Saw this last night. I haven't gotten to read through the last few pages so excuse me if my thoughts re-tread old ground.
I've followed this film's development more or less since it was announced and yet remained mostly unspoiled, which has been a fairly fun experience of anticipation.
The trailers, and all of the director's talk really presented this as a refocusing on Godzilla's roots, much as the 1984 film was.
I didn't necessarily need a moderng grimdark take on the property but it seemed like Godzilla was going to regain his metaphorical power in an intense re-introduction.
Pretty much none of that is what we got. The film is well crafted, but features some really bizarre choices that render it merely okay.
First there are the humans. The film chooses to focus on the human characters and at first has a pretty good story setup for a story but then just becomes rather formless. The performances are okay but they are let down by the writing. People tend to rip on Pacific Rim's writing because the dialogue is terrible. While that's true, that's just a really tangible detail that distracts from the very solid story beats. Godzilla is the opposite. The dialogue is fine Cranston and Watanabe get to wax angry/poetic about destruction and such, and Kickass has very believable interactions with his son, but then at the same time its rather unclear what the story is actually supposed to be. Is it a man trying to get back to his family? Because he more or less gets distracted from that aim.
For the record, Aron Taylor Johnson is fine in the film, as is his character for the most part. He just ends up at the center with very little of an arc in a way that is frustrating. Really not Johnson's fault though. He does well with what is given to him. Less can be said for Olson and Cranston was just kind of one note in the bit of time he was given .
Somewhat shakey human story serves to support what is a very frustrating monster movie. The first half of the film is really centered upon building up the MUTOS and really they are the film's greatest strength. They are extremely well designed and beautifully realized. The specifics of their life cycle as it plays out across half the world and collides with cities and the military is pretty damn great. There's a degree to which they might have been better off just making an original film and just calling it MUTO.
This movie is rather disinterested in Godzilla himself. I loved the idea of a slow burn, of building up the legend and menace of Godzilla, of showing precisely what he was retribution for before bringing him in as a massive force. The movie mostly drops the ball on this. The opening credits sets up an alternate history of the 1950s bomb tests very well but afterwards, Godzilla isn't even mentioned until the halfway point. Its not just a matter that Godzilla doesn't show up until later or is only seen in bits and pieces. He simply isn't a presence at all in much of the film, not even by reputation.
Batman Returns is a film with very little Batman in it, but Batman's presence very much hangs over that whole film. With this film though, you could be forgiven forgetting that it is a Godzilla film at all until Serizawa outright just brings him up, somewhat out of the blue. "Hey guys, this thing exists. It will probably kill these things for us, 'cause." This isn't a a 4th Heisei installment where the the characters have some kind of context for Godzilla fighting other monsters, its just kind of written in and assumed as backstory. It doesn't really work all that well though.
Finally halfway through the film they do start building to Godzilla. The problems with Godzilla are't from the fact that they parse out glimpses of him or build him over time but rather that Godzilla is just kind of around and not doing much. He swims by and the military ships just kind of follow him. When they finally do get to the reveal at the airport in Hawaii, when Godzilla emerges from the ocean and prepares to fight the MUTO, there is that great upward pan from trailer, he gives the full roar for the first time and it is ENORMOUSLY satisfying. It is almost cathartic, but mostly because of the time waiting before the movie in real life rather than the buildup in the actual film. But still, is is great, exciting and then-nothing. It cuts away to a kid on a couch. Others have already explained how this plays out. It is the most bizarre choice I've seen a movie in a while. It is comical though intentionally so. But its such a bad moment for comedy, particularly because what follows it is another 20 minutes of mostly bland material
Finally later in the film it starts building to another fight, Godzilla is again introduced in the greatest way possible. He locks on to a Muto and- the doors shut, the movie cuts away, for another bland stint, cutting back to Fords and miltary's attempt to make to the coastline. Finally, they too make it to the city and the perspective can return to the monster fight. The Halo jump sequences are as great as has been shown in all the marketing. This leads to some really great ground level perspective stuff of the ensuing Godzilla Muto fight.
In San Francicso, the MUTOs get really interesting when they get to interact. Godzilla still doesn't really do a whole lot. He mostly falls. Godzilla falls all the time. He doesn't really get much done, even against the human military. He just falls into everything. Whenever it seems like we're finally going to get to see him do something, he either falls or the film just cuts away from him entirely.
Finally, finally, towards the end Godzilla is finally shown on the attack. It is incredible. It saves the film. What I don't understand though is why we couldn't have had a bit more. I get that they didn't want to "blow their load" too early, but quite honestly their specific choices were bizarrely bad. Its not so much a matter that Godzilla doesn't have enough screentime (though his presence overall is much too small). Its more a matter that even with screentime Godzilla does get he isn't allowed to do much of anything.
A lot of people were a bit frustrated with how Slattern in Pacific Rim, felt a bit tacked on, and not explored enough. Imagine if that was the only fight scene in the film.
This movie fails to set up Godzilla with any particular metaphorical meaning. Despite setting up a decent dark tone for awhile, it fails to follow through on that sort of thing. It has its lighter moments, but then fails to deliver on much fun save for two minutes towards the end. What is left is a somewhat formless mid-ground.
Its worth seeing, and where it succeeds it does so greatly, but it had the resources to be much better.
3/5
I'll add more later.
So, for some that may feel there's a little 'too much teasing' those are definitely justified. But it all builds to a crescendo by the end.
