Godzilla (2014) Reviews/Discussion (1 Viewer)

[TravisR]

Despite what the dp thought, I thought it was a great conversion.

As I was watching it, I thought that the conversion was as good as most movies that they shoot with the 3-D conversion planned.

 

[Josh Steinberg]

As I was watching it, I thought that the conversion was as good as most movies that they shoot with the 3-D conversion planned.

The same DP also shot "Marvel's The Avengers" which got a good 3D conversion -- I think the best of all the Marvel movies so far. I think his hatred of shooting in 3D is based solely on the experience of shooting the very brief (just a minute or so) post-credits sequence of the first "Thor" film. I appreciate Seamus McGarvey's candor in voicing his disdain for 3D, but I think it's also unfair for him to trash the entire format and the entire process of shooting in 3D when he's only ever shot one scene with those cameras. Unfortunately, he comes across as a bit of curmudgeon, with an attitude that has the vibe of "I don't like 3D and I won't be happy until there's no more 3D for anyone".

 

[Tim Glover]

Was ok...went in with higher expectations after reading Beradinelli's review. Not enough Godzilla. The MUTO's took away from it IMHO.

Not awful...but not very good either.

6/10

 

[FrancisP]

Some of it was old home week. The American military didn't do much better than the japanese military did in the old Godzilla pictures. I did like the scene in Honolulu where they fire the flare and on its downward trajectory, you see the lower part of Godzilla. Then they are trying to shoot him with rifles. I doubt that even tickles.

Part of the reason that Godzilla has not done well is the old way of doing it does not work. Dubbing the Japanese version for American release does not sell. I thought that Godzilla 2000 had one of the better storylines in the later films yet it did not do well at all.

I thought the older Godzilla had a sleeker and better look but the difference was not a game changer with me. I liked the flexibility of the older one. Sometimes they got a little ridiculous but I liked the quizzical look Godzilla sometimes had when fighting other monsters. I would love to see them bring back Ghidorah as a bad guy.

The makers of the 1999 film thought they had to change Godzilla entirely. I guess this proves them wrong.

 

[Johnny Angell]

Here's something over at Woot that might interest you Godzilla fans:
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[Johnny Angell]

One thing I forgot to menton: when I walked into my imax theater they were showing that damn toyota commercial where G is devouring cars. In my mind, it really trivializes him. I think it's crappy to have the commercial playing in front of the Godzilla feature.

 

[Malcolm R]

One thing I forgot to menton: when I walked into my imax theater they were showing that damn toyota commercial where G is devouring cars. In my mind, it really trivializes him. I think it's crappy to have the commercial playing in front of the Godzilla feature.

I'm surprised they approved that commercial, as it's similar to the taxi scene in the 1998 film that many found so laughable. Given they're trying to make a "serious" Godzilla flick, I'm surprised they went there.

 

[EricSchulz]

Saw this yesterday. Had three options: 3-D (not IMAX), 2D, UltraScreen w/Dolby ATMOS. Picked the UltraScreen (our Marcus Theater just upgraded to reserved seating/reclining leather overstuffed chairs, so for the $5 Tuesday deal it was a no-brainer!). Having read this thread last night, I will address some points from my view.

LIGHT YEARS better than the '98 version! Better story, better effects, better acting.

Great set-up story (although Bryan Cranston's dye job in the flashback earns the worst special effect award!).

While the build up in the present day COULD have used a bit of editing, I didn't find it boring or as dull as some here.

NO HUMOR!!!! The film took its subject seriously...and I LOVED that!

I appreciated that Godzilla didn't show up (in full view) until late in the movie. I thought it just built up anticipation even more.

I was ALMOST afraid that they had "changed" Godzilla to NOT have the glowing spine/radioactive breath...then BAM!!!!

Side note: I think I picked the best venue for the movie: big screen with a knock-your-socks-off sound system.

Solid B.

 

[Neil Middlemiss]

I'm surprised they approved that commercial, as it's similar to the taxi scene in the 1998 film that many found so laughable. Given they're trying to make a "serious" Godzilla flick, I'm surprised they went there.

That's my thought, too. I was not a fan of that commercial nor of its connection with this iteration of Godzilla (especially since the marketing campaign, outside of this ad, was serious and superbly executed).

