Godzilla (film) - 2014 reboot

[bassman]

While the previous Godzilla may not have been as successful as some would have hoped, anyone else looking forward to the upcoming sequel, King of the Monsters? It looks like they’re pulling out all the stops and diving head first into the lore with all the competing monsters. While there’s always the chance it’s just great marketing, they’ve definitely roped me in with everything we’ve seen thus far. They also announced long ago that this and Kong: Skull Island were produced with the intention of later making King Kong VS Godzilla, which is already filming for a 2020 release.

[MinionZombie]

While I did enjoy the new Godzilla (US) movie, there was a conspicuous lack of Godzilla in it. They played it far too coy. Kong: Skull Island was pretty good fun and delivered on the 'big ass monsters smashing shit up' front, and now it looks like this new flick is finally going to deliver on what we expect from a Godzilla movie. Hopefully the plot and characters are well written enough to support it all, too!

[bassman]

Yeah, I agree about the first film. I’d read that the director intended for it to be more of a third act reveal, similar to Jaws, but the problem is that it didn’t have good human characters to carry it all the way to that reveal point. Bryan Cranston was the best human of the film, but he was sadly underused. King of the Monsters seems to be sporting an impressive cast, so hopefully they’ve learned from their mistakes, have better characters, and also deliver on the monster spectacle. Also, I enjoyed Skull Island, as well. It has it's issues of course, but it seems like that Director had a much better grasp on what sort of adventure he was intending to deliver. I’d actually like to see another Kong film before we get the big matchup in 2020. Not only that, but it seems to me that the big matchup of Godzilla VS Kong loses a large part of it’s appeal after the audience has already seen Godzilla battle multiple other large monsters in his own films.

[EvilNed]

The last Godzilla film had a fucking awesome teaser trailer. Unfortunately it also turned out to be the only good thing about the film itself. I agree that the characters in that film were really bad. I especially loathed Ken Watanabes fucking stupid scientist whose only function was to arrive late to the party and stand and watch the devastation in awe. God damnit that film was bad.

[shootemindehead]

Well, it wasn't THAT bad Neddy. There's much, much worse out there. It was ok. Sure, the lead, if you can call him that was extremely milquetoast, but in a film like this who gives a shit about the people? I'd have much rather that Cranston was the lead all the way through, myself. The focus on the son was a bad move. But, maybe they just couldn't get Cranston for the full show? Frankly, I thought it was far better than that Kong Island bollocks.

[bassman]

I agree that there is definitely worse out there, shoot, but at the same time, Ned has very valid points. I just rewatched the films mentioned in this thread and this one was even worse than I had remembered. As previously stated, it might not be so bad if the human characters weren’t so terribly underwritten. The film takes its sweet time getting to the good monster action and the humans just can’t carry it all the way to that point. At all. It starts out well with the old footage and the meltdown at the plant, but after that I was checking my watch up until the real Godzilla/MUTO battle closer to the end. The actors playing the husband and wife are generally quite good in other projects, but here they were apparently given nothing to work with. Even with all this devastation seemingly following the son across the globe, you just don’t care for him at all. Cranston garnered more sympathy with only a fraction of the screen time. Once the battle begins in San Francisco, it’s enjoyable for a big “monster smash” type of ending, but that middle section is friggin tedious! Really hurts the film, IMO. Hopefully Farmiga and Brown are given better and more engaging roles in this new movie. They’re both great actresses, so hopefully the script doesn’t let them down like it did for the characters in this first entry. It also occurred to me while watching....are the MUTO monsters rip-off’s of other Godzilla characters? I’m no expert on the series, so I could be way off here, but the one with wings almost felt like a substitution for Mothra for some reason? As I said, I’m not a huge fan like some, so I could feel that way simply because it has wings. My having seen Mothra in the trailer for the sequel may have helped to bring it on, as well...

[shootemindehead]

Sure. But, I didn't say the points aren't valid. I just don't see 'Godzilla' as that bad a picture. It's a dumb movie about monsters wrecking shit. There's really nowhere that great to go with it. The opening with Cranston and Binoche was probably the best human parts of the film and the stuff with the charisma vacuum son is a let down. You'd be hard pressed to find anyone who'd disagree and let's be honest, no Godzilla movie has ever been a showcase for acting talent, has it? But, other than that, I enjoyed it. Maybe I wasn't full of expectation about it, so I had an ok time? I don't know. Nor, do I really give a crap about Godzilla movies. I was never that big on them. But, I certainly don't think that it was a "bad" film. I enjoyed it much more than the "Shin Gojira", the recent Japanese effort. Watch a Neil Breen film if you want to see bad. As for the sequel, the trailers look ok. But, again, I'm not going to expect much out of that either and into the bargain, there's a weird environmental angle that looks tacked on and out of place too. so, I don't know how they're going to play that out.

[bassman]

Apologies if it seemed like I was putting words in your mouth, that wasn’t my intent. I was more just saying I agreed with both of you in certain ways.

[shootemindehead]

No apologies needed Bass.