Godzilla (2014) Reviews/Discussion (1 Viewer)

[TravisR]

Anyone else's audience cheered at the "money shot" scenes?

I could hear random applause but there was a group of guys sitting in front of me that were cheering and having fun throughout the movie. If it wasn't 10:30 AM, I'd say that they might have gotten somewhat drunk before going to the theater.

 

[Mike Frezon]

I could hear random applause but there was a group of guys sitting in front of me that were cheering and having fun throughout the movie. If it wasn't 10:30 AM, I'd say that they might have gotten somewhat drunk before going to the theater.

Oh right...

Like THAT couldn't happen!

My son and I are expecting to take in this film some time tomorrow.

 

[Wayne_j]

There was one guy in front of me who kept clapping every time Godzilla was on the screen.

 

[Mark Booth]

'Godzilla' kicked ass! It ties with 'Captain America 2' as my favorite movie of 2014 (so far). The Booth Bijou gives it 5 out of 5 stars!

The theater we saw it in had a 50-foot curved screen the literally stretched from wall to wall across the theater and almost from floor to ceiling! The theater also had Dolby ATMOS and Meyer Sound EXP. The theater has thirty-six (36) surround sound speakers. The screen was super bright 4K projection! IT WAS FREAKING AWESOME!!

Here's the wall plaque that was located outside the theater.

More about Meyer Sound and the theater:

https://www.meyersound.com/news/2013/arclight_lajolla/

Every other performance in that theater was in 3D. We saw a 2D performance and it absolutely rocked!

Mark

 

[Tony J Case]

It probably doesn’t come as a big shock to anyone, but I have been a Godzilla fan all my life. Growing up, I watched constant reruns of Godzilla versus the Smog Monster or Godzilla Raids Again during Saturday afternoons on the local UHF station’s Sci-Fi Theater. I was the only one of my social group to flock to the theatrical release of Godzilla 2000 back at the beginning of the millennium, the original Gojira is in my annual Halloween viewing rotation and I’ve tracked down even the hard to find and out of print DVDs from Japan.

On the other hand, I loath modern Hollywood remakes – Land of the Lost was a 2 hour punch to the Babymaker, I couldn’t stand what they did to Freddy Kruger in the new Nightmare on Elm Street, my loathing for Robocop burns with the passion of a thousand suns – in short the list of criminal offenders is as long as my arm. So it was with guarded trepidation that I looked forward to the new American Godzilla movie. All indications looked to be promising, and yet I couldn’t shake the stink of failure from the 1998 Godzilla.

Did Godzilla 2014 get it right? You bet your ass it did! So, lets go through the checklist and see what worked.

First off – the humans. The purpose of the humans in a Godzilla movie is three fold. 1) Shoot ineffectually at Godzilla. 2) Run away from Godzilla and 3) Stand around and ask “Where is Godzilla” – and that’s it. Here, however director Gareth Edwards manages to the human talking scenes not only “not annoying”, but actually interesting and reasonably compelling.

There were no macho characters busy throwing out wise-cracks and one-liners, all the main characters communicated nothing but sincerity in their interactions and – unlike a great many action movie protagonists – Ford was refreshingly free of whining. He may not believe his father’s conspiracy theory ramblings, but he doesn’t drag his heels or passive-aggressively sabotage the trip back to their irradiated home. Instead he realizes that his father’s paranoia is born from a place of deep emotional hurting – and if going back into the quarantine zone will help ease that pain, then they’ll go back together.

Or consider the scene where the soldiers are attempting to disarm an atomic bomb. In a non-Godzilla action flick, there would have been all kinds of bravado and machismo at their inability to open the bomb’s casing. Here, as soon as it becomes clear that Plan A wont work, they transition immediately to Plan B: get the bomb as far away from San Francisco as possible. What people mistake for blandness is really just competence and emotional maturity.

Being character drama heavy means that Edwards holds back the Monster Action – a complaint I hear a lot about the movie. And yes, if you go into this movie thinking that it’ll be Godzilla wrecking shit for two solid hours, you’ll probably be very disappointed. Much like the classic Godzilla flicks, G14 has a very slow build to Godzilla’s big entrance.

