Godzilla (2014)

[TordelBack]

Saw it last night, I thought it was a surprisingly well-structured film, and rather beautifully made.  The things many people have cited - [spoiler]early bath for Cranston, repeated instances of gojira-tease[/spoiler] - were certainly frustrating in the course of watching, but I thought they eventually paid off massively in terms of tightening the focus right down on Taylor-Johnson (and Watanabe) and made the sustained look at Godzilla in the  final monster battle that more special, without it having to be ramped-up with any spurious additional elements.

The innumerable homages to/borrowings from just about every monster and alien invasion film ever made were very well done (although maybe the Jurassic Park one was a bit on the nose), not to mention the catalogue of contemporary horrors from 9/11 and the Boxing Day tsunami to Fukashima and Chernobyl.  Some glorious images, and a real well-delivered sense of the unstoppable destruction of the world.

I rather liked Shelley Duvall Sally Hawkins' turn as Exposition Girl, but did wonder where she went for the second half of the film. 

I thought[spoiler] the Mutos[/spoiler] were a lovely piece of design, and I particularly liked the humans' role in the climax, [spoiler]which was to fix mistakes they had made[/spoiler], rather than affect the battle at all.   

Mainly, I just loved watching a beautiful, lovable Godzilla doing his thing.

I'm not going to get on to the plot-holes, which are so vast that you could literally you-know-who right through them, because it's not that kind of film (the Mutos' entire life-cycle renders sense and logic mute, so why think about it?).

If I had a criticism*, and I don't really, it would be that despite the time spent with Lt. Brody he never really exists as a character, and he and Olson suffer badly in comparison with the far more interesting older generation of Cranston and Binoche...  but again, this serves to remove distractions from the city-smashing tussles.  Which is as it should be. 

Good stuff.

[HdE]

I don't think it can be stated enough that Godzilla himself looks ABSOLUTELY AMAZING in this movie. And if you've ever given the big lizard time fo day, I defy you not to be impressed at the spectacle of him unleashing that famous roar.

[Steve Green]

Yeah, he looks fantastic, very well staged - I enjoyed it a lot.

[Spaceghost]

As a MASSIVE lifetime Godzilla fan and uber-geek who has seen all the films and bought most of them on DVD/video and whose love of The Big G is eclipsed only by Judge Dredd, I was nervous going into the cinema.

I'm happy to report that it was fantastic. I was blown away by how fresh and new, and yet also familiar it all felt. Godzilla is depicted exactly as he should be, taking elements from all the incarnations so far to create a new, definitive version.

I loved the way that Godzilla's origins are basically not explained, he's just "a force of nature used to set the balance right". I love that, whilst he's scary and destructive, he basically comes across as [spoiler]a force for good[/spoiler]. His first big reveal was epic and his roar made all the hairs stand up on the back of my neck.

Yes, I could have stood to see a few more scenes with Godzilla and a few more battle scenes, but in the end, the lack of early action gives the later scenes a far greater impact. A lot of the classic Godzilla films have about the same ratio of kaiju/human scenes so I felt this new film was carrying on the tradition.

I would have preferred [spoiler]Bryan Cranston[/spoiler] to stick around longer as he was by far the best actor on screen. I felt [spoiler]he only died[/spoiler] to give further motivation to Aaron Taylor-Johnson which wasn't really neccessary as the [spoiler]MUTO had already claimed the life of his mother[/spoiler].

[spoiler]ATOMIC BREATH! SQUEEEEEEEE!!! The first blast gave me chills all down my spine. And a second one right down the throat too.[/spoiler]

My son, who has inherited my love of Godzilla (and a huge collection of toys and collectables of Godzilla and other kaiju) was excited, clutching his favourite Godzilla action figure (the one from Godzilla 2000 with the purple spines for those who wish to know) as the climactic battle raged. He leaned over to me without taking his eyes off the screen and whispered, "Daddy, we're getting this on DVD!".

[HdE]

Spaceghost, the final line of your post made me grin from ear to ear!

Pretty much agree with everything you've said, especially on the balance of human drama / monster action in the movie. I observed a fun little exchange between two guys leaving the cinema, when one said to the other 'That was shit. Godzilla was hardly in it' and his pal immediately retorted with 'Haven't seen a lot of Godzilla movies, have you?'

The tease of the first nuclear breath blast is easily my favourite movie moment of 2014 so far. It worked better for making me think 'Eh? What's that? OH!'

The good news for us fanboys is, with the second biggest opening of 2014, Godzilla looks set to become a franchise now, with talk of MORE than one more movie to come. This makes me idescribably happy!

[James Stacey]

I observed a fun little exchange between two guys leaving the cinema, when one said to the other 'That was shit. Godzilla was hardly in it' and his pal immediately retorted with 'Haven't seen a lot of Godzilla movies, have you?'

I said almost the same thing to my mate (although more politely) and after a few pints in the spoons after he had decided it was actually pretty good.

[Keef Monkey]

Glad the hardcore fans had fun with it!

Personally this is one of those occasions where I feel like I've watched a different movie to everyone else I'm afraid. I've been trying to explain what I didn't like about it to people today and struggling a little to articulate it. It just felt like it would build for 20mins or so, then reset, then build for another 20mins, then reset etc. It was like watching the first tension-building act of a monster/disaster movie over and over again without actually getting to the pay-off. It's not that I necessarily wanted Godzilla to be in it throughout as that would be just as silly, but I did expect more than just several ramps which turned out to be building to nothing much. It's like the first 90mins are mainly comprised of slow zooms on the slack-jawed faces of people in awe of the wave of destruction that's imminent on the horizon...before cutting away to something else and doing it all again, and that loses it's effectiveness after a while.

