Anyone Here Not Like The New Godzilla Film?

[TRON JA307020]

I was laid up recently and decided to finally watch the new Godzilla film that my wife bought me on DVD. I was excited to see that film and I thought it would be the perfect film to start my forced relaxation stint. Well to make a long story short I was disappointed. The movie was more about the 2 multi legged monsters then Godzilla. We hardly get to see him. Also I do not like that he is hailed as a savior and King of the Monsters. Godzilla didn't save humanity on purpose. The destruction caused was partly his fault. I found people cheering Godzilla to me really strange. I also didn't like that Brian Cranstons character didn't survive to see Godzilla. The movie also took place to much in the dark and we don't get to see Godzilla enough in the daytime. I am very much disappointed in the film and am glad toho films is making a new one. Any other opinions or same opinion.

 

[Mage]

See, this is why I still haven't seen it.

The trailers got me so excited, and then I read reviews. Right now, the store I work in has it on sale for 8 euros, and still it feels like money wasted when there's such a high change of me not liking it. Hopefully Netflix will get it soon.

 

[Mr Light]

It's not a perfect movie (cardboard characters, too dour/serious, not enough Cranston, too many Movie Coincidences) but I found it very entertaining and I really loved the "realistic" look of the film.

 

[TRON JA307020]

It's not a perfect movie (cardboard characters, too dour/serious, not enough Cranston, too many Movie Coincidences) but I found it very entertaining and I really loved the "realistic" look of the film.

The dark look of the film and not seeing Godzilla out in the daylight much reminded me of the 97 American version. Special effects are good enough to show Godzilla in his full glory in the daytime for long periods of time. Also I would like to have seen this Godzilla go total batshit on a American city. We didn't get that. I still thought the "Godzilla King of Monsters" savior bit was a bit corny.

 

[beamMe]

I thought it was a good film; I got all I the disaster-porn and monster-action I expected, but, yeah, Cranston's character dies too soon.

 

[mos6507]

Nobody really goes to a monster movie to see the human actors, though. The biggest problem with the film is there isn't enough Godzilla fighting. He spends most of his time being followed while he walks underwater, and the fight at the end is over almost instantly.

Godzilla movies are kind of like Rocky movies or professional wrestling. The big payoff is the fight, and the fight should be a long set-piece full of various incredulous moves. This film was lacking in that area, but it was more of an origin piece and they can make up for it in a sequel.

 

[Shazam!]

When Godzilla is on the screen it's the absolute best movie ever. Every other part of the movie is instantly forgettable.

 

[BillJ]

Decent enough way to burn two hours. Not sure I'll ever revisit it though.

 

[Christopher]

There are actually a lot of Godzilla movies where Godzilla has relatively little screen time or doesn't really show up until the final act, although admittedly this one is fairly low on the list of Godzilla screen times. This blog has some graphs comparing Godzilla's appearances in all the films (excluding the Emmerich/Devlin film, of course, since the actual Godzilla does not appear therein). In terms of Godzilla's absolute screen time, the 2014 film comes in 20th out of 29 -- but as a percentage of total runtime, it comes in second-last, only beating out Invasion of Astro Monster. There's only one film where Godzilla's first full appearance comes later (the previous one, Final Wars), but six where it was later as a percentage of total runtime. (The most extreme case is Terror of Mechagodzilla, where Godzilla doesn't even make a tease appearance until 58% of the way into the film.) And the '14 film does come last in the duration of the Godzilla fights/rampages, though it's not far behind the '54 original and the '84 reboot.

Anyway, I don't mind Godzilla's limited screen time in this one. It's a monster movie, after all, and generally those are undermined if you show the monster too much. What we did get was really impressive visually, especially in 3D. The problem was simply that the human stuff going on between Godzilla scenes wasn't as interesting as it could've been. (Really, they should've kept Bryan Cranston as the hero for the whole film.)

My main problem with Godzilla himself is that he was a bit too domesticated, too much of a hero. In the Japanese films, he's generally only been heroic in the cheesier, sillier installments of the series. Otherwise, he's either been a villain or an antihero, a force of nature that can save us from even more malevolent beasts, but who's still quite dangerous to humanity.

 

[Gaith]

Nobody really goes to a monster movie to see the human actors, though.

Then maybe the monster movie genre itself is inherently asinine? Because when I fire up a disaster movie such as The Core, you're damn right I expect memorable human characters played by talented and charismatic actors.

But then, no one would be so out-to-lunch as to expect the Earth's core to be the secret hero of even a movie called The Core. Perhaps the problem with a movie like Godzilla is that the titular monster is too sentient (and real-world popular, for reasons which passeth understanding) to not be treated as a character, but too stupid to be an interesting dramatic player (it's a big-ass lizard, people). Take Jurassic Park. Chrichton and Spielberg knew that big-ass lizards aren't compelling characters, so they added both a human villain and a natural one (the storm). And even though the Rex does end up saving the day, in an audience-pleasing irony, there's no real-world fan obsession with that particular animal as a character, so there's no absurd notion that it was any kind of hero or savior of children and archaeologists all along thrown in.

