Godzilla (2014)

[ChronoGrl]

This thread is KILLING me. I'm avoiding it until I see Godzilla - WHICH WILL HOPEFULLY BE TONIGHT!!

[topfoundfootagefilms]

Yeah I didn't think the original was that bad at all. Matthew Broderick is a decent enough actor and the CGI was well up to standard. I get what people are saying about the Jurassic Park element - the ending with all the baby Godzilla's was a little pathetic but overall the film was alright. I do wish they would up some of these movies in age rating though - letting in 12 year old's to watch these types of movies removes the option to make them more 'shocking'.

Heard about the new movie ( the guy off breaking bad's in it apparently! ) but haven't seen any decent reviews on it yet!

[The Villain]

Originally Posted by topfoundfootagefilms

Yeah I didn't think the original was that bad at all. Matthew Broderick is a decent enough actor and the CGI was well up to standard. I get what people are saying about the Jurassic Park element - the ending with all the baby Godzilla's was a little pathetic but overall the film was alright. I do wish they would up some of these movies in age rating though - letting in 12 year old's to watch these types of movies removes the option to make them more 'shocking'.

Heard about the new movie ( the guy off breaking bad's in it apparently! ) but haven't seen any decent reviews on it yet!

Did you just refer to the 1998 Godzilla as the original?

[topfoundfootagefilms]

Originally Posted by The Villain

Did you just refer to the 1998 Godzilla as the original?

The original modern-day remake mate! The Asian category is a whole different ball game

[The Villain]

Originally Posted by topfoundfootagefilms

The original modern-day remake mate! The Asian category is a whole different ball game

OK that worried me for a minute. In the future you should clarify better

[roshiq]

Originally Posted by topfoundfootagefilms

The original modern-day remake mate! The Asian category is a whole different ball game

I wouldn't say that was "original modern day remake"; calling an 'attempted remake' would be more appropriate, IMO.

[ChronoGrl]

So. Godzilla.

For the most part, I pretty much entirely align with Ferret's well-written review, both in my disappointment and opinion of the myriad of missed opportunities here...

I'm just going to dive right into it, so - ***OBLIGATORY SPOILER WARNING***



The only humans that I remotely cared about were Bryan Cranston's Joe and Juliette Binoche's Sandra - I actually loved the beginning of the movie, thought they had good chemistry and was truly heart-broken when he essentially had to shut the door on his wife and watch her die. I totally bought into the tragedy and thought to myself, "Wow, finally an action movie where I feel feelings..."

But I was wrong.

Joe is really the only compelling character in this movie, which made his death all the more upsetting to me (I knew he wasn't going to last long, though, so I was at least slightly prepared) - I really loved the disgraced scientist who was crazy and obsessive and desperately trying to uncover the "conspiracy" - In fact, why wasn't THAT the core human element of the movie? I thought the rest of the Brody clan to be cookie-cutter, boring, and poorly-written, and it turns out that Aaron Taylor-Johnson, on top of all that, is just not that great an actor at all. I LOVED the scenes where Joe and son were in the quarantine zone; so very creepy and full of promise... I also like Ferret's idea of Ford being the one who dies so that the story centers around Joe seeking some kind of revenge - That would have been a fantastic foil for what (I believe) Dr. Ishiro Serizawa was supposed to stand for (nature, balance, etc.) -

I only say "I believe" there because Ken Watanabe was so incredibly wasted. Serizawa was desperately under-written and, quite frankly, a bit of an idiot... I mean, WHAT, you've been studying this thing for YEARS but it takes a CRAZY GUY ten minutes to get you to realize that it's echolocation? SERIOUSLY?! That's super-lazy writing. So is Serizawa asking the lame Ford to stick around BECAUSE HE MUST KNOW SOMETHING - HE'S THE SON OF THAT SMRT SCIENTIST GUY.

*facepalm*

Ford's whole path is filled with too many coincidences and that just drove me crazy - The Monster just HAPPENED to be where his wife and son are... He just HAPPENS to be a bomb-disarmer who just HAPPENED to survive... Ugh. Again, lazy writing.

And I really just didn't care about his wife and kid. I really didn't. Giant Monsters are seriously decimating America and I'm supposed to care if this snot-nosed brat and waif survive? Really??

That was another thing - It was confusing to me how we're supposed to feel about all of the INSANE AMOUNTS OF DEATH AND DESTRUCTION happening because they seem to be treated as though we're trampling through a paper doll's house... But I digress...

Enough about complaining about the HUMANS - One might argue that IT'S NOT SUPPOSED TO BE ABOUT THE HUMANS... Ok, then, let's talk about Godzilla...

Godzilla.

Uhm - Well, he looked pretty cool and I loved scale and especially the scenes of him swimming... But unfortunately we don't get a whole lot of that. What we DO get a lot of, however, are the MUTOS... Also, I thought that they looked pretty cool, they were interesting, and I suppose were pretty threatening, but here's my problem...

We really see a LOT of the MUTOs. Ferret brings up that it plays more like a MUTO movie featuring Godzilla and not the other way around, and I couldn't agree with him more... We see a lot of the bugs... We see them emerge from the ground... We see them destroy stuff... We see them fall in love! We see them follow their biological imperative and "mate" (I put this in quotation because it's not clear to me if they have sexy time to create the egg sack or if he just pollinates it like a fish... I probably spent waaaay too much time thinking about that after the movie)... As a matter of fact, we see so much of the MUTOs THAT I ACTUALLY FELT BAD WHEN THE EGG SACKS WERE DESTROYED.

