Ever since I was little I always enjoyed a nice Godzilla film every now and then. For years I have been waiting for this new movie, which for a while it was called Godzilla 2012. In 2011 I received one of the older scripts for the upcoming movie. While the human characters were fairly bad, many of the concepts and scenes throughout the film of the radioactive carnage from Godzilla was amazing. When I went to see this movie last Thursday at the first showing in IMAX 3D, I was expecting a film filled with epic carnage. The film I got was a bit more what I was fearing.
The Godzilla film from 1998 was loathed by critics and G-fans alike. Everyone disliked the film due to its inaccuracies to the character of Gojira, and its childish plot (however, Godzilla the series, the sequel cartoon series to the movie, was loved by G-fans and critics). When the new Godzilla film was released, it immediately became popular among G-fans. But then the unimaginable happened. The film gained criticism from the most unlikely of things:
These comments are the three main issues of the movie. The first was that it didn't have enough Godzilla in it. The first time he truly appears is halfway into the movie. To be fair, he also appeared halfway in his previous movie. Even so, Godzilla still has more screen time in Final Wars than 2014. The reason could be due to director Gareth Edward being an independent movie maker, so he would naturally use techniques to keep the monster scenes short. The second problem is that the film is a bit boring. I too felt the slumber approach me as I watched this movie. It was only later that I realized why.
In Pacific Rim, there is a variety of different people with different personalities, making the film feel bigger, and all the characters go through some sort of character development. In Godzilla 1998, the characters are shown with huge personalities and sometimes comical personalities, and have gradual character development. In Godzilla 2014, the dialogue and character development was very strong with the father figure, but not so much with anyone else. Once our main character became a young military kid, whose name sounds a heck of a lot like Brony, all sense of character development and any personality for this character is sucked out. The same goes for his wife and child. Heck, most of the adults and all the children in this film had no personality. Without an engaging story behind a character, why should the audience feel sympathy for them?
In the Pacific Rim film from last year, most of the shots were purposely shot from below the kaiju to make them appear huge. Even in the first American remake of Godzilla used a variety of low angle shots to make the monster seem and feel bigger. Godzilla 2014 didn't use this technique. There are a few good shots that make the Kaiju seem big, but the shots are usually far away from the monsters to show their entirety. There was a scene where a glow from Godzilla became apparent and the camera panned to the left and revealed his fire breath. That shot was worthy of the audience's applause. However, many of the other shots make the monsters seem small. Previous Godzilla films were able to use the low angle technique many times, specifically the original. That is how the illusion of a giant monster can come into play. But as i have said before, this movie chooses more straight forward and simpler shots.
The final reason is most likely why this film has gained so much praise. We, as humans, fear a changing world. We are always afraid to try something new. This is also why when Pacific Rim came out last year, it did horrible in the American market. Because Godzilla has been around for 60 years and Pacific Rim is brand new, the audience trusts Godzilla more than Pacific Rim. Even then, most of the Godzilla films were only released on video in America and were never released into theaters, making audiences come to the conclusion that 2014 is the best one, without knowing it's only the best out of a few. With that said, it is merely human nature that makes a franchise thrive or fall.
So was this movie bad? I'm not entirely sure. The whole set up of conspiracy theories surrounding Kaiju was freakin epic, and the ending was definitely a classic. I mean, there are many good things I want to say about this film, but the negative out weigh the positive, and I feel that keeping the negative away from the public will only let these negatives live on in Hollywood. Here's to hoping for a better sequel.
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