Godzilla (2014)

[Ayen]

I just saw the film today. I thought it was great and I liked the direction they took it in that they managed to keep veiled in the trailers, which is rare these days with how many spoilers trailers show. My only gripe was that they spent too much time on the people. This is something that all the Godzilla movies do so I'm not sure what I was expecting, but it was annoying whenever a scene with the monsters was getting good and they'd cut back to the people. I do not care about the people. I want to see the monsters!

The final monster fight was bawse, though.

Talk about how awesome Godzilla is in this thread!

[Shorty]

I haven't seen it yet and I don't know if I will, but I heard it complained that yeah, not enough time spent on monsters and that Godzilla didn't show up until 3/4 of the way in or something.

[Ayen]

Well, you have to build up to the King of Monsters. That part I can forgive.

The rest, though?

[G13]

It was a pretty alright movie. I loved Godzilla's look, and his back story bit was decent. And that halo drop scene, smurfin killer. My only gripes were (SPOILER)1) It seemed like once Bryan Cranston died all the acting in the movie died with him. Kickass was not interesting in the least and I found myself not caring at all about him or his trip back to his family. And the Asian fella only had one facial expression, and it wasn't Blue Steel. And 2) what in the actual smurf was with that ending? Godzilla's roars and dives back into the ocean and we dub him the King of Monsters? San Francisco's savior? And the Asian guy looks like a proud dad watching his kid scamper off to the first day of kindergarten. It's like, what!? I just couldn't get past that, and luckily it ended shortly after.

[Scotty_ffgamer]

The fact that Godzilla and the other monsters weren't shown a lot is a valid complaint, but it didn't bother me. I like to keep in mind the fact that in the original Gojira, he was shown for like 7 minutes maybe in the whole film? 7 or 17, I can't remember. In any case, it was that same level of anticipation that they were trying to do in this movie. There were some truly beautifully shot scenes in this movie, too.

I just like Godzilla in general, though.

[Kalevala]

I haven't seen it yet, but I'm okay with the idea of Godzilla only being in the last half or last fourth of the movie. These types of movies tend to explore - or have the ability to explore - humanity just as much if not more than the monster.

Or is humankind the actual monster?

[Quindiana Jones]

Does it have Jean Reno in it?

[Ayen]

It was a pretty alright movie. I loved Godzilla's look, and his back story bit was decent. And that halo drop scene, smurfin killer. My only gripes were (SPOILER)1) It seemed like once Bryan Cranston died all the acting in the movie died with him. Kickass was not interesting in the least and I found myself not caring at all about him or his trip back to his family. And the Asian fella only had one facial expression, and it wasn't Blue Steel. And 2) what in the actual smurf was with that ending? Godzilla's roars and dives back into the ocean and we dub him the King of Monsters? San Francisco's savior? And the Asian guy looks like a proud dad watching his kid scamper off to the first day of kindergarten. It's like, what!? I just couldn't get past that, and luckily it ended shortly after.

Godzilla SpoilersI agree about Bryan Cranston's character. I thought he was going to be the main guy and he probably should have been. As for the rest, I think the fact Godzilla had gone out of his way to avoid structure damage (like all the times he could have torn bridges in two but didn't) and beating the monsters that were doing the most damage might have contributed to that. That's how I saw it, anyway.

[Drift]

Can't wait for the second one. Hopefully more monster's less Breaking Bad.

Enjoyed this one muchly though. Great fights and the story was good.

[Ayen]

Can't wait for the second one. Hopefully more monster's less Breaking Bad.

Enjoyed this one muchly though. Great fights and the story was good.

I was told by Scotty that the second one is supposed to be based on Destroy All Monsters. So I am hyped!

[Dr Unne]

(SPOILER)Having so much people-time would've been fine if the people were interesting. Bryan Cranston's character had motivation, had personality flaws (crazy) and strengths (science), and is a good actor. Then he died. Army guy and his wife and child were boring and one-dimensional with no flaws and unrealistic strengths. The plot of the movie became "invincible and fearless army guy does army things and saves the day, while Gojira breaks crap in the background", which is tripe. Imagine if the plot was something like "Gojira wants to fight the monsters, humans don't understand and shoot him with missiles but it just ticks him off and he breaks stuff; meanwhile Bryan Cranston and Ken Watanabe use science and provide helpful exposition and make humans understand, and Gojira does his thing and saves the day".

[chionos]

(SPOILER)Having so much people-time would've been fine if the people were interesting. Bryan Cranston's character had motivation, had personality flaws (crazy) and strengths (science), and is a good actor. Then he died. Army guy and his wife and child were boring and one-dimensional with no flaws and unrealistic strengths. The plot of the movie became "invincible and fearless army guy does army things and saves the day, while Gojira breaks crap in the background", which is tripe. Imagine if the plot was something like "Gojira wants to fight the monsters, humans don't understand and shoot him with missiles but it just ticks him off and he breaks stuff; meanwhile Bryan Cranston and Ken Watanabe use science and provide helpful exposition and make humans understand, and Gojira does his thing and saves the day".

Hollywood calling for Mr. Carper.

Seriously though, that does about cover my gripes. I loved the style of the monsters (all three), but that was about it really. Limp-Ass boy was a preposterous character. The timing of everything was just silly. The Dr. Serizawa character was poorly written (and acted, sadly). I tried to care about the little kid on the train, but couldn't even do that. I couldn't. Part of me refused at the utter tripishness of it.

Nevertheless, Godzilla is a badass and his scenes were exhilarating.

[Ayen]

My hope is that the people behind the movie will recognize these problems and rectify them for the sequel. We finally got a proper portrayal of Godzilla in America. I'm stoked!

[Perducci]

I really enjoyed it. Not too bothered by the lack of actual Godzilla time because I think that a two hour movie focused entirely on Godzilla would have made the climax of the film a lot less awesome. I understand the need to focus on the people and the new monsters they introduced, and it made it so much more satisfying when Godzilla finally entered the picture.

Then again, now that the introduction is done, I'm not at all against watching Godzilla wail on monsters for two hours when the next film comes out. I'm just not sure which kaiju could actually fit the style of this new film... Whilst a modern-day Mothra would be awesome to see on screen, I don't know if they'd be able to pull it off in a more 'realistic' take on the franchise like this. Hopefully they don't just stick to creating new monsters.