Poll: Godzilla (2014) - Did you enjoy it?

[DSD12]

Everything was pretty good until you first see Godzillas face and they cut to that dumb kid sleeping, honestly my only problems are that Bryan Cranston and Ken Watanabe should have been the main characters and not the dumb family it would have been much better if they focused on those two rather than solider man and his family other than that the movie is pretty good.

 

[Erttheking]

I haven't seen it yet, but I have to say the reviews have been making me wary of it. You have a giant monster, a scientist that's a Hiroshima survivor and Bryan Cranston, and you focus on a god damn generic US Marine? What is with my country's obsession with the marines!?

One tiny niggling detail . . . the scientist's father was a Hiroshima survivor.

OT: I thought they did a pretty decent job of going back to the original 1954 concept. The movie has slow pacing, but it was meant to. The monsters are backdrop to the story of the people rather than the main highlight. Stuff like that.

IF I had gone into the movie expecting something like Pacific Rim, I would have been severely disappointed. As it was, I went in hoping for something the Toho folks would be happy with. As such, I was quite happy.

My bad. He stills sounds a thousand times more interesting than "US Marine, another one"

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

This is not about whether you felt the film was well-acted, well-written or anything like that, just whether or not you had fun while watching the film.

Suppose my enjoyment of a movie primarily hinges on acting and writing?

 

[Kenbo Slice]

I haven't seen it yet, but I have to say the reviews have been making me wary of it. You have a giant monster, a scientist that's a Hiroshima survivor and Bryan Cranston, and you focus on a god damn generic US Marine? What is with my country's obsession with the marines!?

One tiny niggling detail . . . the scientist's father was a Hiroshima survivor.

OT: I thought they did a pretty decent job of going back to the original 1954 concept. The movie has slow pacing, but it was meant to. The monsters are backdrop to the story of the people rather than the main highlight. Stuff like that.

IF I had gone into the movie expecting something like Pacific Rim, I would have been severely disappointed. As it was, I went in hoping for something the Toho folks would be happy with. As such, I was quite happy.

My bad. He stills sounds a thousand times more interesting than "US Marine, another one"

*cough cough* He was a member of the Navy.

 

[TakerFoxx]

It was...okay. Not offensively bad, not very good, just okay. I liked it a wee bit more than Pacific Rim, but that's probably because Godzilla's been getting fairly slammed in the reviews while Pacific Rim was praised to the high heavens, so I had lesser hopes for this one. The fights were cool, but the human characters were bland as hell. I don't even remember their names.

On that subject, was anyone else rooting for the MUTO's? Seriously, I found them to be a far better couple than what's-his-face and what's-her-name, and thought their reunion was far more touching than anything involving the humans. And seeing how Godzilla received absolutely no characterization at all beyond "Here to hunt," I thought that they were the most sympathetic characters in the movie.

 

[scorptatious]

I enjoyed it.

I do agree with some of Bob's points. But the scenes that had Godzilla and the MUTOS were golden IMO.

This is coming from someone who spent a lot of his childhood watching a bunch of the old Godzilla VHS's.

Although I've never seen the movies, I nearly squealed like a little girl when Godzilla's tail lit up and I knew he was about to unleash his fire/lazor breath. As well as just taking a nap in the middle of the city after the battle.

I failed at the "nearly" part. That last bit where:

Spoiler

Godzilla pried open the female MUTO's mouth and blew concentrated fire down her gullet made me giggle and feel all warm inside.

Lol, I see what you did there! ;P

I checked over my post and it looks like I made an unintentional pun. XD

 

[Strain42]

I liked it a lot more than I thought I would. I mean I wanted it to be good from the start, I've been a Kaiju film fan as long as I can remember, but I was prepared for a movie that felt just okay and if I was lucky it would have some great monster fights in it (which it did)

But yeah, I really did enjoy it. I thought it was pretty well written, and overall was well acted. I admit that Kick-Ass McBrody wasn't the most interesting leading man in the world, but at least they gave him some stuff to do, which is more than you can say for a lot of human characters in a lot of other Godzilla films. Considering how little I liked him as Kick-Ass, this was the movie that made me feel a bit better about him being Quicksilver (I mean he wasn't great here, but he was decent enough)

Overall, I'd give the film an A- It could have added a bit more meat to some of the other characters, but I really enjoyed what was there. I'd go see it again, no doubt.

