I’ve just seen Godzilla 2 - King of the Monsters. Open spoilers ahoy after this post.
TLDR: a serviceable movie but not actually a good one.
Okay, the early twist was a good one. Charles Dance was a magnificent villain, out-acting everyone. The Atlantis / Bermuda Triangle linkup was also fun.
But I was unsatisfied. Okay, we have plenty of monster action, but I was reminded of Justice League - after the first part, everyone was just trying to get Superman back in action to fight the villain. There was also too much exposition, though Dance saved one part by somewhat breaking the fourth wall.
The heroic self-sacrifice scene was cliched and more than a bit cringeworthy. Ditto the redemption self-sacrifice.
A by-the-numbers popcorn flick.
I did like the credits.
I just put it on my Netflix DVD queue, so I’ll see it in a year or two. Is it one of the “better” Godzilla movies like the original(with or without Raymond Burr), the Mathew Broderick movie, and the recent Shin Godzilla? Or is it more like the execrable '70s to early '90s movies?
I think it might lose something on the small screen. The film relies a lot on spectacle and awe and there’s a big difference between seeing something on a 40" TV and seeing the same thing on a 40 foot cinema screen. I’ve not actually seen Shin Godzilla so I can’t compare that but I don’t rate it as highly as Kong: Skull Island. It’s got even more spectacle than the 2014 Godzilla but the connecting bits weren’t as good.
There was a localisation fail: they showed sites of titans all around the world. In particular for UK viewers, Loch Ness was shown. So why not include Nessie in the UK release? This also shows up at the end where perhaps half a dozen titans submit to Godzilla when many more titans were released. (I’m guessing money is the answer.)
There was a possible science fail (yes, I know…): I’m not sure that a nuclear explosion underwater behaves like that, even if it does start in an air-filled cave. Those who know more about these things can enlighten us.
Don’t they kinda prove the bad guys were right though?
For a movie about giant monsters fighting, I wanted more giant monsters fighting! Waaaaaay too much time spent on stupid human family drama. I came to see the monsters dammit!
The sound was amazing in Dolby! I loved the theme when Godzilla charged up his fire breath.
I was more involved emotionally with Mothra than any of the humans.
Only if you exclude the extinction of humanity.
That’s my problem with every Godzilla movie, ever. All are 10-15 minutes of monster fun, 90 minutes of human drama about people you don’t care about.
This one was well more than 10 minutes of monster rumbles (enough that some reviews bitched about the ‘excess’ number of monster fights) but the human parts were so awful. If we had seen it at home, I could have snarked all through the thing.
I enjoyed it enough that I wasn’t bitter about seeing it although I couldn’t recommend it aside from (as Quartz points out), seeing Rodan climb out of a volcano lair on an IMAX screen is more impressive than seeing him climb out on a 48" living room television.
Agreed.
Also how the hell is Monarch keeping their [del]helicarrier[.del] generic flying aircraft carrier aloft? :dubious: Yes, that really did bug me how that pretty much everything about the Titans.
To me, it seemed like something Toho would have done in the early 70s if someone had given them American actors, modern SFX and an unlimited budget. Which I liked.
I haven’t seen this one, but it can’t be worse than “Godzilla freezes in place long enough for people to build train tracks to him.”
I was expecting the full range of kaiju, including all of our old favorites - the script said there were 17, IIRC. But there was *no *Gamera, and who the hell were the mastodon and the spider ones?
Thanks for that, I didn’t know his name but I knew there was a giant turtle monster that wasn’t around. And yeah, four main kaijus with a few cameos was less than I expected.
Gamera is a creation of Daiei Studios. Godzilla, et al. come from Toho Studios. You might as well be expecting to see Superman in the next Avengers movie.
I’m guessing one of the spiders was Kamacuras and the other one Kumonga, aka Spiga. [Pre-post edit: Apparently one of them it a “MUTO” from the previous Godzilla movie I never watched]
The mammoth-dude appears to have been made up for the movie.
I was mildly annoyed at the lack of Anguirus (or half-second Anguirus cameo if that was the case). Here’s a list of Toho kaiju critters so you can be annoyed by your missing favorites, too!
I disliked the previous one because it seemed to go out of it’s way to not show Monsters fighting. This one was better in that regard but it was still lacking something.
When I was kid I LOVED Monster movies but hated what I called "the people scenes’. That is apparently still true.
Also not sure I like the decision to make the Big Guy an out right Hero. I would rather it be he is just the less worse option in the movie.
BTW if you already saw it and didn’t stay, the tag revealed that Gidorah lives and Tywin Lannister has his head.
Someone we went with felt that two self-sacrifices was a bit much.
Speaking of “a bit much”, by the third time we had a “Gidorah is going to kill this person… wait for it… wait for it… BAM! Cold-cocked by something stage left!” scene, they might have gone to the well a bit too often.
I agree with both of these. I especially couldn’t care less for Vera Farmiga’s sacrifice. You made this whole movie happen for your stupid, nonsensical reasons…you deserved to die and I don’t feel sorry for you. Also thought there were too many run-ins with Godzilla saving the day, but I also cheered each time…so I guess I’m a hypocrite.
I really loved the movie. I even thought the human drama wasn’t so bad. I think they could have cut out about a third of it and shortened some of the scenes, but the story compelled me. The monster fighting was great and very classic Godzilla.
Actually, “classic Godzilla” pretty much sums up the whole movie and also probably explains why it’s not a box office smash. Godzilla movies never ran in theaters here (Shin Godzilla nonwithstanding), especailly in the 70s and 80s (Did 1985 run in theaters?) because I just don’t think American audiences are really that in tune with that kind of film.
The human bits and ideas (humans are the plagues!) is classic Godzilla, shorter monster fights where Zilla is owned at the beginning and gets help at the end is classic Godzilla too. Godzilla fans I know LOVED the movie and non-fans think it’s kinda dumb which is classic Godzilla too.
Speaking of classic Godzilla, the music in thie movie was fantastic. Loved hearing the classic ‘Zilla theme and even Mothra’s Twins’ music. I wish they’d keep the monster roars authentic though. They do a good job with Godzilla, and we heard Mothra’s for a hot second, but I want Rodan and Gidorah’s to be authentic too!
It’s too bad the critics shit on the movie as much as they did, I think that hurt the box office totals a lot and will hurt the next movie. Oh well I guess…was a good movie to me.
Yeah, it’s almost like the critics were looking for plot, characters, and acting, as if those were important in this genre.