[Movie Review] Godzilla (2014)
Plot Summary: The world's most famous monster is pitted against malevolent creatures who, bolstered by humanity's scientific arrogance, threaten our very existence.
Director: Gareth Edwards
Writers: Max Borenstein (screenplay), Dave Callaham (story)
Runtime: 123 min
Main Cast:
- Aaron Taylor-Johnson as Ford Brody
- Ken Watanabe as Dr. Ichiro Serizawa
- Bryan Cranston as Joe Brody
- Elizabeth Olsen as Elle Brody
- Juliette Binoche Sandra Brody
- Sally Hawkins as Vivienne Graham
- David Strathairn as Admiral William Stenz
Review: by Anthony and Lee
We've seen the trailers. We've seen the posters. The King of Monsters is finally here! It's Godzilla!
We were tricked! Hoodwinked! Bamboozled! The trailers for Godzilla gave the impression that it would be an epic monster movie, told in the vein of a disaster movie with some horror movie elements mixed in, and we were excited to see THAT movie. This was not that.
What We Liked:
Godzilla started off strong. The first third of the movie focused on nuclear physicist Joe Brody (Bryan Cranston) and has a father-son story arc budding between him and his son Ford Brody (Aaron Taylor-Johnson). Fifteen years after a mysterious disaster at the nuclear plant, Joe Brody had an interesting conspiracy theory and was out to uncover the big government cover up. Meanwhile, Ford Brody was back home after serving in the U.S. Navy as an Explosive Ordinance Disposal expert, with plans to be an active dad in his son’s life unlike his own, work obsessed father.
One thing we enjoyed seeing was the gridlock traffic of the San Franciscans attempting to flee the city. In almost every disaster or monster movie, we always wonder why the citizens just stand around in the street gawking at the monster and destruction around them, so it was nice to see people actually trying to leave but not being able to due the traffic and debris.
The special effects for the fight scenes between the monsters were cool. The intensity and awesomeness of the fights slowly increased from battle to battle, topping off in the final battle which ended in an epic fashion.
What We Didn’t Like:
Dr. Ichiro Serizawa (Ken Watanabe) and Dr. Vivienne Graham (Sally Hawkins) were completely laughable characters. These two highly educated doctors existed only to explain the monsters, the nature of the world, and humanity’s role in it. It was silly, and the more we thought about the logic they presented the more questions arose. We did think that Ken Watanabe should’ve said the name “Godzilla” a few more times, though, straight faced, and with an even heavier Japanese accent. It might’ve made things better.
With this being a supposed monster focused movie, one would think that Godzilla would demand a certain amount of screen time. That assumption would be incorrect. The second and third portions of the movie were dominated by the lesser lead actors Aaron Taylor-Johnson, and the Cloverfield rip off monsters that Godzilla fought. To make matters worse, just when they started to show any Godzilla fight, they cut away after a few seconds. Every small fight felt like a tease for the big fight at the end.
The CGI model used for Godzilla was odd, he was large in size, which is good, but also in girth, which was weird. He looked like a fat dinosaur that was in dire need of a mid fight rest. When they showed him stomping through the city with a street level camera shot, all we could pay attention to were Godzilla’s cankles.
Another thing that we couldn’t help but notice was the soundtrack by Alexandre Desplat. Every time a monster was on the screen, they were accompanied by this weird DUN DUN-DUN DUN, and it took us out of the scene a bit and just made us laugh.
Summary
The good plot lines established early in the movie were thrown away to make way for Godzilla to fight monsters for reasons that weren’t sufficiently explained, and the action was boring until the end.
User Review
( votes)Images Courtesy of IMDB
Related articles