Seriously.

Mamma MUTO was heart-broken when her baby eggs are torched and I was too - Outside of Joe and Sandra, the MUTO relationship is really the only interesting familial relationship in the movie... If this movie is about New World Order, then it's the MUTOs that are just following their biological imperative in order to breed and survive... I mean, they don't MEAN to go and destroy cities! They're animals! They just want to eat radiation - In fact, you don't really see them chomping on humans; just metal - Which leads me to believe that we are not prey to these creatures, just incidental casualties.

Ferret made the appropriate connection that Ford was told to "Save the family at all costs," well, that's what these MUTOs are trying to do too.

Yes, I was oddly invested in the MUTOs. Heck - I didn't see them as Monsters - It's not like in Aliens when you CHEER for Ripley to torch the queen's eggs - I felt BAD when the MUTO eggs were torched.

And perhaps Ford should have paused too.

Which brings us back to Godzilla I suppose... Unfortunately he's really just a bit part in his own movie... Between the MUTOs and the Brady family, Godzilla gets so little screen time that mourning at his supposed death didn't feel very earned; it felt false and bizarre... And when he woke up, I didn't feel relief either; I felt very conflicted because even though I am interested in the concept of Godzilla being Earth's protector, I wanted there to be SOME kind of horrifying monster... The MUTOs weren't horrifying because they're not like a Xenomorph that explicitly targets people... They're just two big clumsy bugs trying to settle down and make a family (daaaaw)... And Godzilla, well, early on it was made clear that he was going to be taking on his protector role instead of destroyer role, so where's the explicit threat there? Sure, there was lots of damage, but it's just portrayed as unimportant and collateral. The only time where I thought that post-"monster" damage was impactful was when we were in the quarantine zone.

Eh - I'm been typing about this enough I think. Ultimately, I was confused and disappointed. There should have been more Brian Cranston and more Godzilla. Trash the story of the younger Brodys and family. Make Serizawa a foil to Brian Cranston and make the Monsters really be monsters.

HUGE disappointment.

2.5/5

[The Villain]

Wow great points Chrono. Really well thought out and interesting. I pretty much agree with all of it. I enjoyed it, i really did. I just wished it had been better because it really had the potential.

[roshiq]

Originally Posted by ChronoGrl

Which brings us back to Godzilla I suppose... Unfortunately he's really just a bit part in his own movie... Between the MUTOs and the Brady family, Godzilla gets so little screen time that mourning at his supposed death didn't feel very earned; it felt false and bizarre... And when he woke up, I didn't feel relief either; I felt very conflicted because even though I am interested in the concept of Godzilla being Earth's protector, I wanted there to be SOME kind of horrifying monster... The MUTOs weren't horrifying because they're not like a Xenomorph that explicitly targets people... They're just two big clumsy bugs trying to settle down and make a family (daaaaw)... And Godzilla, well, early on it was made clear that he was going to be taking on his protector role instead of destroyer role, so where's the explicit threat there? Sure, there was lots of damage, but it's just portrayed as unimportant and collateral. The only time where I thought that post-"monster" damage was impactful was when we were in the quarantine zone.

2.5/5

Great review, Chrono! Agree with you but like Villain, I still couldn't left the theater with only disappointment. I guess, for fans like us even that limited amount of Godzilla showoffs resulted bit of satisfaction also.

Anyway, certainly you've made plenty of very reasonable points like FC did but I'd like to share some views about THE THREAT. I understand & agree with your views & sympathies about the MUTOs (you can open a facebook page: 'SAVE THE MUTOS' :D) and about their "horrifying appeal" but I think any giant & destructive monsters should certainly be consider as a threat for us (whatever their intentions are). We just can't let any man-eating (though MUTOs are not, just saying), giant or destructive animal/monster to move around & breed freely in any human establishment; can we? Whatever their intentions are, that may stimulates huge public panic & chaos as well as deaths & destruction at any point of time. But if their premise for nesting, feeding & fight for survival was different...let's say, in a remote island or jungle, abandoned or untouched by human civilization (i.e. Skull Island) then that would be totally different.
2014 Godzilla is kind of a homage to those Japanese sequels where Godzilla played the good guy role & intentionally or not, fought alongside humanity against common threats but yeah...I'd definitely more like to see an unpredictable, badass Godzilla like in the very first & original film. And the thing that often bugged me is why in any of the Godzilla sequels as well as in this American revive they didn't go with his "metaphor for nuclear weapons" concept, I think that would give more perspective & much more darker & interesting angles into a movie(s) which would also generate a great human story easily. Not in a great length may be but I'd love to see more closely destroyed cities & devastated human lives fighting for survival after Godzilla or any other monster's rampage. And last but not the least, when there are monsters who feeds on radiation then it'd be better to see some radiation poisoning things in an aftermath scenario more or less like the way the original depicted...and this all, as a whole could offer a great deal of threatening scenarios which even could lead into an apocalyptic warfare premise for any later sequel.

[Sculpt]

Originally Posted by ChronoGrl

Mamma MUTO was heart-broken when her baby eggs are torched and I was too - Outside of Joe and Sandra, the MUTO relationship is really the only interesting familial relationship in the movie...

That's the HDC quote of the year so far. Well said, I felt the same way. That pretty much sums up the negative on Godzilla 2014.

I agree Cranston should have been the star throughout the film. It's fine enough that we follow his son into the military actions, but keep his wife and son the minor part it was. Let Cranston and Watanabe take center stage.