I was never a huge Godzilla fan. The closest I've ever gotten to the King of Monsters is a copy of the 1998 train wreck on Laserdisc, that I've only watched once because I disliked it so much. So, I pretty much went into this movie blind. I knew very little, I'd only seen the first trailer that was released a few months ago, and I had read some technical data of the shooting format of the film and whatnot - nothing too exciting or revealing.
My official verdict is....the film is pretty good. As long as you disregard the human characters in the movie. Focus on Godzilla. And the monsters he fights. That's how this film really finds its strengths.
Maybe this is the fault of our first time blockbuster director Gareth Edwards, or of his team of editiors, screenwriters, and other people who put this movie together, but all of the human characters that run around while Godzilla is Godzilla are either completely useless or really, really bland. Its like they decided to assemble a team of modern screen legends - Bryan Cranston, fresh off his run with the wonderful TV show Breaking Bad, Juliette Binoche, oscar winner and star of films such as The English Patient and Three Colors: Blue, Ken Watanabe, oscar nominee for his role in The Last Samurai and one of the many key players in Inception, and Sally Hawkins, who was fantastic in the recent Woody Allen film, Blue Jasmine. They got all these award winner actors together to make a disaster movie, and gave them all really insignificant parts with as minimal screen time as possible.
Instead, we get a movie centered around Aaron Taylor Johnson and Elizabeth Olsen, two younger players who have the charisma of flat tires. Seriously, why would you make Aaron Taylor Johnson a lead in your 200 million dollar blockbuster? The only good movie he's been in is Kickass, a comedic superhero film about a loser who takes on the suit of a crime fighter only to realize he's mostly incompetent. He hasn't shown any real dramatic chops, and only plays well when there's a bit of comedy on the table. You want to know what movie isn't comedic at all? This one. Its like they tried to take the same risks that Roland Emmerich took in 96' casting Will Smith in Independence Day. The difference? Independence Day was loaded with humorous one liners and bits of comedies that made it a ton of fun. In Godzilla we get Aaron Taylor Johnson running around being really serious. Seriously. There is like one scene in this movie where I laughed at all.
As for Elizabeth Olsen, well. She's in like 5 scenes. Five scenes from which I took so little that I couldn't even remember her character's name. So there's that.
But Godzilla's scenes were awesome. Oh boy, were they awesome. Who ever was in charge of those sequences deserves a raise. Hell, give em two raises. Each time he let loose one of those roars and did his thing, I couldn't help but form a ten mile wide grin. I felt like a kid again. I knew that these scenes were the scenes in which the movie reached its full potential. Unfortunately, these scenes were far and few between due to the fact that our director decided to mostly tease Godzilla's existence.
Seriously, I can't say it enough. Godzilla was so badass. I loved it. He truly did show off his stuff as the King of the Monsters, and in an attempt to keep this review as spoiler free as possible, I'm just going to say this: it isn't really an evening movie where you pay top dollar. Try and pay matinee prices, or even special early bird prices. It really doesn't have that much meat on its bones to justify throwing down 13 dollars on an expensive 3D ticket or anything.
Still, I enjoyed Godzilla as a popcorn flick. It was mostly mindless entertainment, with a cast of mostly worthless human characters that were slightly less than one-dimensional characters. It makes up for its lack of intelligence with a few brilliant special effect sequences that are so invigorating that you are guaranteed to start cheering on our title monster. Its a solid special effects laden movie that I definitely recommend if you're good at turning your brain off. Its Godzilla at his finest. He's back.
My official verdict is....the film is pretty good. As long as you disregard the human characters in the movie. Focus on Godzilla. And the monsters he fights. That's how this film really finds its strengths.
Maybe this is the fault of our first time blockbuster director Gareth Edwards, or of his team of editiors, screenwriters, and other people who put this movie together, but all of the human characters that run around while Godzilla is Godzilla are either completely useless or really, really bland. Its like they decided to assemble a team of modern screen legends - Bryan Cranston, fresh off his run with the wonderful TV show Breaking Bad, Juliette Binoche, oscar winner and star of films such as The English Patient and Three Colors: Blue, Ken Watanabe, oscar nominee for his role in The Last Samurai and one of the many key players in Inception, and Sally Hawkins, who was fantastic in the recent Woody Allen film, Blue Jasmine. They got all these award winner actors together to make a disaster movie, and gave them all really insignificant parts with as minimal screen time as possible.
Instead, we get a movie centered around Aaron Taylor Johnson and Elizabeth Olsen, two younger players who have the charisma of flat tires. Seriously, why would you make Aaron Taylor Johnson a lead in your 200 million dollar blockbuster? The only good movie he's been in is Kickass, a comedic superhero film about a loser who takes on the suit of a crime fighter only to realize he's mostly incompetent. He hasn't shown any real dramatic chops, and only plays well when there's a bit of comedy on the table. You want to know what movie isn't comedic at all? This one. Its like they tried to take the same risks that Roland Emmerich took in 96' casting Will Smith in Independence Day. The difference? Independence Day was loaded with humorous one liners and bits of comedies that made it a ton of fun. In Godzilla we get Aaron Taylor Johnson running around being really serious. Seriously. There is like one scene in this movie where I laughed at all.
As for Elizabeth Olsen, well. She's in like 5 scenes. Five scenes from which I took so little that I couldn't even remember her character's name. So there's that.
But Godzilla's scenes were awesome. Oh boy, were they awesome. Who ever was in charge of those sequences deserves a raise. Hell, give em two raises. Each time he let loose one of those roars and did his thing, I couldn't help but form a ten mile wide grin. I felt like a kid again. I knew that these scenes were the scenes in which the movie reached its full potential. Unfortunately, these scenes were far and few between due to the fact that our director decided to mostly tease Godzilla's existence.
Seriously, I can't say it enough. Godzilla was so badass. I loved it. He truly did show off his stuff as the King of the Monsters, and in an attempt to keep this review as spoiler free as possible, I'm just going to say this: it isn't really an evening movie where you pay top dollar. Try and pay matinee prices, or even special early bird prices. It really doesn't have that much meat on its bones to justify throwing down 13 dollars on an expensive 3D ticket or anything.
Still, I enjoyed Godzilla as a popcorn flick. It was mostly mindless entertainment, with a cast of mostly worthless human characters that were slightly less than one-dimensional characters. It makes up for its lack of intelligence with a few brilliant special effect sequences that are so invigorating that you are guaranteed to start cheering on our title monster. Its a solid special effects laden movie that I definitely recommend if you're good at turning your brain off. Its Godzilla at his finest. He's back.
