Comments on: Breaking Down The Monster: The Best & Worst Of ‘Godzilla’

By: El

El — Fri, 13 May 2016 07:27:51 +0000

Who's the "well-known young and popular auteur" who did an uncredited rewrite? Was it Neill Blomkamp?

By: alp

alp — Fri, 13 May 2016 07:27:51 +0000

You are not the first person to realize "form" is, and (more importantly) *always will be* second to "content" in movies, particularly the tentpole business.

By: Franny

Franny — Fri, 13 May 2016 07:27:51 +0000

Good piece, totally agree.

By: BEF

BEF — Fri, 13 May 2016 07:27:51 +0000

I thought Taylor-Johnson was fine; I liked that Cranston's ending occurred off-screen. Everything felt a little off kilter and askew and to good effect — it is, well a monster feeding on nuclear drainage, after all, being askew is kinda necessary …..

What didn't work well for me were Wantanabe, Strathairn and Binoche … Binoche because she had so little screen time it'd've been better to have a less known/worshipped actress … Strathairn because he seemed above the material (I just imagine him on set looking at a screen, sighing and asking, "what's godzilla doing now) … Wantanabe was just really bad — mouth agape, struggling for every word … Taylor-Johnson was fine. Outclassed by Olsen, yes, but he doesn't have to be a marvel.

What else worked: the opening credits — a great streamline through 'Zilla and Bikini history with redacted titles … great!…. and the story of nature vs. warfare … you can't bomb things back to the stone age when the nuclear age shows its face! The child watching the news footage … reminds me of when I watched Godzilla as a kid and called it a dinosaur.

By: borezilla

borezilla — Fri, 13 May 2016 07:27:51 +0000

I thought that even Cranston wasn't very good in this. Like he was trying to oversell the bad script or something. People have so much good will towards him because of Breaking Bad that they'll think he's really good in something that he's not particularly good in.

By: Movie Bear

Movie Bear — Fri, 13 May 2016 07:27:51 +0000

LOVED this movie. A+ for effort, B- for execution, resulting in in a solid B from me. I agreed with almost all of the points until your last one, regarding his 'atomic breath'… Out of place?!?Are you kidding? Sure it wasn't explicitly expalined or reasoned out in the movie. But who cares?! The hair on my arms raised up when this happened in the movie…Both times. People in the theater actually clapped and cheered! Cant remember the last time I experienced that at the cineplex. Weird that I had almost forgotten about this ability altogether until he used it. One subtle thing… it's clear that using this ability significantly drains Godzilla of his strength. Thus illustrating why it was conserved until those perfect moments.

By: Ryker Johannson

Ryker Johannson — Fri, 13 May 2016 07:27:51 +0000

I'm not sure you understood the movie – I mean, you get some of the themes, but Godzilla didn't kill Cranston's wife – MUTO did. Teaming up with Godzilla is the perfect progression, which is why Ford Brody does it in a total man on monster bro-down. Cranston would have been down without a lot of weird angst to get over.

By: TYLER

TYLER — Fri, 13 May 2016 07:27:51 +0000

I don't know why everyone refuses to actually look at Ford Brody's character and motivations. His stoicism is absolutely central to the themes of the movie. He's reacting to his father throughout the entire movie and dealing with his abandonment issues (the train scene with Brody trying to return the lost child to his parents is ANYTHING but random). His main driving force throughout the movie is that he doesn't want to be like his father; he wants to be there for his wife and son. Claiming that "Nothing Ford does has anything to do with the first act of the movie," is objectively untrue.

By: Guillermo

Guillermo — Fri, 13 May 2016 07:27:51 +0000

Think of King Kong and how terrible of a movie it was. Mostly, I believe, because its premise does not transcend to our reality not matter how much you try to make a good script out off it. A giant gorilla climbing the empire state building and falling in love with a woman?? SMH….
Anyone could have though the same of Godzilla. Two monsters, a giant moth fighting a giant dinosaur like creature?? Garrett Edward made the best out of such improbable commercial subject. For a movie that doesn't fit our reality in terms of the story, giant monsters fighting in big city (aka Pacific Rim), Mr. Edward made the impossible possible.

By: Alex L

Alex L — Fri, 13 May 2016 07:27:51 +0000

I saw the movie twice this weekend, once with my kids. I think the second viewing made the human drama more clear. I do feel like Taylor-Johnson did not get enough lines to express himself. I think the movie was edited somewhat in a hurry – it was finished in March, after all, and it could have spent more time with the characters. But with the exposition angle, I think they felt they had held back from showing Godzilla enough. As for Cranston, I think he elevated a lot of his scenes, above the material. I don't think anyone else in the film could have said "take us back to the stone age" and it would have worked. That came through in the second showing, because you're going "what???"

I do feel like the people in the tower had no business being there when the flying MUTO went by. Not evacuated? That was bizarre to me. The scene was awesome – leading to the face-off – except for that.

