MOVIE'S 2014

Three generations of Worshams are watching the 1956 Godzilla classic tonight in preparation for the Godzilla movie tomorrow.

Broderick should make an sacrificial appearance in the new movie to rid the sins of that awful iguana movie of 1998.

Saw “Neighbors” this week, it was good (not great) with plenty of laughs and above average performances. However, it didn’t come close to “This is the End” which has become an instant classic.

They should watch “Destroy All Monsters” too. That one had the best music.

Godzilla was alright. Cranston rocked, but wasn’t there for that long. As for the rest, needed more Godzilla lol. Not as good as Pacific Rim, but all in all an enjoyable popcorn monster mash movie that’s worth your time.

Enjoyed Godzilla, my entire family did. Could used little more monsters.

@General:

Good to know since I’ll probably wind up seeing it. Also is it just me or is Ken Wantanabe one of the few go-to guys for lead Japanese roles in Hollywood?

Well, Toshiro Mifune is dead, so…

@ABWorsham:

Enjoyed Godzilla, my entire family did. Could used little more monsters.

Needs to get together with King Kong for a rematch, since the original ended in a tie. Or at least with alternative winners.

I watched Godzilla with my wife, and we really enjoyed it. Since it did this well this weekend, they are doing a sequel, so we can’t wait! :-D

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PDeU42u2s2Y

The greatest crime they committed when they made that movie was not redoing the old theme music during the battle themes. What a lost opportunity for all the new Godzilla converts.

Compare that link to the movies score. Music is as important as any other element in Godzilla movies. When Godzilla meets the two bugs they should have played that music. Its no different than the reveal they did when he first started breathing fire. They reveal all the old things that people remember about these movies to a new audience.Music is just as important. It was a missed opportunity.

I give it a 2.5 / 5 stars.

I thought it was okay, but not as good as the hype surrounding it. Godzilla was only on screen for perhaps 1/3 of the total runtime and it felt like the movie wasn’t even about him anyway. It was more about the nuclear bug creatures, their origins and Aaron Taylor-Johnson’s character dealing with his dad and getting back to his family. I was looking forward to this being like traditional Godzilla movies in that you see some real rough and tumble monster fighting. While there is some of this, it seemed very under-represented, especially for fights with Godzilla involved. It was good that there wasn’t too much of that, but I don’t think there was enough.

Some of the (limited) attempts at comedy also seemed a bit out of place. You sort of knew you were supposed to laugh, but it was at odds with the tone of the film. Also, some dialogue was very cliche and annoying. Wantanabe’s sidekick scientist-lady was a poorly written/acted character. I just found her visually annoying and like some sort of Greek chorus: expose-ing the plot and generally spouting the obvious… and over-acting it at the same time. While I like Wantanabe as an actor, his talent was under-utilized and his character was pretty one-dimensional. He always seemed shocked and in a daze over events in the film. Brian Cranston was great and really the only character of any dynamic in the entire film… and they kill him off. His death wasn’t even a good one; it was very flat.

As IL pointed out, the music was also a missed opportunity. I was expecting something memorable, being Godzilla and all. The Japanese films had some interesting and powerful musical scores, but this had nothing. I remember consciously listening for any good themes in the theater, but came up with nothing. Very disappointed there.

I know that this is a pretty secular action-adventure film, but much of the military’s portrayal annoyed me too. Not in that they were portrayed negatively, it was more that some things just did not make sense at all. Such as:   why do US navy ships follow Godzilla so closely? Godzilla is literally 75 ft off the port side of the aircraft carrier and there are two other ships just as close. I realize this is cinema, but that just seems idiotic. The navy doesn’t bring their own ships that close in a safe situation, let alone with a giant, untamed creature in between. Other ship formations were pretty silly too, such as having what seemed like 30 cruisers and destroyers clustered in San Francisco Bay… what are they hoping to accomplish? A blockade against the monsters who have already displayed the ability to drag nuclear submarines from the middle of the Pacific and drop them in a jungle on Oahu? Dialogue again was stupid… all very official and navy-like. Just seemed over-done and trite.

Speaking of the military portrayal, it was actually very reminiscent of that in 1998 Godzilla, though with a little less emotion. And for that matter, the introductory credits also conjured up memories of Emmerich Godzilla. It was virtually the same, minus some shots of iguanas. Not only was it the clips themselves, but the old-film style that was re-used. I get the nuclear theme with Godzilla, but they could have been a little more original. There was a new take on the use of the nuclear weapons in the 1950s (“they were trying to kill it”) which was interesting and fresh, but they really do not explain Godzilla at all… his origins, what he is, where he comes from or where he hides. Even the 1998 Godzilla alluded to these things and it kind of sort of made some sense. But in this we have next to nothing. They try to explain the bug creatures a bit, but even that is halfheartedly done. Which surprises me when nowadays everything in movies has some plausible scientific explanation, even if it is no more than a superficial one.

There was way too much foreshadowing in this movie. There are little pieces here and there that I recognized while watching the movie (but cannot recall now) that I just felt were too much. Like the audience was stupid and didn’t know what was going to happen anyway. For some reason it kind of annoyed me.