 

[sabercrusader]

I enjoyed it. The slow buildup was nice. Godzilla himself has never looked better. The payoff was really good in my opinion. The US Marine focus didn't really bother me too much, I think they interspliced it with enough of either Godzilla or the MUTO's for me to start getting bored with it. Bryan Cranston and Ken Watannabe (I think that's his name) were easily the best actors in the film. I'm disappointing that Bryan wasn't in most of it, and the other didn't really end up getting to do as much. Those complaints aren't that big though, because I'm hyped for a sequel. Really hoping for some Mothra in the next one.

 

[Extra-Ordinary]

Oh man, I absolutely loved it.
Sure, I get why some didn't like it but we're not talking about them, you asked me what I thought, and I thought it was amazing!
My heart has never pumped that hard for anything before.
That said, I wish Bryan Cranston had more screen tim- no, that's not true. "Not enough screen time" is never a complaint I have, I wish they didn't throw everything they had of him in the trailer is what I wish, that's what I meant to say. Seriously, there was practically nothing left for the movie.
Anyway.
That atomic breath was awesome. I was wondering how they were going to handle it (as well as if they were going to use it at all) because his spines are a little bit smaller in proportion to his body, I thought it was going to look goofy. No, it looked frickin' great, and watching the glow run up his tail, oh, my heart just stopped.
I screamed my voice so raw during that movie, I can't hit my high notes anymore.

Oh, and I'd really like King Gidorah for the sequel. I know a lot of people are thinking Mothra and that's probably where they're going but I'd like to see King Gidorah.

 

[RatRace123]

I loved it! Unlike most other genre films that hide the title characters behind a human "B" story, I actually liked the human drama in Godzilla. It was really helped by the fact that I thought the acting was really good for the most part, even Aaron Taylor-Johnson, I thought he was pretty good!

And when The Big G was finally on screen, it was soooo damn awesome!

 

[mjharper]

It was awesome. I bet all the people complaining have never ever seen the original movie. Furthermore, those complaining that there was too little Godzilla, would be the same people complaining if there was too much Godzilla. I thought the movie was awesome and the action scenes well worth the wait.

I have seen the original movie, even if I haven't seen the new one. I get what you're saying. But the first movie was far more about scientists trying to deal with the threat, and had pretty decent characters. This movie has generic marine #1648356. The original also had that subtext about the horror of the atomic bombs, which I assume is missing here as well. And of course, Godzilla is the villain in the original, so the tension is, 'how can the puny humans overcome the giant-ass monster', rather than, 'When is Godzilla gonna turn up and kick ass?'

As far as I can see, the two movies are rather different beasts. (Ha! I'm so funny )

But the point is, if you're going to have slow, character-based build up, you'd better have some characters we give a damn about, and if possible a sense of mystery and tension. The first movie succeeded at that, and from all accounts the new one fails spectacularly at that, which is why so many people are saying it would have been better with Cranston and the Wantanabe as the leads.

As with MovieBob's review. He got what the movie was trying to do; it just didn't do it well. And he most certainly has seen the first movie.

 

[Erttheking]

I haven't seen it yet, but I have to say the reviews have been making me wary of it. You have a giant monster, a scientist that's a Hiroshima survivor and Bryan Cranston, and you focus on a god damn generic US Marine? What is with my country's obsession with the marines!?

One tiny niggling detail . . . the scientist's father was a Hiroshima survivor.

OT: I thought they did a pretty decent job of going back to the original 1954 concept. The movie has slow pacing, but it was meant to. The monsters are backdrop to the story of the people rather than the main highlight. Stuff like that.

IF I had gone into the movie expecting something like Pacific Rim, I would have been severely disappointed. As it was, I went in hoping for something the Toho folks would be happy with. As such, I was quite happy.

My bad. He stills sounds a thousand times more interesting than "US Marine, another one"

*cough cough* He was a member of the Navy.

You get the point I'm trying to make here. I'm not claiming that I'm an expert on the movie, I'm just saying that I'm tired of the over saturation of the US military in fiction and I'd like a breath of fresh air.

 

[-Dragmire-]

The ending left me satisfied. It wouldn't take much to make the movie better, just better editing. Just remove a bunch of needless scenes to shorten the film by 30 or so minutes.

Still, like I said, the ending left me satisfied and I value that extremely highly.

 

[Risingblade]

I enjoyed it, it was what any Godzilla fan would expect out of a Godzilla movie. Especially considering this is the first movie of this Godzilla.

 

[Sir Thomas Sean Connery]

Erm, haven't we had this thread enough times? Between MovieBob's review, Marter's review and the thread about weather people liked the ending bit, there's a fair bit of discussion going on. Not to rain on any parades, just sayin.

