Title: Godzilla 2014
Post by L.A. Connection on May 26th, 2014 at 8:43pm
A better than average remake, but, still a bit disappointing.
Why So Serious?
I do give credit to the movie for avoiding the silliness of the '98 remake and the sheer Michael Bay-ness of the TRANSFORMERS movies, but, this GODZILLA simply takes things too seriously. An inordinate amount of time is given over to the characters and their 'personal stories', but, they simply aren't that interesting. Basically, just stock 'Human Interest' characters in just about any disaster movie. And, the Scientific 'explanations'? Face it, they are just as silly as any in a typical 50s B-movie. Just because they are spouted by a gaggle of Oscar and Emmy Winning and Nominated Actors doesn't make them any more plausible. 'Godzilla was created to restore balance!" Really?!!
That said, the movie does a far better job than last year's PACIFIC RIM of showing the size of the monsters on a human scale. But, again, why show them basically at night or in shadows, fog and rain? You got the goods - show 'em! The design of this Godzilla is a bit fat, and its head looks a bit like a turtle head pasted on a T-Rex. The moth-monsters look a bit too metallic and their voices sound overly digitally synthesized.
Still, once the big G hits the screen and does battle, the movie picks up and is enjoyable enough. It's also one of the quieter CGI blockbusters of recent years as director Gareth Edwards favors mood over bomabast as he showed in his tiny indie MONSTERS from a couple of years ago.
The king of the GODZILLA series is still the 1954 original. Of course, it is a bit unfair as there is little way a contemporary remake could match the combination of political and social events in Post-War Japan that made the original so powerful. (not to mention that there had only been a handful of Big Monster Movies before it was made, making it seem more unique and original).
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