Godzilla was also humanized too much. He seemed to show a little too much emotion perhaps? He was also far too sympathetic a character. I realize that he was very much humanity’s defender in some of the old movies, but Godzilla was always more of an anti-hero to me than a straight up hero. In this movie his almost exclusively the hero who is not a threat to humanity (even in a collateral sense). The weird thing is that all the humans in the movie (even the military) treat him as some sort of pet or non-threatening creature. They don’t seem to fear him all that much and appear to understand him far more than I think is realistically possible, given the situations involved. Not to mention that essentially none of the public has ever seen anything like him before, yet they treat him with such little hostility that it is pretty unbelievable.

Now that I have eviscerated the movie I will speak to its merits.

The nuclear plant scene was the best in the entire movie in my opinion. The opening itself was pretty slow and not very compelling, but a nuclear meltdown always has an excitation effect and that stuff really creeps me out anyway. You don’t have to imagine much after watching K-19 The Widowmaker… spooky stuff.

The 1/3 of the movie with Cranston in it was way better than the 2/3 without him. I just can’t talk enough about how dynamic he was compared to the other characters in this movie. He really is a tremendous actor… maybe I have to watch Breaking Bad and see what I missed.

Some of the Godzilla fight scenes have “wow” moments, but there were only three distinct times that hit the YES, this is what Godzilla is all about! level. I will not spoil them for those who have not watched, but you will know when you see it. There were some gasps and ooohs in the movie theater.

While the bug creature bag guys are not very inspired at all (or real looking) I like the idea of them eating nuclear weapons/waste/energy sources. That was kinda cool.

And that is really about it for the good stuff. It was not a god-awful movie by any stretch, but it did not meet my expectations.

And to end my review, I will sum it up by relating the end of the movie. This is not a great spoiler because nothing actually happens, but you are forewarned:

After we are unsuccessfully made to believe that perhaps Godzilla has fallen down dead, he awakens to cheers by the human populace, gets into the ocean and swims away. End of movie. No resolution beyond that, no explanation of any of the other main characters and no tie in to a sequel.

It was a bit of a dud.

Thank you Flashman for introducing me to Mr. Plinkett. Now all I think about as I watch new movies are potential plot holes or things that just are not reasonable.

@Imperious:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PDeU42u2s2Y

The greatest crime they committed when they made that movie was not redoing the old theme music during the battle themes. What a lost opportunity for all the new Godzilla converts.

I agree, it should have had the music. :-)

@LHoffman:

Thank you Flashman for introducing me to Mr. Plinkett. Now all I think about as I watch new movies are potential plot holes or things that just are not reasonable.

I think that’s a bit unfair to the movie, IMO.

It’s a monster movie; if you’re going in looking for realism, you’re at the wrong movie.

@Jermofoot:

@LHoffman:

Thank you Flashman for introducing me to Mr. Plinkett. Now all I think about as I watch new movies are potential plot holes or things that just are not reasonable.

I think that’s a bit unfair to the movie, IMO.

It’s a monster movie; if you’re going in looking for realism, you’re at the wrong movie.

I wouldn’t call it unfair to expect some level of logic and believability. Plinkett, at least, expects that out of Star Wars, a fantasy movie. So I don’t think a monster movie set on earth is that big a stretch.

The “plot” of Phantom Menace is just one big hole.

@Jermofoot:

@LHoffman:

Thank you Flashman for introducing me to Mr. Plinkett. Now all I think about as I watch new movies are potential plot holes or things that just are not reasonable.

I think that’s a bit unfair to the movie, IMO.

It’s a monster movie; if you’re going in looking for realism, you’re at the wrong movie.

And I should at least say that I was not going into the movie looking for bad things. If I gave that impression, I apologize. It’s just that I began to see certain things as I watched because they really stood out.

“The reason truth is stranger than fiction is that fiction is obliged to make sense.” – Mark Twain (I think.)

****  SPOILERS FOR GODZILLA *********

The thing at the end with toting the Nuke through a torn up San Fran was pretty stupid even by monster movie standards. There is no way to pry that thing open?

But who cares? There was a great monster fight going on.

Other than that any complaints about holes in the plot are just you not participating or trying to find a reason to bash the movie or make yourself look “sophisticated” or all of the prior. There are 300ft monsters who eat radiation tearing up San Francisco. Shouldn’t you be surprised if someone isn’t making what might normally be odd decisions? Things aren’t normal.

@LHoffman:

I wouldn’t call it unfair to expect some level of logic and believability.

Ok.  How do you think the military would respond to an actual monster that was proven to be resistant to everything we threw at it?  We have absolutely no history or point of reference because:

[it’s] a fantasy movie.

(to use your own words)

I think critiquing the lack of classic music, wooden acting, and being short on action (after all, that was the premise of the original movies) are all valid complaints.

But let’s be realistic here: it’s a movie about a giant monster (not real) tearing shizzy up and fighting other giant monsters (also not real).  You’re gonna have to stretch some things to fit a giant monster into cinematic expectations these days (i.e. the old movie methods would not work).

Being highly critical of fictional movies seems like missing the point to me…

@Flashman:

The “plot” of Phantom Menace is just one big hole.

It’s a setup for Vader’s story and the events of the original trilogy, with some kid fanfare and product tie-in opportunity.  It’s not great, but it’s entertaining if you take it for what it is - it’s not like the original trilogy were perfect plot examples themselves.

@LHoffman:

And I should at least say that I was not going into the movie looking for bad things. If I gave that impression, I apologize. It’s just that I began to see certain things as I watched because they really stood out.

You don’t like it and listed your reasons and that’s fair.  I like to see it thought out like that.  On the flipside, it seems pretty deep for a movie that doesn’t take itself as seriously as you do.