I actually like the characters here more than any Cloverfield movie tbh. At least here they were over the top and goofy just like those sci fi movies you grew up watching. I actually hated cloverfield because of those lame ass characters. The one with John Goodman sucked too.
There was too much human time. The story made no sense. They should have made it shorter and just kept the Godzilla action. That is what the people paid for.
Then it'll just be a video game. I don't know, I thought the humans were fine. but You do make a fair point.
Character development wasn’t terrible. It’s a hard balance to strike with these monster movies because they have to maintain a ‘point of view’ of people to see the monsters. Don’t go in expecting Daniel Day Lewis and Sean Penn discussing the dichotomy of Kaiju and you’ll be fine.
I went in knowing what I wanted to see, and I got it. Would I like them to put a little more effort into the human stories, sure, but I pay to see Godzilla. Could have definitely used a little more Godzilla, his fight scenes need to be longer.
I'd give the kaiju fights a solid 10/10 but the human aspect of the film a mediocre 4/10. I went in expecting Summer popcorn blockbuster, so it's not like I'm wishing for a coherent story with award-winning performances. But the film just felt uneven. One of the biggest sins Hollywood commits sometimes is in thinking humans need to be the focal point of these movies. Yes, you need human characters you can connect to, but balance is the key. I felt Gareth Edwards film achieved that, but this not so much. Look at Transformers. The highest rated one is Bumblebee, and that story is every bit Bumblebee's as it is Charlie's. This film though, too many human characters and too little developed to care about any one of them. Too many quips and jokes when some serious dialogue would have been better. Cut out or replace some of the character-driven scenes with more meaningful ones, give us a little more kaiju action (or don't and just have a shorter movie), cut out some of the characters completely, and you may have a well-rounded movie. They could have cut Charles Dance's character and the film wouldn't have missed him at all. They totally wasted his talents.
finished seeing this about an hour ago...the fight scenes and visuals were amazing, they were incredible...if that’s what you’re hoping for, then u won’t be disappointed the human aspect wasn’t amazing, but it didn’t even bother me all that much...I came for the large monsters, and that’s what I got in large doses yeah, the dialogue with the humans wasn’t crackin, and u can pick apart the plot if u want to, but c’mon, we all know what the deal is for movies like this I am very excited for what’s coming next in this universe...it just keeps on getting better...Kong Skull Island was an improvement over the 1st Godzilla, and this film was better than Kong...they’re trending up 9/10 on this one for me
Saw it Yesterday. Do not go to a Godzilla movie for "character development" lol...I don't think the critics will ever get anything outside that box. Story and characters were not Oscar grade but... Monster scenes were EPIC. I think this movie deserves to be seen in IMAX and nothing less.
I posted my spoiler-free review on Friday. Here's a few things that bothered me (but didn't ruin the experience): Spoiler TOO MANY Human characters. There were five soldiers that did everything from flying the super jet to crowd control. And there were too many scientists. Scale it back, guys. This is part of why your budget bloated. Unanswered questions: Why was Johnah Alan an 'eco-terrorist'? How the heck do they get funded? For that matter, why was Monarch the only military force in the world outside of the US 'Military' ships? Monster teases. I expected way more diverse monster fights based on the trailers. But the trailers were almost all we got of a lot of those monsters. I was happy with the monster fights we got, but was hoping to see some unknowns throw down. Lack of chain of command for Monarch. So they scientists all just argue until stuff gets done? Except the new guy Mark comes in and takes command. Again, really liked the movie and can't wait for GvK
I love Godzilla but hated this movie. It's terrible. Wish I had waited for Redbox. Would have hated it less if I'd only spent $1. There were some cool monster moments but lordy what a waste of time. IMHO.
edwards is another cinematographer turned director. these guys usually make good looking but uninteresting movies. see the tron sequel director. his breakthrough movie, "monsters", was a boring travelogue without personality.
still can't wrap my head around thinking the 2014 is better than KOTM. in fact I blame 2014 version for the box office numbers that kotm pulled.
@VanityHalfBlack I think the lackluster BO was due to the marketing. Casual fans weren't interested in the way they portrayed the characters, and they didn't hype up how this was a different movie over 2014. What did it have to offer over 2014 outside of monsters brawling? Whatever, GvK is in the can so as long as that does well they will keep making these movies. And I think they can do them for WAY less than 200m. Look at what 'monster' movies like District 9 did at a fraction of the cost.
Agree with all that was said here. I enjoyed the movie quite a bit for the action and fight scenes. Thats why I came to see and thats what I saw and it was the parts of the movie that was done really well. IMO there was way too much in terms of human characters in this movie as others said but the monsters do make up for it. I may try to see it in IMAX before they stop playing it in IMAX for the monsters alone. To add onto what Xerobull said. Spoiler It was really annoying to see the 11-12 year old girl be able to figure out this piece of technology that her father could not even figure out fully. She was able to go undetected from the Monarch station to the media room in Fenway and knew how to set up the broadcast and work the machine. Also she remained pretty much unnoticed and unscathed despite being around so many military people and monsters. They need to stop with these kids being genius and invulnerable to anything trope. They kept teasing about Kong with all the skull island references it would have been nice to see how he reacted to the call of King Ghidorah Monarch in general - it looked like they had assistance from US military but they weren't government run. Where did they get the massive funding to set up the various sites around the globe? Should have shown more of the other monsters around the world destroying cities. Even in the end when they converge on Boston they only show a handful despite the map showing the 16-17 spots where Titans were appearing and attacking the cities. Watanabe was told he would basically live for 5 seconds or so once he enters Godzilla's lair because of the heat and radiation. The drone basically melted and all, yet he was able to walk up the stairs and set the 30 second timer on the bomb, take off his protective helmet and bid farewell. Why even mention about how he was going to die so quickly when he basically lived for at least a minute in those conditions? It would have been fine to say he would die from the blast since he had to manually set the timer. Minor but it was weird to see Zhang Ziyi at the site when Mothra emerged and then immediately back on the Monarch airship the next scene. Something just seemed off there, bad editing maybe. bottom line have the humans be tertiary characters at best in these films. Should have the monsters just duke it out for supremacy
@The_Yoyo Zhang Ziyi played adult twins (not really a spoiler) movie does a poor job spelling it out.
