Pacific Rim vs Cloverfield vs King Kong vs Godzilla (2014)

[MessiahDecoy123]

How would you rank them?

 

[Dispatch Ninja]

Godzilla - 5/5
King Kong - 3.5/5
Cloverfield - 3/5
Pacific Rim - 1/5

 

[JJJ's Ulcer]

Haven't seen new Godzilla…


But I'll rank the 1998 version. So...

Cloverfield
Pacific Rim

……


King Kong


…..


…………


….



….


not yet….



….


Godzilla (1998 version)

 

[GENERAL RAAM582]

King Kong 9.5
Godzilla 9.0
Never saw Pacific Rim, but hopefully it's better than Cloverfield.
Cloverfield 6.5

 

[antonydelfini]

Pacific Rim 8/10
King Kong 7.5/10
Godzilla 7/10
Cloverfield 7/10

Godzilla would have been an easy 9/10 if the human scenes were as good as Cranston's scenes. Unfortunately, Aaron Johnson's took 2/3 of the film.

 

[Spider-Fan]

Godzilla, and it isn't close. King Kong was 1 hour too long (which made it SOOOOOOOOOOOO boring). Cloverfield was a cool attempt at something new, but I have found it lacks rewatchability for me. Pacific Rim is awesome for what it is, which is good and stupid fun time. Godzilla is a film that had far more visual flair, well done suspense, and displayed a lot more originality in adapting the concept for the movie. I'd rate them:

Godzilla - 4/5
Pacific Rim - 3.5/5
Cloverfield - 3/5
King Kong - either a 2.5/5 or a 3/5

Peter Jackson's King Kong could have been great, but this is a movie I can feel Jackson's ego, and it hurts the movie. LOTR and The Hobbit I can see the high run times (though Hobbit I even feel could be trimmed a little). But, he over indulges in himself, and it hurts the final product.

 

[DACrowe]

Godzilla is the newest by this weekend, so it will win the poll. But while it wasn't overly long and drawn out like Jackson's Kong, I still did care for the characters in King Kong, or at least Naomi Watts' Fay Wray character and the big ape himself. With Godzilla, I had a wild time, but I could care less about Ford and his family. In fact, while King Kong could have cut 30 minutes out of the film easily and been stronger for it, the slowest part in any of these movies is when Godzilla shows up in Hawaii...and we are then delayed gratification until he TDKR's the Golden Gate Bridge. Until that moment, the movie is just a waiting game for the action to return, especially without Cranston in it at that point.

So

1. King Kong (2005) 8/10
2. Godzilla (2014) 7/10
3. Pacific Rim (2013) 6/10

My ranking.

 

[Ajendo]

King Kong was definitely a long ass film but it's the best movie on the list. Had Gidzilla had King Kong type action with the monsters then it would have been a much more serious contender.

 

[Arach Knight]

Pacific Rim
King Kong
Cloverfield = Godzilla

- Pacific Rim takes the top because it clearly understood what it was, what audiences expected, and delivered on all promises made. Sure there was a human element, but that never got in the way of providing audiences with the spectacle of giant monsters getting into fights. It also doesn't hurt that the human element, though not as emotionally engaging as intended, was well developed through flashbacks.

- King Kong is a well made remake. However, the film was a bit too reverent of the source material. I feel as though an opportunity was missed to produce an interesting take on the concept. Instead, we get the film that retold an already told tale, rather than reimagined an old tale, right down to ending with the identical iconic line. Still, things are well done.

Cloverfield was absolutely dreadful. All of the characters behaved in a manner that made no sense, even in the film's reality. We have a man trying to rescue his bed buddy, whom he only slept with once. Then, his entire group of friends decide to follow him into this hell hole rather than forcibly dragging him away from certain doom. Can you even call such people friends? It made the film improbable.

I could have invested myself had the male lead gone back on his own. I could have suspended disbelief and assumed that one man could easily make such a rash and foolish choice. But the fact that not just one, but several of his friends followed him back? Preposterous. Also, the shaky cam ruins the presentation and the film lacked the presence of its chief antagonist. There were so many moments where the audience gets a glimpse but not a proper reveal. Even toward the end, we hardly see the monster.

- Godzilla manages to replicate many of those same mistakes made by Cloverfield. The fact that the film teases Godzilla vs the M.U.T.O.s not once, but twice, is entirely unacceptable. The aforementioned teasing may not have been so bad had the human drama elements been compelling in and of themselves. Sadly...



**SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS**









The only interesting character was killed off after the first twenty minutes. The primary conflict for the son was that he was estranged from his father and disbelieved his father's claims. Killing the father off so soon left no room to really mature the emotional investment that the audience should have developed with the son. There is clearly an effort to create a parallel in which the son succeeds where the father failed (protecting his family), but the pacing and scripting of this parallel is poorly handled.

Human scenes are mismanaged, including wasted scenes of the son attempting to help a lost child as well as scenes of his wife at work. Ken Watanabe is wasted on this film, as his role begins as an authoritative research scientist for a shadow organization, but then suddenly transforms into that of a pseudo-philosopher spouting exposition and musings on the natural order and balance.

I loathed the entire premise that Godzilla exists to bring "balance." The concept is never fleshed out, and consequently, it makes Godzilla an ancillary and under developed character in his own film. Honestly, I don't want Americans (or Europeans) to ever make a Godzilla film, ever again. The West just doesn't understand the character, the property or how to accept the fact that audiences are okay with monsters beating the crap out of each other without trying to create plots involving how people feel about giant monsters beating the crap out of each other.

Yes, the original Godzilla was very much about the human drama, but that film was also an allegory for the atomic bombing of Japan. That incarnation of Godzilla was this awful force of nature that represented the horrors of the atomic age. That film was a human drama that featured a monster, but that portrayal is also the one least associated with the modern perception of Godzilla, who is notable for his clashes with the likes of King Ghidorah and Gigan. And even as an effort to modernize and ground the original Godzilla story within the context of the 21st century, the film still fails miserably because of its inability to create characters that the audience can invest in.

 

[ares834]

Godzilla - 4.5/5
Cloverfield - 3.5/5
King Kong - 3/5
Pacific Rim - 2/5

 

[pr0xyt0xin]

#1: King Kong is one of my favorite movies of all time. Top Ten or so.
#2/3: Tie between Godzilla and Cloverfield. Wouldn't have one without the other imo. Both were very entertaining.
#4: Pacific Rim had a lot of hype and may have been a good monster action film but pretty much sucked on every other level.

 

[Octoberist]

Long Live Cloverfeld!

 

[flickchick85]

Godzilla's the only one in this group that I even remotely loved.

 

[childeroland]

Yeah, same here.

 

[Thoix]

1. Godzilla (2014) - 9/10
2. King Kong (2005) - 8/10
3. Pacific Rim - 7/10
4. Cloverfield - 6/10

 

[Rock Sexton]

Long Live Cloverfeld!

Yup. It's not even a comparison in terms of the experience.

 

[Broseph44]

I haven't seen PR yet. I love the other 3 so it's hard to choose. And also want to just say I loveeeee The Mist. Just wanted to get that in there too haha.

 

[Perfect Cell]

Godzilla - 4/5
Pacific Rim - 4/5
Cloverfield - 3/5
King Kong - 2/5

I didn't love all the cutaways with Godzilla, but the climax was worth it. Pacific Rim is cheesy as all hell, but it relishes in its cheesiness, and it's just fun that way. Cloverfield was the most "intense" of the listed films, and a fun ride, but the human characters were just so, so dumb. Pants-on-head dumb. But I watch a monster movie for the monsters, and it delivered there. King Kong was just boring to me. Just a CGI overload that felt weightless.

 

[Quasimod0]

King Kong definitely. It was too long, but what they got right was awesome. Godzilla is a close second

 

[MrMaooz]

Damn. Everyone is crapping on King Kong. I thought the movie was perfectly paced. It was an amazing, thrilling, and adventurous movie! Anyways, I've only seen Big G and Kong. I will probably see Godzilla a second time.

King Kong-9/10
Godzilla-7.5/10

 

[Gort Baringa]

I'm surprised that The Host isn't in there for some kind of consideration!

 

[Lord]

Damn. Everyone is crapping on King Kong. I thought the movie was perfectly paced. It was an amazing, thrilling, and adventurous movie! Anyways, I've only seen Big G and Kong. I will probably see Godzilla a second time.

King Kong-9/10
Godzilla-7.5/10

Haven't seen Godzilla yet but agree with your notion of King Kong, a film the internet nit picks way too much.

 

[Boom]

Godzilla 8/10
Cloverfield 7/10
King Kong 5/10
Pacific Rim 3/10

 

[Broseph44]

King Kong was awesome. Especially most of the island stuff. Can't deny the epic mess of h vs those V-rexes. And that bug scene was so damn creepy. Leaves you with that feeling if thinking something is crawling on you haha.

 

[CB Fan]

1. King Kong, even though it took too long to get to the action once it started it was well worth it.

2. Pacific Rim

3. Cloverfield

4. Godzilla=disappointing/boring as hell.