The old ones, especially the really good ones, tend to hold back the monster action. For example, the 90′s version of Godzilla versus King Ghidorah, where Godzilla is barely even in the movie. It’s not like Pacific Rim where you’ve got tons of kaiju and Jaegers running around. If we’d seen Godzilla stomping building and roaring for two hours it would’ve been boring as hell. So going with the Jaws approach, where we are teased throughout, only catching fleeting glimpses of the awesomeness of the Monsters as seen through the eyes of the civilians or getting a sense of the scale of their power because of the devastation in their wake really works. It builds up the audience’s tension and frustration until one massive release of “Oh yeah, it’s on now!” – and when the final reel comes, the action really satisfies in a way only a classic Godzilla flick can.

And there’s some gorgeous stuff in this movie – like the HALO jump into the ruined nuclear holocaust that is San Francisco with the 2001: Space Odyssey music playing was a really haunting scene. And the build-up to where Godzilla finally unleashes the Atomic Breath is outstanding. The effects are great and there are ton of well-shot Money Shots in this movie.

So that’s everything the movie got right. What about the misfires? Oh, I could nitpick things, sure – but G14 is generally a solid flick. My only true regret about the movie was that the soundtrack by Alexandre Desplat was really pedestrian. I had been hoping for a score like what Michael Giacchino delivered for Speed Racer – a score where he very much put his own stamp on it, but it was clearly identifiable as inspired by the source material.

So the last thing to address – what is the movie about. See, while I appreciate Godzilla movies for their city-smashing spectacle, I find the best ones also work in some kind of underlying theme to the movie too. Godzilla, King of the Monsters, of course, was about the horrors of atomic war and the dangers of being careless with same – but we get pollution Aesops, warnings about irresponsible science running amuck and so on through out the series.

Even the worst G movies have some kind of Aesop – Son of Godzilla‘s “stand up to bullies and don’t let them push you around”. Well, the worst of them aside from G’98 – which had no underlying theme to it other than Siskel and Ebert would make shitty mayors. So – was there a theme with G’14?

Doctor Serizawa straight out says it about half way through the film: “The arrogance of man is thinking that he can control nature, and not the other way around.” – but that’s only a part of the theme. It goes deeper than that, that Godzilla is a metaphor for nature.

It is frequently said in the film that Godzilla exists to restore balance, a mechanism for when things are out of order. Nature is a push and pull of cause and effect: what is put into nature – to weather, to an ecosystem – generates a response or reaction somewhere else. Over farming the land causes the soil to become depleted of nutrients and consequently ruins the area for years, creating a dustbowl. Increasing greenhouse gases in the atmosphere causes a whole cascade of biosphere issues (like we are currently experiencing). A massive volcanic eruption could lower global temperatures enough to starve millions and destroy ecosystems. And so on. In each of these examples, the forces of nature (outside of a planet ending catastrophe) eventually find a homeostasis or equilibrium with the “cause”. Balance is restored. For every action there is an opposite and equal reaction. Godzilla is that reaction, in this movie.

Consider the portions of the film where Godzilla is seen moving across the pacific ocean relentlessly, with the humans following along impotently, only observing and tracking, while far away people begin evacuating “the projected path/landing site of Godzilla”. Sound familiar? It sounds like hurricane tracking, or tornado hunting – you cannot do anything but observe, report, and hide. Godzilla represents that relentless aspect of nature. A hurricane pays no mind to Navy ships following it. It cares not for the hurricane hunting C-130 aircraft testing its winds. It follows a natural order, the path of least resistance, to expend its energy. There is no way to stop it, and there is no way to stop Godzilla.

Or, to use pop culture as a summation – “History shows again and again how nature points out the folly of man”.

 

[Josh Steinberg]

Anyone else's audience cheered at the "money shot" scenes?

Lots of different cheers -- it wasn't the very first 7pm Thursday showing, but the 10pm at the Lincoln Square IMAX, totally sold out from front row to back, about 650 people total -- and there were lots of cheers throughout. They redid the IMAX countdown especially for Godzilla and you could tell it was going to be a good crowd when that got a reaction.

The moment Yavin/Ben Mk pointed out got the biggest round of applause by far.



Tony J. Case - right on. That was an excellent review. I'm not nearly as familiar with the original films as you are, but you perfectly captured what I liked about the new movie.

 

[Jack P]

I hadn't been to a theatrical movie for seven years until yesterday when I saw this. I was impressed, because when I think of how awful the 98 version was, this was one was a breath of fresh air. If the actors were only so-so at best, at least we didn't have embarrassing characters like the entire ensemble of 98 or a story dragged down by smart-ass humor and stupid comic relief characters. The soldiers were all professionals trying to do their jobs in an unbelievable situation, which I appreciated seeing (and we had no clichéd dynamic of having to choose sides between scientists and the military. Both were treated with respect).

