Godzilla (2014)

[Henry88]

$136,205,000   
http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=godzilla2012.htm

[Bob]

I am taking next Friday off, so I will see it then.

I am still wondering if I should see it in 3D or non-3D.

[wurwolf]

Normally I am not someone who enjoys 3D and I usually avoid movies with it, but the 3D in this was really well done. So I would recommend both 3D and Imax.

[Henry88]

'Godzilla' Sequel In The Works At Warner Bros. & Legendary
http://www.deadline.com/2014/05/godzilla-2-sequel-warner-bros-legendary-gareth-edwards/

[KidFlash]

Deadline didn't even wait until Monday morning to post this. That's impressive.

[Trekker4747]

Saw it last night and utterly loved it.  To an immense degree. Great, great fun and BLAST to watch in 3D.

You will CHEER for Godzilla and you will yell and applaud when the great moment happens near the end. Awesome, awesome experience.

[Darth Geek]

Had a good time with it. A bit too long, and it could have used a little more monster fighting. But the military stuff was done well, especially compared to Godzilla 1998 and Michael Bay movies like this. But Godzilla was BADASS. And I thought the MUTOs were pretty cool.

[Henry88]

[Darth Geek]

By the way. Wasn't there supposed to be a scene after the credits that hinted at another monster for a sequel? I thought I heard about something on the moon.

[Trekker4747]

I don't recall hearing anything about a tag scene.

I did notice the name "Mothra" on tape on the terrarium inside Cranston's (along with an opened cocoon) wrecked home when he went back to recover his Zip-Disks.

[Darth Geek]

Yeah, I noticed that too. Although of all the other kaiju they referenced the goddamn MOTH?!

[Malt]

Thank goodness this movie didn't suck. I saw the first showing on Thursday night and really enjoyed it, taking a friend to see it in a day or two.

And yeah I heard something about a Ghidorah teaser at the end too, and pretty much nobody left until the credits were over, but oh well. I think the lack of a teaser was more respectful anyways. That trend has just gotten stupid and over-used besides.

[MSTJedi]

Saw it last night. There was quite a bit of slow build, but I felt the human stories were done well enough that it never felt like the movie was dragging. The monster battles were absolutely amazing once they got started. Don't know how they'll afford a sequel if they go with a more monster-heavy approach seeing as it's all done in CGI.

My wife and I watched The MST3K episode of Godzilla vs Megalon when we got home and were reminded just how a slow build featuring the human aspect can go horribly wrong.

[Henry88]

The Godzilla of old watching the Godzilla of now!



And yes, he DID like the movie, for those who are wondering.  And in case anyone is keeping score, Ken Satsuma, Shogo Tomiyama, and Akira Takarada have come out as fans of the new film as well.

[Relaxing Dragon]

The rambling, occasionally-coherent review I did for a different site:

There are few pop-culture icons so equally ubiquitous and unknown as Godzilla. On the one side, generally everyone with any sort of cultural awareness of the past few decades knows that giant lizard on sight and sound. Whenever talk of Japan comes up (and Tokyo in particular), you can bet a joke or two about giant monsters laying waste to the city are soon to pass. It's simply that ingrained into the international consciousness. Parodies exist in every conceivable medium depicting just that, to the point where more people have likely seen a parody than any actual instance of the creature himself. Moving beyond Godzilla, everyone's also gotten their own idea of what the movies are like as well. The mental image of guys in giant rubber costumes taking swings at one another while poorly-constructed models of cities are crunched underfoot, cross-cut with inserts of panicked crowds pointing, screaming, and running, is pretty much the go-to thoughtline whenever anyone says Godzilla Movie, or even Giant Monster Movie. Sure, there will also be bits of scientists and military brass going at it, and probably some small family drama or petty espionage or other stuff to add in some filler, but by and large that's all just meaningless fluff one must wade through before getting to the monster fights. In essence, the movies exist only for those battles, and nothing else.

And for the most part, that's not entirely inaccurate. When one looks over a list of movies in the franchise, that description is remarkably apt. Camp and silliness runs rampant, and while I've only seen a few of these movies in their entirety, even I feel like they all blend together (and that's without getting into the ones that ended up featured on MST3K). All mindless smashing by crazy dinosaur things.

However, and this is where the "unknown" part of my first sentence comes from, few people really seem to be aware of Godzilla's origins and original intent. In the classic 1954 original, there's not a trace of camp or self-aware craziness to be found. Instead there's a somber, grim look at the horrors of nuclear weapons, as produced by a society that wasn't even ten years out of the finale of WWII (and the mushroom clouds that came with it). The idea of a giant lizard destroying a city may seem like a laughable idea now, thanks to all that aforementioned pop culture osmosis, but it is played deadly straight back here at the inception. The brutal aftermath of such destruction is also focused upon, to the point that there's little "fun" to be found.

Now, 60 years later, we arrive at the American reboot. Done for real this time, as opposed to the disowned 1999 version. Here we have a new appearance of a great threat towards all mankind, and the small people who do all they can to try and stop it from happening. The result? Not something that's going to win over any non-fans of this particular genre of film, but a good reversion back to the ideas and generalized style of the original film.