Heck, what's next - audiences going to see a movie about dump trucks that turn into thirty-foor Rock'em Sock'em Robots, expecting to see a legitimately good movie with memorable non-human characters? Surely no one would expect that, amirite?

 

[DWF]

Legendary's Godzilla movie I think tried to return Godzilla to it's orgins as a force of nature and of course an apha Kaiju. And we did follow the humans thougout the movie which was the reason some Godzilla's scenes were cut short. Although I thought the idea of trying to kill Godzilla with mordern nuclear weapons to be rather silly, since both Godzilla and the MUTOs "eat" radiation and they were so successsful in trying the same thing back in the '50s.

 

[sidious618]

I loved it. Not seeing a ton of Godzilla worked for me because it made the scenes he did appear in a lot more effective.

 

[Goji]

I quite like the film, but it's basically a Gamera movie and not a Godzilla movie. His character and role in the film is basically identical to that of Gamera in the 90's Gamera trilogy, right down to human characters who refer to him as nature's balancing force. All that's missing is a psychic connection to a teenage girl and he'd just be the 90's Gamera. Not that that's a bad thing, I love Godzilla... but the 90's Gamera trilogy are better movies than all in the Godzilla series with the exception of the '54 original.

 

[martok2112]

While the Emmerich/Devlin Godzilla movie left quite a bit to be desired, I personally loved the monster in that movie.

I enjoyed the new Godzilla movie. Would have loved to see it on the big screen, but it wasn't on my priority list at the time.

If there's any monster movie I truly regret having not seen on the big screen, it was Pacific Rim.

 

[Beagleman]

I loved it. Not seeing a ton of Godzilla worked for me because it made the scenes he did appear in a lot more effective.

That's exactly how I feel. And I feel the film was more of a set-up for possible sequels where we will see more of the guy *fingers crossed*. But I do hope they flush the cast except for Ken Watanabe.

 

[Hound of UIster]

While the Emmerich/Devlin Godzilla movie left quite a bit to be desired, I personally loved the monster in that movie.

I loved the animated series based on the movie. You could tell the writers were big monster movie fans.

 

[Christopher]

I quite like the film, but it's basically a Gamera movie and not a Godzilla movie. His character and role in the film is basically identical to that of Gamera in the 90's Gamera trilogy, right down to human characters who refer to him as nature's balancing force. All that's missing is a psychic connection to a teenage girl and he'd just be the 90's Gamera.

It wouldn't be the first time that Gamera influenced Godzilla movies. Godzilla's turn to heroism in the late '60s and early '70s was largely a response to the Gamera series, I think. (And the '90s films did have a psychic connection between Godzilla and Miki Saegusa.)

While the Emmerich/Devlin Godzilla movie left quite a bit to be desired, I personally loved the monster in that movie.

Yeah, it was a really good monster design in a pretty lame movie. As long as you accept that it wasn't the actual Godzilla, just a different creature mistaken for it (as implied in Godzilla, Mothra, King Ghidorah: Giant Monsters All-Out Attack a couple of years later), it works just fine. Indeed, that's implicit in the film itself -- the new creature is given the name Godzilla because a Japanese fisherman saw it and thought it was Godzilla, which suggests that the real Godzilla already existed as a separate creature.

I loved the animated series based on the movie. You could tell the writers were big monster movie fans.

Yes -- it was a great improvement on the movie. It meshed nicely with the film's continuity, with virtually no discrepancies between film and series (which is rare for TV continuations of movies), but was far better-written. (My review of both)

 

[Magellan]

I think it's a pretty common sentiment to not really like the new Godzilla. For me, It was about the most disappointing movie I ever saw(not the worst) because the trailer made it look so darn good.
The three things that made it look great Cranston, Watanabe, and Godzilla are barely in the film. There is little action, and when there is it's out of focus and hard to see. Olsen and whatever his name was were not interesting at all and sucked away any momentum the movie had. It's not really terrible, but it was boring and that is arguably worse.

 

[lurok]

I loved it. Not seeing a ton of Godzilla worked for me because it made the scenes he did appear in a lot more effective.

But I expect some full-on daylight smackdown scenes in the next one.

 

[Christopher]

I think it's a pretty common sentiment to not really like the new Godzilla. For me, It was about the most disappointing movie I ever saw(not the worst) because the trailer made it look so darn good.

I actually rather liked it. Let's face it, there aren't really that many good Godzilla movies. The '54 original is probably the smartest, classiest, most poignant and thought-provoking monster movie ever made, but most of its sequels have been cheesy and often very silly. I'd say that this was one of the better Godzilla movies overall, but it doesn't really have that much competition. It's certainly the best-made Godzilla movie ever, with the special effects conveying his size and majesty more convincingly than ever before.

My main disappointments were that there weren't enough Japanese characters (and the "Japan" scenes were so heavily populated with familiar Vancouver TV actors that it kind of spoiled the illusion), and that there was no use of Akira Ifukube's musical themes. Also, I feel Godzilla was a bit too tame and friendly.