By: benutty

benutty — Fri, 13 May 2016 07:27:51 +0000

I think it's problematic to fault the film for the "hidden Godzilla" aspect because it's evident that Edwards intends for us to not know much about Godzilla. Through his work with Monsters and now with Godzilla, it seems as though Edwards' POV is to create worlds where while humans are the focus and core of his stories they know very little about the world (by way of the monsters) that they inhabit and in a sense fall out of focus because of it. In Godzilla the monsters notably show very little interest in humans–they aren't trying to eat them, they aren't displaced by them, etc.–and have their own motivations. This contradicts most approaches to monster movies and challenges the typical notion that EVERYTHING in our world must be filtered through its relationship to humanity. If you're going to fault a director for a part of their film being unexplained then you have to acknowledge whether or not this was their intention.

By: George

George — Fri, 13 May 2016 07:27:51 +0000

I really liked this article, but Godzilla is a she.

By: cory

cory — Fri, 13 May 2016 07:27:51 +0000

Why is the ship captain running the whole military campaign, and why doesn't he stay on his ship? The nuclear bombing of Godzilla shown from the old 1950's footage is the Castle Bravo testing, a 15 megaton bomb. It is a bit disrespectful that this test was used considering there was innocent lives lost (accidental) from this test. Secondly, as a history nut, I laughed when David Strathairn, Super Navy Captain says that the decoy bomb that they plan to kill the MUTOs with is much larger than the previous bombs (i.e. the old Castle Bravo testing); even going as far as to faulty state that it was kilotons and not megatons. Secondly, that was the largest bomb the USA has ever detonated, and most presumably closest to the largest bomb we currently have, the only thing that could make those look like "firecrackers" would be the Tsar Bomba, a Russian bomb denoted with a 50 megaton yield. The film has the nuclear bombs as part of an old Titan rocket, but there wouldn't be a need to haul the whole rocket around on boat and train, all you need is the warhead (the tip, or the part that actually has the explosive). Where are all the Black-hawk helicopters? Surely we use those more than the UH-Huey in today's modern military.

By: SHERA

SHERA — Fri, 13 May 2016 07:27:51 +0000

I never understood WHY Godzilla and the MUTOs were fighting. They never addressed it, only indicating the MUTOs were some sort of parasite.

If you haven't seen it, do not expect a strong script. The movie is really about special effects and that part was pretty cool. Keeping Godzilla partially hidden was much better than seeing the entire monster.

By: nyaus

nyaus — Fri, 13 May 2016 07:27:51 +0000

the score is so bad. just blah. doesn't "help" the film in any way, doesn't push anything forward. just lays there. seems phoned in.

By: Elcid Asaei

Elcid Asaei — Fri, 13 May 2016 07:27:51 +0000

Spot on! It's encouraging to read a review that isn't mincing its words, be they good or bad, or ugly. I saw the film in 3D and that was also one of my pet hates about it. The fact it wasn't shot in 3 dimensions made for a very unengaging experience where the monsters, when they finally appeared, never jumped out at me. The glare on the 3D glasses also annoyed me, but that wasn't the film's fault. I always say, if it wasn't filmed in 3D it wasn't meant for 3D so quick cashing in! 🙂

By: wolverqueen

wolverqueen — Fri, 13 May 2016 07:27:51 +0000

Shitzilla, this was a terrible movie. How on earth has it done so well? Pacific Rim was in a different realm to this. It was slow, boring, Godzilla looked like a bad plastic toy. Not nearly enough action… all the building up, Jaws style crap was irritating. Script awful and the score !! My god that was bad. Nothing good about it at all.
Very Bad.

By: jawsnnn

jawsnnn — Fri, 13 May 2016 07:27:51 +0000

I don't know how any one can ever say that Elizabeth Olsen acted at all in this movie. In my opinion she was the blander one of the two leads, and considering Aaron Taylor Johnson was very plain, that's saying something.

By: Caister101

Caister101 — Fri, 13 May 2016 07:27:51 +0000

Bryan Cranston and Juliette Binoche were both perfectly fine but everyone else was ineffectual and had land characterization, so there was little reason to care for anything after Malcom's dad died. And that was a THIRD of the way in! As soon as you realize it is going to be a monster-fighting-monsters movie instead of a monster movie it becomes silly. I was not a fan of Pacific Rim, but at least that film stayed silly and fun for its target audience and worked well for others. This film wants the action of Rim at the calibre of Nolan, which doesn't work and so you are left with a film that struggles to be any one thing, and so ultimately disappointing. The Emmerich film is at least a fun family suitable film.

By: MegaSolipsist

MegaSolipsist — Fri, 13 May 2016 07:27:51 +0000

This movie was so boring, criminally wasting the only good actors it had and focusing on the bad ones (even Kick-Ass was bad in this), showing nothing of Godzilla to the point where I got irritated at the constant teasing and relegating the big guy to a cameo at the end. And when he did show up he looked terrible, a waddling, badly animated monster with terrible, cartoony facial expressions.
At least the 1998 movie was fun in a campy kind of way. I could enjoy it as a bad movie, but this one was too good to enjoy as a bad movie, too bad to enjoy as a good movie and far too boring to ever re-watch.

By: PattonFiend

PattonFiend — Fri, 13 May 2016 07:27:51 +0000

So glad I did not pay to see this. I would have been so pissed.

Cranston had the only good part and they killed him less than 45 minutes into it.

Terrible movie.

This guy says it best, " MegaSolipsist | July 9, 2014 5:21 PMReply

By: Phill Bennett

Phill Bennett — Fri, 13 May 2016 07:27:51 +0000

Just my 2 cents….sorry, this movie was terrible…really sad…