First, the biggest flaw: the human element of this film falls pretty flat. While there are no out-and-out bad characters or actors, by and large all the characters are fairly one-note. There are flickers of characterization here and there, but generally things are done too broadly to really draw us in. As a result, the many scenes that involve just people can get rather slow, if not outright dull. We simply aren't given enough reason to really care about these people beyond the fact that they're all essentially decent, helpful individuals. The only characters who manage to really make a mark on things are Bryan Cranston's scientist dad (who's crazed pursuit of the truth actually has an effective emotional arc behind it) and David Strathairn's navy admiral (who stays very level-headed and intelligent throughout the film, a refreshing contrast to most brash/crazy/dickish military figures in authority in these sorts of movies). Of course, those are two actors who simply need to show up to be totally compelling, so that's not exactly a genuine achievement on the movie's part. And since the two of them don't factor into nearly as much of the movie as they should, there are long chunks where they are not to be found, and the movie suffers for it.

Then there's the actual pacing of the movie. It takes a very restrained approach, especially when it comes to appearances by the headlining act. There will be a flash of back spines here, a tail whip there, a few walks of the legs, and so on, but for most of the movie, that's about it. There are also moments when a big fight scene might be starting, only for the movie to tease it from a distance via tv screens, or cut away entirely. This is something of a divisive issue, as many will certainly (and possibly even rightfully) be annoyed that there's so little Godzilla in a movie called Godzilla. But actually, this I didn't mind so much, if only because it goes against the grain of so many modern blockbusters. Instead of just throwing noise and destruction in our face, it teases its way in. It makes us really keep our eyes glued to the screen, eager for every new piece, to the point where the movie does unleash itself towards the end, you can't look away. It helps give some actual weight to the proceedings, if only by not completely dulling our senses by the second act.

And when Godzilla does really appear, he's worth every minute. Because if there's one thing this movie well and truly nails, it's him. His looks, his movements, his Earth-shattering roar, it's all perfectly represented. The inherent goofiness to his very being is swept away the first time you see him tower out of the ocean and stand tall over a ruined city block. The movie treats the staggering scale of him with serious respect, and you cannot help but be awed in turn. This is a walking god of cinema, and he gets the respect he deserves here. Being backed up by a bevy of incredible effects work helps as well, as does the other monsters that step into play (who I am intentionally not mentioning for sake of spoilers, since while it's common knowledge that they appear, what they do is another matter entirely).

In fact, the look of the movie in general is fairly incredible, to the point where this is one of the most visually grabbing blockbusters in recent memory. And it does it all while keeping the POV largely down at our level. Explosions light up the sky over a distant hill, a dust cloud obscures a walking Godzilla, a thunderstorm blankets the sky as crashing jets tear into buildings, and nearly all of it shot from around the ground level. It furthers that great sense of scale the movie has going for it and actually gives the destruction some personality. In an age where every blockbuster finds another way to destroy a whole city, that's actually saying something.  Which isn't to say some eventual zoom-outs to get the whole picture in aren't included as well. And when they do show up, it is something special. Every shot is smooth and clear, every image wide and open. There's no shaky-cam here, no effort to fake intensity by obscuring half the action. Just massive creatures going at it in one of the most exciting and fist-pumping spectacles of any action movie of the past few years.

Moving on from there, there's the point that the movie actually seems to make the flat characters work to the best of its abilities, given what it's trying to do. Thematically speaking, where the original Godzilla covered nuclear holocaust and this new director's (one Gareth Edwards) previous film (the excellent little microbudgeter Monsters) covered illegal-immigration, this movie is primarily about the effects of natural disasters on mankind. As pointed out in the film, and acted out by Godzilla, while man works and acts as though he has complete control of his surroundings, something a destructive force will move through him like he is so much cardboard. As the movie shoots everything from the human POV, it uses the characters as scrambling ants who can only hope to get out of the way of the sheer force bearing down on them. The military tracks Godzilla as best it can, but it is really powerless to actually defuse the situation. And these giant monsters, as they move and fight and whatnot, they pay no mind to us at all. We are but gnats to them. One of them taking a step can cause the deaths of dozens, if not hundreds of people. They are a primal representation of nature's wrath, effectively making us a powerless, meaningless mass. And when they move on, the camera lingers on the destruction, of terrified survivors trying to pick themselves out of the rubble and cope with the new world around them. While this doesn't get as totally somber as the original, this is still a very dour movie at times.

To make a some quickie comparisons, this movie is everything that Cloverfield wanted to be and the flip side of the coin for Pacific Rim. For the former, it offers the panicked, ground-level perspective on a giant monster attack (now without the hyper-annoying characters), and for the latter, it offers the slower, more-thoughtful counter to that movie's live-action anime style. The characters may be a bit of bore, but they serve a useful purpose in representing a flailing, helpless humanity at a time of great, unstoppable crisis. The beauty of the shots and effects make for a very compelling watch, as does the awesome power of Godzilla himself. If the script had only been better we could've had an all-timer here, and right now, if you weren't into the G-Man before, this probably won't really win you over. But even though it's not great, it's still a very solid blockbuster, and exactly the sort of thing this franchise needed.

Because when all is said and done, one thing will absolutely be made clear: Godzilla is the King of the Monsters. Full stop.