Godzilla

Godzilla lands firmly on both sides of the same coin.  If you are looking for a modern revival of the original 1950's -1980's Godzilla, then this is the movie for you!  It's complete with a campy story line, illogical plot points, superficial acting, and digital versions of men in monster suits.  It fits seamlessly within this lineage of movies that only the cult aficionado can appreciate.

1980's Godzilla

2014 Godzilla

For the rest of us, this movie is the opposite of entertaining.  In today's advanced technology, I was expecting a great deal more from this movie!  We have moved beyond cardboard cityscapes and men in monster suits waddling around!  Although these original movies are great fun to watch and appreciate for their original solutions to technical ingenuity, I have no real desire to see this same style created today.  Godzilla himself looked extremely similar to his earlier predecessors including the waddle, and goofy overweight chubby appearance.

The MUTOs also looked as though they were a suit designed for a man to wear with stilts attached to his arms.  Godzilla and his counterparts were awkward in their movements, slow, and lacked any real sense of immanent danger.  Godzilla often times grabs one of the MUTOs with his teeth, and instead of ripping chucks out of these monsters with his powerful incisors, he simply lets go.  This film made Godzilla as dangerous as putting chunky legs and short little arms on a skyscraper fighting with its neighboring buildings.  This doesn't bode well for this "alpha predator."

1980's Godzilla

2014 Godzilla, Concept Drawing

As far as the acting goes, even season actors Bryan Cransten, Ken Watanabe, and David Strathairn deliver a performance that has the depth equivalent to a paper doll and comes across contrived.  Some  how our main character Ford Brody, played by Aaron Taylor-Johnson, seems to continually conveniently survive when everyone around him dies gruesome and violent deaths.  I understand movies like this demand a great deal of suspension of disbelief, after all, I am a great fan of the movies Battleship, Pacific Rim, and Starship Troopers, but Godzilla is painful to watch in it's stumbling around a plot and sheer lack of believable logic.  Now I get it, the chance of giant monsters fighting while terrorizing metropolitan areas is pretty slim in reality, but, if this was to happen, could they present humanities and military reactions in a believable nature please.  I mean , is there any reason none of theses monsters were attracted to the nuclear power plants on the multiple naval vessels sailing along side them?  Did they really think detonating a modern day nuclear device off the cost of San Francisco was a good idea?  Why in the world did they not allow the civilian vehicles, including the buses with refugee kids, get off the Golden Gate Bridge before the military opened fire on Godzilla?  Even though missiles and rockets had no effect on any of these monsters, we apparently thought it was a good idea to continue arming our solders with rifles.

In addition, this movie is easily 30 minutes too long.  Could of shortened this plot-less drivel down in order to limit the toxic exposure to its audience!  Needless to say, this movie falls to the bottom of my summer movie ratings were I strongly expect it to stay!

1.  The Amazing Spider-Man 2
2.  Godzilla