Godzilla (2014) Critique_FULL SPOILERS_

So, full disclaimer I loved the new Godzilla movie. I was hyped months in advance, and for the most part it met my hype. This movie has been the gateway drug to the Godzilla franchise. Before this my only experience with Godzilla is the Gamecube game Godzilla Destroys All Monsters Melee. Since seeing the film I have watched the original Gojira and Godzilla Raids Again. I also have received a double feature of a blu-ray of Godzilla Final wars (Terrible film) and Godzilla Tokyo S.O.S which was actually pretty good. However, we're here to discuss my thoughts on the new film. This is just going to be a rundown of some issues I had with the film, and how it could have been done to a greater success. I realize this film has some glaring issues; but I feel if they handled some things just a bit better it would have been a screaming achievement! So I won't be doing a full review per-se but a look at the faults.

FINAL WARNING ___FULL__SPOILERS____AHEAD______

1. Lets talk a moment about how frequent Godzilla is in the film. Looking at it, he doesn't make his appearance till halfway through the film, which the fight he partakes in is also cut away from. Then he really isn't seen till the end, and even then its edited in a way that focuses a too much on the boring marine story. Before I get ahead of myself, lets look to the original Gojira; he actually is sparse in that movie as well. He only wrecks shop twice, and the other times he seen is rather brief. I believe the newer film tried to emulate this; but the execution was poor. First off, no cut away should have happened at the Hawaii fight when we first see Godzilla. I get wanting to save him for the big finish; but at that point I had cinematic blue balls. If he(The director) wanted to save the meat and potatoes for the end, fine. However, at least give the audience some cool warm-up of what is to come! Just five minutes would have been suffice. Lastly, the editing in the end sequence was terrible. It had a huge focus on the marine story. This could shot and planned a bit differently to get the same message across, but with more of the kaiju action we want. Speaking of boring humans.....
2. The Cranston Conundrum. This is a topic that needs to be talked about. First off, I think it was ballsy as hell to kill of (basically) the protagonist we can connect to. I thought it was a cool idea and could've been well done...but a combination of many things led to that being shot down. First off, I think Cranston's star power overshadowed his role at this point. Don't get me wrong he was fantastic, and did wonderful don't misunderstand me here, but they killed off an actor I felt alot of people really wanted to see for most of the film and the lead up material presented it as such. This isn't anyones fault (maybe marketing) and had the character been portrayed by a less hyped actor (assuming said actor is good), I think the issue wouldn't sting as much, but still be prevalent due to an issue I'll get to later. Another missed opportunity is no interaction between Cranston and Watanabe. Seeing those two play off each other would have been such a delight! They even play characters that would have been fun to watch interact. This is such a missed opportunity I'm surprised this wasn't caught in the writing phase. At least the shocking Cranston death had a great payoff of being a twist no one saw and benefitted from having a great character to fall back on ....amirite?
3. No I am wrong. The character of Ford is an extremely dull one, and I'm not sure whether to blame the director, writer, or actor (Aaron Taylor Johnson)! The twist of Cranston's death would have been very shocking and cool had we actually had a good character to fall back on as a protagonist. I am extremely baffled by the performance here. I want to give Johnson credit and say maybe Ford was lazily written and there wasn't much he could do; or maybe he was given poor direction. He seems to have some acting chops in Kick-Ass, so I don't know. Really though, a large chunk of the film fails due to this poor character. Not only does this mean the Cranston twist fails, but the new hero is ( at best) generic military family dude. A man willing to save his family and country at any cost. Had the writing been better (and maybe direction and/or acting?) he could have been just as compelling and sympathetic as his father.
4. Pointless humans in general. Wrapping up here, the whole family aspect is weak and I never really feel for Ford's wife or child. This is just (again) lazy writing. We get a single scene of the family together to establish a family; we never see much more than that. I never connected with the emotions they tried to convey; of being separated and scared. This could have been written in way (or acted/directed) to really resonate with the audience. As is, it just feels tacked on and generic to try and get some kind of response, as well to help Ford feel a bit more relatable. Also, that random sub plot of Ford helping the Asian kid get back to his family....felt pointless. Maybe its there to show Ford is a nice guy...or hero when he saves him later but if just felt pointless and tacked on.

So , my thoughts on the new Godzilla. I still love the film, and I can go on and on about all the great things it had going for it! Probably longer than the issues I have. What do you all think? Did you enjoy it?

I found the monsters feeding off the radiation bit to be a tad bit far fetched to such an extent. If the beasts feed of radiation, fine, I won't argue that. However, to rid an area of all radioactivity doesn't make any sense. Radioactivity is the decay of the nuclear state of elements, to be able to absorbed released energy is not what I'm arguing, it's that it's absorbing energy that has yet to be released. When radiation is detected it's detecting the decay, so how can the monsters absorb the released energy before the decay of the nuclear structure of the radioactive isotopes. Doesn't make any sense. It's about as ill thought as the Lucy premise.

I went in expecting very little. I was entertained by the way they did the illuminating spines. Yes the "hero" was dull as hell compared to who I thought it would of been. So I agree with you there. I mean they had a really strong and inviting introduction. It died on that helicopter as well.

In my opinion, the trailer looked epic and intense, and then I went to see the movie and just couldn't get into it. Very slow beginning, the very short existence of Bryan Cranston's character, and underwhelming Godzilla scenes. Great cinematography though.

"FULL_SOILERS"

Go change your underwear, OP.

I'm having a hard time to understand your notion. Maybe it's your grammar?

@Kevlar101: Oh geez XD I fixed it!

I agree with the above about the cinematography and spines!

Godzilla was a PoS movie in every way possible.. It killed the actor that every one was hyped for and thought was the main character from the trailer within the first 30 minutes of the movie.. We then got some generic ass US soldier guy with absolutely no emotion that is apparently fearless in situations that no one has ever trained for.. A US soldier who apparently, being only in his 20's, is able to do everything including disarming/arming nuclear weapons and doing halo drops.. Who the top brass thought it was a good idea to reveal the existence of Godzilla, something they have been keeping secret from everyone for 50 years.. Why? Who knows!

The teaser trailer set a atmosphere that was both oppressive and terrifying.. Yet the actual movie felt more like a transformers movie with hardly any kind of tension and laughable plot.. The final insult to injury was the fucking ending.. After three gigantic monsters tear the shit out of several major cities, killing thousands and causing billions upon billions of dollars of damage.. The people act if Godzilla is some how their "savior" even though they wouldn't have any idea what the **** is going on nor would they act that way what so ever.. The only thing I actually liked in the movie was the scenes with Cranston and just the creature designs and sounds..

The film was marketed as Godzilla versus Heisenberg.

What we got was Boring Soldier Follows Around Generic Monsters.

What sucks is that if they'd just swapped the roles around - with Cranston swapping with the son, and Godzilla swapping with the Mutos - they'd have had a much better film, even if nothing else was changed about the plot!

A simple "Cranston seeking vengeance against Godzilla, only to end up relying on him for our survival" plot was all it needed.

The shitty thing about this whole fisaco is the fact Godzilla will be seen the biggest success and studios will try to mimic that.. While ignoring far superior movies released during the summer like "Edge of Tomorrow".