue Ann’s kindness turns to toxic obsession and the students realise that a night at Ma’s house is to die for.