I do think there was too much restraint in the Honolulu sequence, with the cutback to the family just as things are heating up.

 

[Patrick Sun]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DioBO7TgkwY

 

[Mark Booth]

I'd really like Tony's review if not for the many spoilers it contains. But I guess this is the review thread so, to hell with people that read it that haven't seen the movie. Oh, wait...

I would have thought HTF would be the site with the least number of spoilers being posted without spoiler tags. Instead, it seems to be the worst.

Never mind me, just a pet peeve of mine.

Mark

 

[Tony J Case]

Many spoilers? I purposfuly kept the spoilers vauge or information from the trailers (like Serizawa's quote). Sorry if you think my post was beyond the spoiler threshold, but looking it over, I'm not seeing it.

 

[Lord Dalek]

The human stuff is not very interesting but I wouldn't say it kills the movie. Then again... I just recently rewatched Final Wars >_>.

 

[Radioman970]

Really looks good for this first weekend money-wise. I'd love it if it pulled in $100M.

Can't wait to see it... well, next week hopefully.

 

[Tino]

Estimates are $93 million. I thought it was good not great. Unfortunately I thought Godzilla was more of a supporting character when he should have been the star. Definitely should have been more of him and less of the not so interesting characters and subplots. Not from beginning to end of course but I think the filmmakers withheld him a bit too much. And why must we still suffer all these monster movies that are shot either in the rain or in the dark or both?? I was hoping Godzilla would break this trend but sadly no. But when Godzilla was on screen, I loved it. His design was awesome and the battles were appropriately epic. He is a hero we want to cheer for and that was the fatal mistake the'98 version made. In the end I was mostly satisfied but can't wait for the next film when Gojira really tears things up. *** out of ****

 

[RobertR]

I did think the human element was lacking a bit, but Tony makes a good point about the characters not exhibiting annoying Bayesque silliness. Portraying the Big G as an antihero worked One comment about how he was depicted:

Spoiler

It seemed like the depicted size of Godzilla was variable depending on the needs of the script regarding his awesomeness. When he was swimming in the ocean, there were scenes that made him look as big or bigger than an aircraft carrier (!), but smaller in the fight scenes. Of course, this kind of size variability was also present in the original King Kong, so I'm not really complaining

 

[Tino]

I'd really like Tony's review if not for the many spoilers it contains. But I guess this is the review thread so, to hell with people that read it that haven't seen the movie. Oh, wait... I would have thought HTF would be the site with the least number of spoilers being posted without spoiler tags. Instead, it seems to be the worst. Never mind me, just a pet peeve of mine. Mark

No offense to Tony but I must agree with Mark here. While it is a well written review, it contains many spoilers that had I read this review before seeing it, I think I would have been upset I've said this before but often what one person believes is not a spoiler, are major spoilers to others. I personally would just add a disclaimer at the beginning of the review to avoid any further issues. JMHO.

 

[Mike Frezon]

I saw the film yesterday with my 25 year old son.

This was to be an "event" film for us...and we were both roundly disappointed.

For us, it seemed as if we had to suffer through a couple hours of needless human exposition stuff to get to the interesting final ten minutes.

Honestly, we couldn't figure out why the Cranston storyline was all that necessary to get us to the final act.

We saw it on a run-of-the-mill 2-D screen. The film was really poorly attended at a 4:15pm showing on Saturday afternoon of release weekend. Oh. And the father of two teenagers in the row behind snored his way(really loudly) through the first two acts.

The popcorn was good though.

 

[Tino]

