Godzilla

[Zombie_Babies]

It was. Worst of all was the money I spent, or wasted, on it. Tickets were about $40. Fortunately I got a decent meal and drinks out of it. Those were an additional $60, though.

I gotta find out if we've got one of those places here. I know that you can get booze and watch a play downtown but I don't know of any movie theaters that serve.

I think Bay was created by scientist to make Godzilla movies. Think about it. Giant monsters fighting, shooting lasers and blowing stuff up. That's how every single Bay movie starts. The best part, he throws in hot girls for the hell of it. Plot? Screw that. Hot girls and explosions! Character development? Only if it means the hot girl wearing less clothing and more explosions going on. Seriously, how is that not perfect for a Godzilla movie?

He's ... uhh ... good at terrible.

I'm too lazy to shut it of, and I'm too lazy to type my texts regularly. In other words, your mom!

Oh yeah? Your cat's mom!

The truth, it hurts!

Baysplosions never hurt.

 

[Umbran]

I saw it this weekend, and my basic thought can be expressed as, "Less talk, more monster!"

I have no problem with having weak plot, characterization, or science in a monster movie - but then make it a real monster movie, with lots of monster! I can even understand using all the mists and smoke to create some tension, but holding off for half the movie before we really see the titular beast does not seem like a good plan, to me.

 

[gamerprinter]

but holding off for half the movie before we really see the titular beast does not seem like a good plan, to me.

Honestly, a lot of monster movies do that. Cloverfield was that way. Lots of werewolf movies, you see some monster attacking, but you never get a close up, until the last third of movie and you see the transformation. Seeing the monster (well) in the first half of most monster movies almost never happens.

 

[Umbran]

Honestly, a lot of monster movies do that. Cloverfield was that way. Lots of werewolf movies....

I admit that I have not taken a stopwatch to other kaiju movies to see how long it takes to see the monster for which the movie is named. But, in Godzilla, I clearly noted the lack. The first half of the movie wasn't interesting enough to hold itself up without more monster.

I note that Werewolf movies are not kaiju films. Werewolves are personal horror movies, not cultural devastation movies. So I don't know if they are a good basis for comparison. I think Cloverfield, in shifting the point of view to individuals *not* involved in fighting the monster, converted the film to personal horror. Godzilla didn't do that (or didn't do it successfully), and so that pacing choice didn't work well, for me.

 

[gamerprinter]

I admit that I have not taken a stopwatch to other kaiju movies to see how long it takes to see the monster for which the movie is named. But, in Godzilla, I clearly noted the lack. The first half of the movie wasn't interesting enough to hold itself up without more monster.

I note that Werewolf movies are not kaiju films. Werewolves are personal horror movies, not cultural devastation movies. So I don't know if they are a good basis for comparison. I think Cloverfield, in shifting the point of view to individuals *not* involved in fighting the monster, converted the film to personal horror. Godzilla didn't do that (or didn't do it successfully), and so that pacing choice didn't work well, for me.

Oh, I freely admit that the premise in a werewolf movie are very different than a Kaiju movie, but really a monster movie is a monster movie, despite various nuances between personal horror and cultural devastation. Really, aside from Cloverfield, I don't really watch much "kaiju", especially the old stuff which is too campy for me - so I haven't really experienced a body of kaiju work to compare it with. Almost all monster movies are built to slowly build up the question of what the monster really is - to build a horror effect. Unless really well done, often the reveal is a let down, so possibly a major reason to not the show the monster fully until well into the movies progress.

 

[Umbran]

Oh, I freely admit that the premise in a werewolf movie are very different than a Kaiju movie, but really a monster movie is a monster movie, despite various nuances between personal horror and cultural devastation.

Ah, well, I don't agree on this particular point. What makes a successful kaiju movie and what makes a successful Werewolf (or other personal horror) film are, to me, rather different things. So, we'll disagree on assessments beyond that point.

 

[gamerprinter]

Ah, well, I don't agree on this particular point. What makes a successful kaiju movie and what makes a successful Werewolf (or other personal horror) film are, to me, rather different things. So, we'll disagree on assessments beyond that point.

I am actually saying that I agree with you, in general, its just I don't watch enough kaiju movies (really nothing more than Cloverfield or King Kong, are the only kaiju movies I have looked at) so I don't have a measuring tool to say what makes a good kaiju movie - I just don't know, and don't have the experience of knowing. Kaiju movies generally don't attract me. I like horror, not Kaiju.