 

[Bobby Henderson]

I watched Godzilla this past Saturday at Harkins Theaters Bricktown 16 in downtown Oklahoma City, on the big Cine Capri screen. That big screen theater just does 2D, but it is equipped with Dolby Atmos. Saturday matinee ticket price: $8 per person.

The movie was pretty decent in terms of spectacle, but I really didn't get all that thrilled about it. This version of the Godzilla monster looked a lot more like how Godzilla should look (very stern, angry glare); my only criticism is Godzilla looked pretty chubby, particularly in a shot near the end where he is walking out of some skyscrapers to get into the bay. Pretty big gut there. Do some sit-ups, cardio and watch some of those carbs! Still, I would have liked the Godzilla monster to have a little more menacing personality. Smaug, from the last Hobbit movie, was by far the best part of that show.

I also would have preferred quite a bit more Godzilla vs MUTO smack-down rather than have so much of the movie pass before Godzilla is fully revealed. We already know it's Godzilla and kind of how he's supposed to look. So why not get the big reveal out of the way earlier in the movie? I'm also saying this because I just had a hard time getting into the whole human story line thing. It was okay in the beginning, but then it just started going nowhere pretty fast.

I didn't care about seeing this movie in 3D. One really bad side effect of 3D: it tends to make a lot of big things look small or even miniature due to the exaggerated depth effects. The Cine Capri screen is pretty big -a 70' wide, common height screen where 'scope is the biggest format, not flat. It's just a little too big for 2K resolution material. The Dolby Atmos mix was pretty decent. I thought it was a little better than the Atmos mix in Spiderman 2, but the sound designers could have done a lot more with it. I don't think Noah had anywhere near as big a budget as those two movies, but it definitely did more with the Atmos format.

 

[SFMike]

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

Not much cheering but as Godzilla wades into the sunset a little kid in the audience yelled "Bye, Bye Godzilla." Just like in a lot of the original films. It got everyone laughing.

 

[Patrick H.]

^ This is actually a really good point I've yet to see anyone make about this one...I feel like older kids will LOVE this movie. Hell, I felt like an 8-year-old watching Godzilla climb up out of the water, charge up and breath fire, make eye contact with people on the ground, and give his trademark roar before jumping back into the sea. Yes, the movie was extremely cagey with its Godzilla-action, but when those moments finally landed they had real weight. And, honestly, people complaining about the monster-to-perfunctory-human-"plot" ratio clearly haven't watched many of the old (or even newer) Japanese ones, where you often had to wade through a LOT of lazily-scripted silliness/insanity to see 5 minutes of Godzilla vs. whatever. That this film managed to encompass so many "classic" genre tropes without becoming laughably ridiculous is rather impressive.

 

[DaveF]

It's Godzilla and does all the things a Godzilla movie needs to do. The monsters are awesome. The destruction is fearsome. The humans are bland but stand in for us well. It's a slow burn, with a sagging middle. Godzilla isn't really there until the last third (which I thought was great, but others might not). And Cranston is a supporting role, offscreen after the first third (which was a disappointment).

It's a big-budget, popcorn (or milkshake, in my case) disaster movie. It won't change your world, but it's a competent monster movie.

 

[FrancisP]

Wednesday Glenn Beck gave his review on the movie on his radio show. Said he didn't go in as a Godzilla fan but he loved the picture and even cheered at the end. He described as a Saturday matinee type movie and compared it to Raiders of the Lost Ark. He said he would definitely be taking his son to it since he is a big Godzilla fan. Interesting place to get a good review.

As to the commercial, I don't mind it. I think it's harmless fun.

 

[Radioman970]

Wednesday Glenn Beck gave.....

I got that far.

 

[Vic Pardo]

I've been a Godzilla fan since I first saw GODZILLA, KING OF THE MONSTERS on TV as a child--55 years ago! I've seen every Godzilla film, most of them multiple times. I've read tons of articles about Godzilla and several books. I've written a lot about Godzilla myself.

