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So I've just seen this and I really can't be bothered with scrolling through other reactions but my guess is a lukewarm reception with a few of those who think that it was pretty great and a few who though it was rubbish ... probably with a lot of debating of plot or science of it lol 

 

Here's an interesting parallel - I saw Pacific Rim last year in december alone on my computer in the middle of the night just like I saw Godzilla ... and Pacific Rim was so much better,engaging and just plain fun while this was just plodding along wasting time on characters while at the same time not focusing on the ones that are supposed to matter, then there's the problem of taking itself too seriously yet at the same time being proposterous - either make a fun dumb popocrn monster movie or stop making Watanabe deliver cringe-worhty explanations like he's doing Shakespeare, then there's the lame approach to the story where they are making Godzilla a good guy which is boring and frankly quite stupid I mean its a giant fat lizzard-dinosaur thing that doesn't talk but is clever enough to not harm a single human and to fight the other monsters like a boxer - give us a break will you - its a monster! Have it do the thing that it does and be done with it, then there's the plot that you know exactly where's it headed before it gets there which always irritates the piss out of me there's a clever sentence from some filmmaker I read a while back and I was reminded of it constantly during the movie and it goes along the lines of :

 

The audience is always 2 steps ahead of you and you have to keep their interest as hard as you can

 

Now, don't get me wrong I know these movies just like disaster movies and rom coms and revenge movies have to follow a formula I can understand that but you either put a twist to the formula ( making Godzilla the hero was not a twist it was a predictable cop out ) or you keep the audience entertained throughout in order to bypass the problem of the inevitable route the movie must cross. The movie just kept going on without any real effort to make me engaged I mean I have no idea what the main character's name was ... btw his popping up everywhere where the monsters appeared was just a perfect example of a paper thin story

 

In the end its not all THAT bad the director seems competent if overpraised as he is around here and on a technical level its alright but Pacific Rim was a MUCH better and enjoyable experience and to prove it - 5-10 years down the line PR's rewatchability meter will be running high while I simply can't see that for this movie

 

4/10

 

feeling a bit generous  

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Wait I'm confused? 85? did you enjoy it? is that a passing grade? I don't understand! 

It is such a confusing way to grade movies, so I am not surprised you can't tell whether I liked it or not. It's not like the letter grade or number score can easily tell you or anything.

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I thought this movie would be amazing. An out of this world mystery & suspense monster movie with Bryan Cranston as the lead...But it ended up being a total bait & switch - Cranston was not the lead, he only had a few scenes. There was no mystery or build up to Godzilla he was just...There. The real villains were the MUTOs, monsters created by mistake, and Godzilla generally served as the hero of the day. He was not an unstoppable force of nature he was, by all accounts, a grumpy dog on a leash. Didn't help that most of the human cast were dull and lifeless, what a waste of a great cast, man I was really hoping this was gonna be a solid 8 for me..

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I thought this movie would be amazing. An out of this world mystery & suspense monster movie with Bryan Cranston as the lead...But it ended up being a total bait & switch - Cranston was not the lead, he only had a few scenes. There was no mystery or build up to Godzilla he was just...There. The real villains were the MUTOs, monsters created by mistake, and Godzilla generally served as the hero of the day. He was not an unstoppable force of nature he was, by all accounts, a grumpy dog on a leash. Didn't help that most of the human cast were dull and lifeless, what a waste of a great cast, man I was really hoping this was gonna be a solid 8 for me..

 

THIS. I know it's been said countless times before but the moment Bryan Cranston dies is the moment any real investment & interest in the film dies too. Yeah, the set pieces when they arrive are good enough (the Honolulu sequence is pretty much perfectly directed), but the fact that I can remember literally nothing outside of the set peices tells you how generic the characters were.

 

God this really could have been amazing :(

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Its not often that a movie can have such a wide range of opinions. I know some people who love this and some who hate it. No middle ground at all, especially in online discussions.