 

[Joker]

Saw it, loved it.

Personally I would classify this as a disaster movie, not a monster flick. But no matter how you categorize it, humans have to be central to the story in that what happens to them is important to see. This movie gives us just that. What happens to us and how we react to disastrous happenings that are completely out of our control. Seeing giant monsters fight during a two hour movie becomes a dull affair if I don't see what effect it has on bystanders. If you leave out or gloss over the human element all you've done is scaled up a bar fight. With the bar turning into a city and the furniture turning into the buildings.

This is why I think that when you compare Godzilla to Pacific Rim, the former is so much the better film. Great pacing, well and timely delivered action sequences and wonderful set pieces. I love most about the fights between the monsters is that they're short. Too often do we see enemies, small and gargantuan, hurl each other through buildings for minutes at a time, completely without effect. Here, the action is short, bloody and brutal.

The one thing I didn't like about it was the blandness of the lead. It's become a trend in big budget action flicks to have the male lead portrayed with as little personality as possible. It has something to do with the male audience members being able to identify with him. He's like a character sheet of stats without a back story. Useful and able to the job but missing out on being able to develop. That's my only qualm. Other than that, it was a good disaster movie.

8/10

 

[Nytmare]

I'm actually surprised that there are so many positive responses to this movie. I didn't hate it, but "crushing disappointment" probably sums up my feelings pretty well.

I think a lot of it was because the two trailers I had seen had convinced me that I was going to be watching a different movie. I was expecting a Bryan Cranston lead disaster and horror movie, and I was super confused when he died instead of springing back so that he could save the day and so that he and his son could finish patching things up.

I loved the monsters, I loved the fighting, I loved how everything looked (oh my god that opening credit sequence), but every time there was a person on the screen aside from Cranston or his wife, I couldn't figure out why they were there. The exposition just felt empty, and every time someone explained why they were doing something, it just dragged me kicking and screaming out of the film to wonder why in the hell they'd possibly come to that decision.

Honestly, if the human beings had done absolutely nothing at all the entire movie, everything would have happened exactly the same way except that fewer people would have died or been threatened with death.

In as much as one can, I think they treated giant atomic monsters realistically. Yes, we already had a kaiju with an EMP in Pacific Rim, but in Godzilla the EMP actually works properly.

Except that it didn't. I really wish that Hollywood would move away from this version of EMPs. It doesn't turn off electronics till the monster walks away, it fries electronics and makes them stop working till they get repaired. And what harm would a realistic EMP have done to this story? I was expecting them to find a sailboat, not hotwire a fishing boat.

The scifi in this really kept yanking me out of my suspension of disbelief, and it was totally the fault of them trying to explain away something I had already wholly accepted.

These monsters exist because the earth used to be 10 times more radioactive?

They're predators and parasites that don't predate upon or act parasitic on each other?

The thing sprouted wings, why the hell did they keep insisting that it was terrestrial? It was supposed to be Mothra, right? Why didn't they start calling it Mothra?

Was there a scene missing or something with a monster caterpillar crawling away from the old Godzilla skeleton and attacking the power station?

Huh this thing is eating radiation, better feed it more. Oh it hatched into a monster and is still eating radiation, better feed it more.

The MUTO leaves Yucca mountain, which is still absolutely BRIMMING with radioactive waste to eat.

The military decides to lure all three of the monsters 20 miles off the coast by strapping a bunch of nukes to a train and driving it straight through monster town instead of putting it on a plane and flying around monster town.

Why is the Navy happily sailing alongside Godzilla when they're still operating under the assumption that he's a bad guy monster that they need to kill?

I forget the exact numbers, but he's passed out in a boat that has 5 minutes to sail 20 miles so that San Francisco won't be caught in the blast radius. That means that the boat has to travel at least 240 miles per hour, right? WHY PUT NUMBERS THERE IF THEY DIDN'T WANT IT TO BE A MATH PROBLEM!?!

One part of the mishmash of story that really managed to confuse my son is that he is operating under the assumption that the radiation from the power plant somehow turned momma Brody into Godzilla.

In the end, I guess that I'm happy that it was at least not as bad as the 1998 Godzilla reboot.

 

[Umbran]

Honestly, if the human beings had done absolutely nothing at all the entire movie, everything would have happened exactly the same way except that fewer people would have died or been threatened with death.

Yep. I think that makes one of the major points of the film.