It does eventually get around to climaxing, and that part has its moments of awe (I wish the parachute jump hadn't been in the trailer as it was definitely the most striking image in the whole movie) and a decent monster fight (if a bit on the murky side), but I found that to be too little too late as I'd already lost interest a bit after all the false starts.

I know most folks won't agree with me (of the group of 5 I went with only one friend disliked it and everyone else was blown away) but personally I think of the two things it tried to do, Cloverfield was a more effective terrified-view-from-the-street-monster-flick-as-disaster-movie affair, and Pacific Rim was a better big-things-fighting-and-smashing-stuff-nerd-boner experience. I'm just not sure Godzilla did enough to justify its existence to be honest.

That was a bit long, so in brief summary, I didn't think it was bad, but I did think it was dull, which is something a movie about enormous monsters fighting and trashing cities doesn't have any right to be.

[Rog69]

Personally this is one of those occasions where I feel like I've watched a different movie to everyone else

No, I saw the same movie as you, I prefer my monster porn a little less tantric too.

[HdE]

I actually find nothing surprising or disheartening about the fact that the movie is polarizing opinions. The classic style of Toho monster movies have always done that. So much rides on personal taste and preference.

My personal hope is that the sequel will address the perceived technical shortcomings of this movie (and admittedly, even speaking as somebody who thought it was a good movie, there are a few) and also provide a different sort of monster movie. Something  with allout tooth 'n' claw action wouldn't go amiss, and might well secure a different type of audience / audience reaction.

[Professor Bear]

Not a classic, but still very enjoyable.
I did like how the film dangled the monsters kissing in front of you so you'd think "aw no!  They're not really going to shoehorn in a romance plot this late in the game, are they?" like they'd surrendered to focus groups entirely, but then they flip the script by having the lady monster strum herself daft on-camera with a nuclear dildo, and then the next time we see the nuke it's covered in gallons of sticky white fluid, and we see this right after a bunch of squaddies kick in a door that's sitting perfectly intact in the middle of a giant crater that used to be a building.
There's silliness in there if you look for it, my favorite bit probably being Identikit Soldier Man tiptoeing through a burning city in case Godzilla sneaks up on him and then it cuts to a ginormous Godzilla shadow on a wall that he hadn't noticed, as there's an identical scene in Sharknado where a bunch of people are tiptoeing through a flooded house in case the sharks hear them.  Also silly was the Mufos tracking nukes from one continent to another across the Pacific Ocean, but they can't tell when some humans have grabbed it and done a runner until they notice their own babies on fire.  The bit where the soldier opens a door and finds half a mountain has gone missing made me laugh, too, especially as he then gets out binoculars to look for a monster the size of a skyscraper in the middle of a desert and then the camera zooms in on it like "oh, I found it", which is outright silly rather than just poor plotting like the bit where the soldiers take the nuclear dildo straight through a monster rampage zone instead of flying it around the danger area or getting a nuke from somewhere else or something and then when - surprise surprise - the monsters nick the dildo someone mentions that this was the only plan they had.

I wouldn't have minded[spoiler] Breaking Bad [/spoiler]taking a dirt nap so early if he'd been replaced by a better actor, or even a better character, as Identikit Soldier Man's character and personality is that he doesn't care about Dead Parent Drama to the point that he doesn't even remember basic words or phrases from that time he and his mum and dad lived in Japan for years and he was going to a Japanese-langidge school - yes he's got unresolved issues, but he's put all that out of his mind and is not motivated by a need for closure in the way [spoiler]Breaking Bad[/spoiler] is even if there's some good work done in showing a cats-in-the-cradle-type thing between father and son that's broken only by Monster Trauma, though that sadly doesn't really survive contact with Identikit Soldier Man doing his huffy face acting thing where he does a huffy face even if he isn't huffy because that's the same thing as intense, which is the same thing as charisma or something and not just a lack of range.
Basically, [spoiler]Breaking Bad can act and his character still had mileage,[/spoiler] but Identikit Soldier Man was a non-starter who could have been replaced with a dog wandering between meetings where military types and scientists explain things to each other and it still would have been much the same film, except that at the end the dog could maybe save its puppies from the monster nest, as not being a teenage girl or a gay man, ISM's charms are lost upon me and this would have made a really good Godzilla film into a really good Lassie movie as well.

Not perfect and it could have done with a few splashes of colour, but I really liked it.

[Hawkmumbler]

Saw it, loved it, left wanting more, full review forthcoming.

[Bad City Blue]

Saw it, was bored out of my skull.

review:

http://cool-stuff-you-will-like.blogspot.co.uk/2014/05/godzilla-2014-move-review.html

[Spaceghost]

Not a very insightful review, is it? You don't seem to be making much of a point there apart from "it's shit". And you appear to think you are hilarious.

You also say you prefer Pacific Rim, rendering any argument you may have invalid.

[dweezil2]

I found it seriously underwhelming sadly.
I loved Edward's Monsters-a fantastic and powerful subversion of the genre and I was really looking forward to his take on the iconic character.
After a intriguing 30 minutes, I'm afraid I lost interest.
Dull human drama, hackneyed and poorly paced, the dreaded dull exposition scenes and some appalling acting from mannequin like Aaron Taylor-Johnson, sucked any potential drama from the sub-par script.
By the time the monsters finally got down to their smack down after what felt like and excruciating long wait, I'd lost interest.
Some very good effects and photography aside, the film was a Godzilla sized disappointment.   

[Hawkmumbler]

Pacific Rim was great but any comparrion between the two is pointless. They are utterly and completely different in both premise (despite sharing a genre, naturally) and cinemetography (PR is very fluid and damp, while GZ14 was very dry and dirty throughout).