 

Godzilla has some major things that many would consider serious flaws. Now, i am a big Godzilla Fan but that doesnt mean i dont see these things. And i have watched it dozens of times since it came out on BRay, having a home cinema really does help with this film, which leads to my first point.

 

1. This Movie is very dark. And i dont mean the tone which is serious but the lighing and locations, which are often at night, destroy this film on a TV. You just dont see whats happening with the bridge scene and the entire third act is hidden from the viewer, which is plain bad. Unless you have a big screen. Then it works very good and you see the stuff.
 

2. The Characters and dialogue: These are things that everyone can probably agree is just Hollywood middleground. Not very good, but youve seen worse (*Transformers*). Bryan Cranston is fantastic, but it enoys me till this day that they kill him off so early. Because then we only have Dr. Serizawa who is just staring Twilight into shame and Ford Jr., where Kick-Ass doesnt kick a lot of ass but is mostly boring. That is critical, because hes technically our main character. And he is just not interesting. Besides, Taylor-Jahnson seems to be not very involved in this.

The Dialogue is mostly ok, it has one perfect line (Let them fight) but is ultimately secondary. One more moment stands out: The exchange between Ford and his dad before they go into the restricted area. Its hilariously bad acting from Johnson. Cranson destroys him in every aspect.

 

3. The Cutaways: This is something i can understand, but also disagree. I just watched Jaws recently (i know Jaws has better characters btw) and Godzilla14 uses similar techniques. Its classic teasing and in my opinion makes the third act fight much more epic and satisfying. I know we all want more fight scenes but i also see the risk that they took with this film and in my eyes the payoff makes it worth.

 

4. The Sound and Visuals: F*ing perfect. The Sounddesign is one of the best i have ever witnessed and the CGI looks super real. Yes, we see them mostly at night, but that doesnt make it less convincing for me.

 

5. Godzillas Sceentime: It was fine. I would put one more Godzilla scene in and i would have been perfect, but the Kiss of Death or the tail kill never gets old. Classic Kaiju Eiga there.

 

All in all, i love this movie. But i can see everyones criticism, because yeah there are issues and aspects of this movie that can lead to endless discussions. Im just glad we got another Godzilla Film from Hollywood  that was acutally a Godzilla Movie after the 98 disaster. I for one am very excited for King of the Monsters, because lets face it, the japanese godzillas are mostly silly (tough GMK, Godzilla vs Destoroyer are super guilty pleasures. Havent seen Shin yet).

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After a splendid forty-minute opening, Godzilla falls into a rut. That's not to say it's not well-made; Edwards directs the script with as much panache as a first-time blockbuster-director could. However, it just is painfully dull without any characters to root for. The actors give it their best, but if there's nothing to work with, it's an impossible task. The effects are cool and the score is excellent, but really, it's just hard to care about anything going on the film. Godzilla is definitely one of the more interesting recent franchise reboots, but ultimately, it fails thanks to lacking a strong structural foundation with its weak dialogue and characters. D

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I quite enjoyed this. I will be contrarian and say that Bryan Cranston's character didn't do a whole lot for me. I felt like the movie picked up significantly after he was dead. Really, this movie is at it's best when it's wordless, and when the main character is just a window for us to experience the terrifying power of the monsters. Until Hawaii, it's bogged down by exposition left and right (like after Bryan Cranston's character died, the son has no time to mourn, and is immediately taken to Monarch delivering exposition).

 

But after we land in Hawaii the film is absolutely fantastic. Tons of brilliant and memorable images. It really emphasizes how big these monsters are, and how powerless humans are to stop them. I didn't mind the cutaway at the airport, though I could have down without the news broadcast showing the action afterwards, it felt unnecessary to show the fight indirectly after deliberately hiding it. Even so, the fights at the end were excellent and were plenty enough for me. Again, I felt ATJ's character worked better when wordless and after Hawaii we get a lot of those scenes where a monster is just looming over him and he is completely powerless and tiny. It's masterful visual storytelling.

 

For all the scenes Hawaii and afterward, I would give an A, but the beginning does unfortunately drag the film down a bit. So I'll give it a B.

Edited by Menor
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