Oh yeah, I saw this last week. It was awesome!
Look, I done contributed to a movie discussion! Albeit a few months late. . .
To be fair, that’s about all there is to say about this movie. It either pleases your inner child or it doesn’t. High cinema it ain’t.
I saw most of this movie yesterday until I couldn’t take it anymore. Then I finished it today before returning it, out of a sense of obligation.
I was so bored by this movie. I feel like I was fooled by the trailer I saw. I thought this was going to be a Brian Cranston joint. Instead, he leaves the movie way too soon, and then it’s all just so… ugh.
I will say, there was one scene I liked. The big moth thing was fighting Godzilla for the first time, and instead of showing anything, the sound faded to silence, and so did the scene. And then suddenly we were with the skydivers, jumping from the plane, again with very muted or no sounds as we saw glimpses of Godzilla versus the praying mantis thingie as viewed from a skydiver.
Other than that scene though, this was such a big waste of time for me. I just wish there was a way for me to know in advance, but without having to watch trailers. Oh well, that’s a thought for another thread at another time.
This movie needed more Binoche and Cranston.
So, to summarize, you’re upset that a Godzilla film didn’t consist of nothing but Cranston and Binoche? ;)
Yes. :)
When the movie came out, I remember reading some comments in this thread at the time that the movie didn’t have enough screen time for Godzilla. So I wrongly assumed at the time (based on the early preview I saw) that this meant that most of the movie was full of Cranston. And I loved that idea. So I guess I was going in with weird expectations.
Also I have no prior Godzilla knowledge, other than having seen the Matthew Brodrick Godzilla movie from the late 90s, and I don’t think that counts.
No prior Godzilla knowledge??? That’s practically tragic! You poor soul.
I watched this recently too, Red Box. I fucking hated it. I felt the same as you, somewhat interesting because you sort of care about the Cranston character being wronged by some corporate/government conspiracy while also hoping to learn more about what happened at the reactor, etc. Then he dies and the movie is just utter shit. I honestly can not recall a worse movie that I watched through to the end.
Yeah, I watched it but couldn’t muster the outrage to write a rant against this. It is just so bad it is sad. They try to glue many intersecting stories together, but in the end it doesn’t work as a whole. The father and son arc could have been a lot better, making the final monsters fight more meaningful (e.g. make a point to show the son join the strike team not just for his own family but for mom and dad as well). Instead it is more pew-pew-pew and then THE END. (Still the end couldn’t come soon enough.)
Aaron Taylor-Johnson and Elizabeth Olsen are a couple in this but in Avengers 2 they are going to be brother and sister. Other than this meta-incestuous undertone nothing works in this film. Pacific Rim is still the best kaiju film in this decade, but that is a low bar already. Just avoid this at all cost.
It was horrible.
Didn’t watch a Godzilla movie to see character development of the actors.
I watched to see monsters pound on each other, and was disappointed.
That whole part was the weirdest. The monsters didn’t look nimble enough to really do much damage to each other, the way they were awkwardly pushing each other. It reminded me of the time I was fighting with my best friend, and neither of us knew how to fight, because neither of us had ever been a fight before, so we were just slapping each other’s hands out of the way, with another friend watching us and literally rolling on the floor laughing, watching us try to fight.
Well, it was like that until Godzilla started spewing lightning breath. I guess that’s when the tide turned. Maybe he should have led with that instead of getting into a slapping nerd-fight at first.
Yeah, I did like the lightning/radioactive breath.
Really the only part I really liked.
I love that kind of hyperbole.
I doubt that it’s hyperbole. He said he honestly could not recall one. Not that there wasn’t one. Bad movies tend to become a jumble in one’s memory. I’m trying to recall a worse movie myself just now, and I can’t recall one either. It doesn’t mean there weren’t plenty. It just means that it’s been a while since I saw a movie I disliked this much.
So you’ve never seen a Michael Bay or Brett Ratner film in your entire life?
Godzilla wasn’t great by any means, but it certainly wasn’t the worst film in anyone’s memory. That’s all I’m saying.
They showed some reverence for the original character and they included some pretty outstanding visuals. They didn’t force in a baby Godzilla, a spin off Godzilla or a redesigned Godzilla. It was a C level Godzilla film at worst, in my opinion.
Again, he said he couldn’t recall a worse one. That’s different than saying there wasn’t a worse one.
Good point on Michael Bay. However, now you’ve got me doing silly meaningless calculus in my head on whether or not Godzilla was worse than Transformers (didn’t watch the sequels) or whether or not it was worse than Armageddon. Alright that last one is easy, no calculus required. :-)
Godzilla is not as bad as Armageddon, but it is worse than Transformers. That actually brings up a good point on the action scenes: as much as I was bored by the action in Godzilla, at least I was never confused about what on earth was happening, unlike in Michael Bay’s movies sometimes.
I can’t comment on the relation to Baby Godzilla, spin-off Godzilla or redesigned Godzilla since I’m not familiar with earlier movies.
I’d hate to see what would have happened had you been able to muster the outrage. :0
You really haven’t seen previous Godzilla movies, have you? Kanji movies are like watching awkward wrestling.
I’d say there’s a sumo influence, myself, which makes a lot of sense when you think about it.
Just watched this as well. While I didn’t outright dislike it, I was disappointed on the whole. Maybe my expectations were too high.
You really should watch the original, and still by far the best, Godzilla movie. It’s the only one in the original series that was relatively high budget, with easily the best effects of any of the original movies, and the only movie that’s a legitimately good, and even important, movie. I love my Criterion collection version.