Godzilla stomps the boxoffice. From wow.boxofficeguru.com

THIS WEEKEND Warner Bros. and Legendary Pictures smashed expectations with its monster reboot Godzilla as a different type of super hero conquered the worldwide box office with a mammoth global debut. The PG-13 action tentpole grossed an estimated $93.2M in North America from 3,952 locations for a spectacular $23,584 average. Premium-priced options fared very well as the 352 IMAX screens generated an incredible $14.1M for an eye-popping $40,000 average and very high 15% of the overall weekend tally. 51% of the gross came from 3D screens which was also a commendable figure by today's standards. The radioactive beast generated the year's second best debut trailing closely behind the $95M of Captain America: The Winter Soldier.The Godzilla property has been around for 60 years and has been popular in the U.S. for many decades. Sony's big-budget 1998 take from director Roland Emmerich, who was following up his worldwide smash Independence Day at the time, underperformed creatively and commercially so it was unclear if there was enough consumer demand for another try with this character which is obviously tailor-made for a big-screen effects-driven adaptation. Reviews were generally good and a strong marketing campaign intrigued audiences. Positioned as a disaster movie with an ensemble cast, Breaking Bad's Bryan Cranston was marketed heavily to give this Godzilla credibility.Friday kicked off the weekend with an incredible $38.5M including $9.3M from Thursday night pre-shows starting at 7:00pm. Fanboys rushed out on the first day and Saturday fell 17% to $32.2M. The studio projected a Sunday decline of 30% to $22.5M. Thursday night pre-shows accounted for 10% of the overall opening weekend which was the exact same ratio as last summer's Japanese-influenced monster movie Pacific Rim.The B+ CinemaScore indicates that fans were mainly satisfied with what they got, but word-of-mouth is not strong enough to prevent the usual declines that these type of front-loaded action tentpoles see. Next weekend will have the help from the Memorial Day holiday, but will also see direct competition from the super hero event film X-Men: Days of Future Past. Still, Godzilla should be on track to surpass $200M during its domestic run, even if it falls hard next weekend. The budget was about $160M with Legendary covering 75% of it. Unlike the version from 16 years ago, this Godzilla should spawn sequels.The weekend performance was truly phenomenal. Among movies that are not direct sequels, the new Godzilla's opening ranks as the seventh biggest of all-time ranking right behind the first Iron Man. Studio research showed that the crowd was 58% male and 60% over 25. It also smashed this year's previous record for best IMAX opening weekend, held by Winter Soldier, by more than 50%.Godzilla's roar was easily heard around the world as Warner Bros. consolidated most of the international roll-out onto the same weekend with a sensational $103M grossed from 64 markets resulting in an eye-popping $196.2M worldwide launch. IMAX accounted for a scorching $22M globally. Like in North America, the overseas 3D share was 51%. Leading markets were the U.K. with $10.4M, Russia with $9.1M, and Mexico with $8.9M. China is allowing Godzilla to release on June 13 just as the World Cup starts and in Japan, rights holder Toho will open on July 25 after the tournament finishes.

 

[Neil Middlemiss]

I did think the human element was lacking a bit, but Tony makes a good point about the characters not exhibiting annoying Bayesque silliness. Portraying the Big G as an antihero worked One comment about how he was depicted:

Regarding your spoiler...I noticed that also, particularly in the major San Francisco sequence.

 

[Tino]

Btw, I thought Godzilla was tremendous (no pun intended) in IMAX 3D. Despite what the dp thought, I thought it was a great conversion. And at the AMC theater I go to, the IMAX auditorium is so much bigger and better than the smaller Dolby ATMOS theater, it's a no brainer which one I choose. Plus it's only a $1 difference between the two. So I say if you can see it in IMAX 3D, and don't have to drive 45 minutes to do so , this is a film that definitely benefits from that experience.

 

[dpippel]

Saw it at a 10:00AM IMAX 3D (a *real* 60-ft IMAX venue) show today. It was early on a Sunday morning and the theater was packed. Upon leaving there were about 50 people already camped out in line for the next showing at 1:00PM. Apparently it's drawing folks in.

As for the film, I liked it but didn't love it. I too was disappointed that we saw so LITTLE of Godzilla in a Godzilla movie. I thought the "human elements" were just fine but they dominated the film when it should have been dominated by, well, GODZILLA! I also agree that the rain/darkness thing in some of the big effects set pieces was tiresome. Yes, it's done that way to help "hide the zipper in the suit" from us, but I want to see giant monsters kicking the crap out of each other in broad daylight for a change. Get with it Hollywood. I also wanted more from Ken Watanabe's Dr. Serizawa character. He's always interesting on-screen and his role was very underwritten. I think the film would have benefitted from fleshing his character out more instead of wasting so much creative juice on Cranston.

All-in-all though I enjoyed it. The IMAX 3D presentation was absolutely superb, the effects were amazingly well done, and Big G looked fantastic. Now that a sequel has been greenlit I'm hoping we'll see a lot more of the King of the Monsters in installment #2.

Three and a half stars out of five.