First off, before I go into movie review mode, I'd like to extend a big, big thank you from the very bottom of my heart to each and every person who left a comment on my previous journal. I feel very touched, and extremely glad to hear your support, advice, and encouragement. Thank you.





As far as Godzilla goes...Okay I'm not gonna beat around the bush. If you want a fun, exciting, kick-ass monster movie with slick, modern special effects...Go watch Pacific Rim or Gamera 2: Attack of the Legion. Or Godzilla Final Wars. Godzilla 2014 is...Well honestly it's kinda irritating. It's so close, SO close to being movie worthy of joyous memory and monstrously good times...But it just isn't. I'm gonna say it right now, and a lot of folks are gonna hate me for it, but...the 1998 Matthew Brodrick "Godzilla" is more enjoyable, more memorable, and damnit; it's a better monster movie. Yeah, that one is goofy, corny, cheezy, dumb, asstarded, and bad...but it's all of those in the perfect storm of bad to achieve the "So bad it's good" sticker, and for that, I really, really enjoy it.

This new film is just...Frustrating. It looks fantastic (apart from a fetish for grayish brown), the effects are fan-freaking-tastic, the sound design is tremendous, but everything else ranges from bleh to just pretty good. And that's the biggest problem with the film...It's just overall...Kinda good I guess. It's not great, it's not solid, it's not bad, it's not BADBADBADNOPEBAD, and it's definitely not so bad it's good. It's passable, pretty good, okay...and forgettable. And that makes me sad.

Okay okay, I've been pretty downer on the whole film, and it may have the impression that it was all bad and I didn't enjoy it. That's not true! Yes the movie has some serious, serious flaws, but it wasn't a bad time in the theater by any means. (besides their A/C not really working all that well. Holy crap it was stuffy in there!) The monster battles and destruction scenes, what there was of it, was genuinely fantastic, extremely atmospheric, and a feast for the senses. They really, really did those parts oh so very right. However, I would argue that those parts are too few, too far in-between for it to really be worth it for me. I'm not talking about there being too many scenes with just people; there's been Godzilla movies that are really heavy with people talking about stuff that have done so very well (i.e. the 1984 Godzilla. The tension built up in that movie is so thick you could cut it with a knife. Cold War and all that.), but in this one, the lack of interesting, hilariously dumb, or even just plain weird human characters just makes it that much more frustrating to wait for the monsters to start beating the crap out of each other and tearing up cities. Hell, one of the coolest fight scenes between monsters is relegated to a brief segment where it's being watched on a grainy tv next to some product placement. It's just...Frustrating. Really, really frustrating.

There was a really good monster movie (or just plain really good movie!) hidden in there. Hidden beneath the generic love story, hidden beneath the nuclear family dynamics (no pun intended), hidden beneath the Michael Bay-esqu revelry for military hardware (Godzilla swims in formation with a group of battleships. Sounds cool...but there's no good reason for Him NOT to be smashing those up!) , and as much as this is going to make me sound like a hipster and a japanophile at the same time...The movie was too American and too mainstream Hollywood. Godzilla felt almost like a secondary (or even tertiary) character, and the only humans who had anything really going for them character-wise (Japanese scientist and Cranston), either died (Spoilers, Cranston's character dies pretty early on and doesn't play much of a role in the film.) or just weren't given enough screen time. Also they didn't have the classic Godzilla Overture in there anywhere. Sadface.

Ending was done just about perfectly though! And the atomic breath looked excellent too; just a bit too gray! Maybe in the sequel things will turn up!