Even though I was hoping this latest Godzilla movie would be a much better effort than the 1998 fluke of a film, I kept my expectations to a minimum when I went into the theaters. However, by the time the ending credits popped up, I left the building thinking, "That was fun." But, I did have a few minor gripes with the movie, and most of these come off nit-picky, so keep that in mind.
-Not Enough Godzilla Screen Time
Now, this isn't going to be a "Godzilla should be all about action!" rant, because I have watched a fair share of Godzilla movies, especially the original Japanese version, so I'm very aware that a significant portion of these movies are focused on the humans. I accept the first-ish half where the monsters and Godzilla are rarely seen, just teased. I will even add that Bryan Cranston's acting made the first half watchable without the monsters, or kaiju, if you want to be specific. So I found it irritating that, when the film was in "monster mode" for the remainder of the adventure, the plot kept wanting to focus on the human interactions a little too much.
Like, every time something awesome was about to happen with Godzilla and the creatures, the direction would cut away, and the viewers would either never see the brawl, or see it briefly on the news in a distant monitor. Okay, I get it: there hasn't been a new Godzilla movie in 10 years, and this is an effort to reintroduce the big fella with build up and teases, especially for a new generation. I just felt they went a little overboard with it. But! It's a bit of a double-edged sword for me, because I did find the human side of the crisis interesting, helping to levitate the extremity of giant monsters causing chaos to everyday life.
-Final Showdown was Dark
Again, I want to start this off by saying that I really enjoyed the final fight at the film's climax. I just wish it wasn't constantly surrounded by darkness and dust. I guess they did it because it would have been too costly to do this with more visibility, which would force more graphical detail to go along with it? Maybe?
-Slowest Chase Scene
I'm typing this as I'm thinking about it, so excuse me, but now that I think about it, what really annoyed me about the second half of the film is how it was basically a pretty "slow" chase scene between Godzilla and the first creature. It was basically, Godzilla/military finds MUTO (the creature's name), fights him, MUTO flees and causes destruction along the way, Godzilla/military gives chase, and it repeats in modified form along the way. Sure, it's a nice way to show various destructive scenes, and trust me, this film has plenty of it, but I feel maybe if the chaos was a bit more concentrated and in less places, the second half could've had better coordination.
With all that said, Godzilla 2014 actually exceeded my expectations and managed to stay as faithful to the original source material as possible. There were numerous moments where I was thinking, "Yes! They kept it!", and always got excited when Godzilla himself let out a good, hearty roar. Unless you have a pretty bangin' sound system in your home, I personally think, if you're even a semblance of a Godzilla fan, that you need to see this movie in theaters just to hear Godzilla's awesome roar, regardless of how you feel of the film as a whole. And thinking back on the scenes of the MUTOs and Godzilla, I do like the subtlety of how the former were being aggressively destructive while the latter didn't show any intentional signs of wanting to cause any damage to humans or structures; it's something you kinda don't notice watching the film as it's happening, but when the end scene gives you food for thought, you realize and appreciate it.
I also feel that some people are being a tad harsh on Godzilla 2014 for not being so much more than what it is. My nit-picky issues aside, I think it's a bit ludicrous that some fans are saying stuff like, "The Japanese movies did it better and had more creativity with their monsters!" Is this really fair? They're basically comparing the Japanese's 60 years of combined experience with the franchise versus two American films (does the King of the Monsters! edit count?) that are pretty much one decade apart from each other. While there are obviously fans that have seen the Japanese films over the decades as they came out, I also feel that this seems to be an effect directed towards "newer" fans that have the advantage of a "readily"-available catalog of Godzilla films at their disposal: an entire library versus a neat 2014 reboot and a ridiculous 1998 farce.
But that's just my personal view on things. I liked it, and I hope we get another one, hopefully with an established kaiju like King Ghidorah or Mothra.
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