I used to think that G98 was the worst Godzilla movie ever. Not anymore. This one is. There is so much wrong with it, not least the way it treats the two characters who are played by, arguably, the two best actors in the film, and then shifts the emphasis to the two young leads, neither of whom is capable of carrying a movie like this. Worse is the way it treats the title character. He doesn't get to do any real Godzilla stuff until the very end of the film. By then I'd long since stopped caring. It was way too little way too late.

I have to confess I lost interest pretty early on when they tried to explain the monsters to the audience. I never bought the explanation. It just never made any sense to me. If this was a pulpy, low-budget Toho Godzilla film with men-in-rubber suits, I wouldn't mind so much. I wasn't looking for a detailed explanation of Megalon or the Smog Monster in those films. There was just enough explanation to propel the plot and get into the monster battles. But this 200-million-dollar-plus epic, designed to be more realistic, requires a better explanation than the one we got. If I don't understand the monsters then I can't suspend my disbelief. And why did the MUTOs look so humanoid? If they were born the way the film says they were born (not that I can explain it), they would have looked very different. Instead they looked like the demon from "The Night on Bald Mountain" in FANTASIA. In an animated film I wouldn't have minded that, but here they looked much too abstract. And the notion that a nuclear warhead would be a prime delicacy to them just made no sense to me.

I had problems with PACIFIC RIM, but I thought it was much better than this. I stayed involved in that one for a much longer period before the overkill finally got to me and exhausted me. All I wanted from this one was a better, more reasonable monster explanation, a re-emphasis on the adult characters, and a few more Godzilla sequences before the big fight at the end. In fact, the San Francisco scene might have worked better for me if a toned-down version of it was placed in the middle of the film instead of the Honolulu sequence and the final battle had been even more spectacular with G taking on, perhaps, all the creatures from all those hatched eggs. Which represented a much more interesting potential threat than the one we got yet it was disposed of almost as an afterthought.

 

[Mark Booth]

Just as with 'Man of Steel' (and 'Batman', 'Spider-Man', etc. before it), it seems the people that are the most die-hard fans for a given franchise are also the ones that are having the most difficult time accepting or enjoying a new spin/take on the story.

As with meeting new people, I prefer to go in with an open mind and an open heart. I try hard not to sit down in the theater with preconceived expectations (other than to simply hope I'm entertained). It's okay if a different crew and cast reimagines a story in a different way, just as long as it's entertaining. I look at each remake as something new, not as something that's a remake.

Sometimes moviemakers succeed and other times they fail. But their failure is never due to what I *thought* the movie should be when I walked into the theater. Just entertain me.

And 'Godzilla' 2014 did that in spades! Fantastic movie and one of my top favorites for 2014.

Mark

 

[Jack P]

Reading an inane piece by Godzilla "expert" Steve Ryfle that disses the film, only has me realizing further that my instincts were correct and that this is a great film and the best Godzilla film overall for me since "Destroy All Monsters".

I also dare Ryfle to repeat his claptrap regarding the end of World War II to a veteran this Memorial Day.

 

[John Maher_289910]

It was the most boring film I ever saw, and that's a lot of films since the early 1950s. It's simply impossible for me to have hated it more. Characters so dull, that you didn't care if they lived or died, and every cliche a movie can have, it had. From the phone ringing just when they were going to get romantically busy, to the obsessed guy with his room wallpapered in newspapers (what the hell is that, anyway?). Of course, there was the annoying smoke, dust, and rain (just like the 1998 version) all through the monster scenes (the few there were), and buildings crumbling like graham crackers, with no people in sight. CGI looking exactly like CGI. There were only 6 people in the theater where I saw it, and 3 of them were with me. My wife, and two oldest sons. We all hated it. Me, the most. My youngest son refused to believe it could be as bad as I said it was. His text to me, after seeing it - "There was exactly one minute of that movie that I found entertaining." My response to him - "That's 60 seconds more than I found." By the way, I am a Godzilla fan from the beginning. I never want to see another film from this director for as long as I live. I only hope its success means more, better monster movies.

 

[Tino]

I saw it again yesterday and liked it about the same. I paid more attention to how much screen time Godzilla had and it was less than I remembered. I would say about 10 minutes total which is 10% of the film. Way too little screen time IMO to a fault. But man, is this film polarizing based on the reviews in this thread. I'm about in the middle.