But whining about thread saturation aside, I loved it to death.

The monsters were great, the action was great, the atmosphere was great, and I'm basically alone here, but the humans were great to. Yes, including the soldier everyone seems to dislike.
Not to put words in anyone's mouth, but I think a lot of the hatred for the character comes from the influx of crappy American soldier main characters without letting Ford stand on his own merits. To me, he was far better than any soldier I've seen in movies in a long time. He actually had sympathetic motives, there was very little in the way of flag waving or hardware masturbation and he was shown to be useful while still being vulnerable. This, to me, sets him well apart and made him an enjoyable protagonist for me. I actually caught myself getting surprisingly happy when he finally reunited with his wife. I didn't think I was going to, but the tension was great enough and the people realistic enough to where I did care.

So yeah. Thought it was great. Marter is a silly willy.

 

[Bertylicious]

I just thought it was a bit meh and I thought the fake outs were cheap. What wasn't cheap was the price of the ticket; £8.26. For that kind of money I am expecting to be a liquefied mass flowing out of the theatre, incapable of any utterance beyond "OMG TOTES AMAZEBALLS!"

 

[Creedsareevil]

Actually, the long and dragged mid section of the movie killed it for me.
It has a good start, setting up the whole history pretty neatly via plot vehicle man (brian cranston) finally getting rewarded for his tenacious pursuit of the truth. Through him, the audience gets all relevant info.

Then the movie starts meandering and getting bogged down, mostly with LT plot ball&chain, son of plot vehicle man. His arc was superfluous and boring. Add in the whole "oh yeah we need the humans to do stuff too!" thing and the film loses its luster. The big monster clash at th end BARELY salvages this movie.

Instead of LT Plot quicksand and several empty dialog capsules they should have shown some more military failing vs monster scenes. Because th only really good mili vs monster thing is the military shooting the wrong monster....



Overall: I liked pacific rim better, that had meandering parts too but it gave much more of the genre BEEF by delivering several good battles.


On thing: The money is clearly on the screen with this godzilla here. Film looks good. Monsters look good. Godzilla looks proper "godzillaish".

 

[bartholen_v1legacy]

No, I did not, and seeing all the positive reception makes me wonder whether we're seeing the Bayformers effect taking place in regards to this film.

Good stuff out of the way first: the first 30-40 minutes were quite entertaining with a heavy atmosphere of doom and gloom, and Bryan Cranston was terrific. The scene where the muto is first revealed was very thrilling.

And then the rest of the movie happened.

My first warning light flicked on when Cranston's character was axed off. I thought "Okay, they're sucker punching us here, taking this into a new direction." The second one went off when we see the muto and Godzilla about to fight, epic music, both monsters revealed, apocalypse is about to happen... and then we cut to Lt. Borenstein's kid watching NEWS FOOTAGE OF WHAT ACTUALLY HAPPENED! From there on the movie was incredibly boring, as we get basically nothing but the endless military rambling about nukes and whatever, I've already forgotten. I almost fell asleep during the last 30 minutes. The final straw was the nuke going off right next to San Fransisco, with seemingly no effect! They also did that stupidest thing of all of showing little kids and a dog being saved from catastrophe, but everyone else gets annihilated without a single thought to them. I find it interesting that so many people complained about collateral damage in Man of Steel, and yet I've seen very little of that for this film. Plus, Godzilla using his atomic breath for the first time didn't do anything! It was only there to elicit a fangasm reaction from the audience.

It's incredibly boring, the trailers were blatant bait and switch, had no interesting characters beyond Cranston and even he wasn't anything special, whatever action set pieces it had were already done better in Pacific Rim (and actually with color instead of grey, black and red!), they repeated every "Woah!" moment at least twice (Godzilla roars! Godzilla roars again! And AGAIN! Godzilla is grabbed by the flying muto! He's grabbed by the flying muto again! People don't notice a giant monster right next to them! See them do it at least three more times!), and the last 30 minutes were deathly dull even compared to the rest of the film. It's dumber than Man of Steel and The Dark Knight Rises combined.

Yes, I said it! Come and get me!

 

[Creedsareevil]

On collateral damage:

Man of Steel was erregious because it was about SUPERMAN.
The guys who tries to prevent that stuff, that one darkseid through the towers aside....


Godzilla is about collateral damage. So of coruse noone bats an eye.


Oh and of course we were angry about MoS collateral daamge because the CGI buildings that got wrecked had more charisma and personality than the generic designated victims running for their lives in Godzilla....