The world's most famous monster is pitted against malevolent creatures who, bolstered by humanity's scientific arrogance, threaten our very existence.
The main stars of the film were Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Elizabeth Olsen, Bryan Cranston, Ken Watanabe, Sall Hawkins with a very minor appearance from Juliette Binoche. Johnson and Olsen plays husband and wife and while I think their performances were pretty good and their chemistry is okay. My complaint with them is though how they were characterized like Johnson, he plays the generic soldier who is coincidentally always present whenever the monsters appear. It just feels like your typical character in an action film and you will not feel invested at it. As for Olsen, she was great at showcasing at how scared her character is no matter how small those nuances are, I just wish that we get to see more from her character so that (like in Johnson's character) we would also feel invested with it.
Cranston, Watanabe, Hawkins and Binoche in my opinion were the emotional core of the film no matter how limited there characters were on screen because through these characters, you will actually feel the strong chemistry between them and will make you invested with these characters but it's all thanks to their strong performances. Like Cranston and Binoche, they play the mom and dad of Johnson's character and they were able to show that they are husband and wife/ mother and father. The emotions through this character were just overflowing it served as one of the highlights of the film. When it comes to Hawkins and Watanabe though, their characters are different from the former characters, they showed how invested they are in the field they are working on and showed how dedicated they are to find out the truth, especially Watanabe who is one of my favorite characters on the film because he was like the narrator of the whole film and explains what is happening without it being annoying or being too "explanatory" for the audience and the moment he said "Let them fight" it just fills me with joy.
The film wouldn't be as good as it already is if it wasn't for the technical aspects of it, from the VFX, original score, and cinematography, this film delivered. The VFX of the film was very impressive because of how detailed it is, from the falling rubble, to the small textures of Godzilla and the designs of the creature, it was all solid and it was very believable that it doesn't take you out of the experience. The cinematography is probably one of the best I've seen in a big effects film because it showed the grand scale and scope that the film is going for and it showed how great the fighting scenes of the monsters are, to put it simply, it's hauntingly beautiful.
However, these are not my favorite technical aspect of the film, my favorite is the magnificent score by Alexandre Desplat. The score was just haunting, it was sharp and it really delivered on keeping the suspense high. At times I just took a moment where I just listened to the score and it completely meshed perfectly with the scenes it was showing. It was just memorable and probably one of my favorite scores I've heard this year.
Lastly, I want to talk about Edwards' direction. Do I think he did a great job directing this? The answer is yes. The positives of his direction are how well he integrated human drama to the plot of the film, his handling of tension was great, the overall tone of the film was fitting to the way told the story, the way he showed how these monsters would fight was just a delight to see and I really liked his slow burning take on three acts of the film. Now, here are my negatives on his direction, I was not a fan on how many times he teased the fight between Godzilla and the MUTO, at first it was good but then he continually does it that you can't help but feel a little annoyed (but the payoff is worth it though). My last complaint is the editing in this film because it was a bit sloppy and it's like one scene is jumping to one another and felt that it has no transition.
Overall:
To top it all off, this reboot of the King of Kaijus is great cinematic experience, with a good plot, a great score, a beautiful cinematography and monster fights that will surely geek you out. Edwards did a great job directing this film because he was not only able to capture the original spirit of Godzilla but also able to add his own flavor and uniqueness to it. While the film sure did have its problems, in the end the good outweighs the bad.
Grade:
With the failure of Emmerich's Godzilla back in 1998, a lot of people became skeptical when an another american reboot of the King of Kaijus will grace the silver screen. I honestly am one of those skeptics but boy was I wrong for being skeptical because I completely loved the movie. Firstly, let us talk about the story of the film, while I admit that at times it was a bit predictable, it still managed to wow me for connecting all the dots throughout the film, I also like the way how they integrated the whole mythology behind the Kaijus to go along with the plot of the film because it made the whole film feel much more rounded and felt a lot more constructed.
Another thing that I liked in the story of the film is we'd get to see how humans could react to a major event/catastrophe such as this. The human drama in the film is solid because it showed how helpless we can be when such a thing happened in real life. Having said those though, I still have some complaints on how some things were handled in the film like the plot points of the characters, while they were presented well in the film, it didn't actually help the plot to "cruise" along with the film. The could have done better with the plot points if they actually resolved those in a much better way.
The main stars of the film were Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Elizabeth Olsen, Bryan Cranston, Ken Watanabe, Sall Hawkins with a very minor appearance from Juliette Binoche. Johnson and Olsen plays husband and wife and while I think their performances were pretty good and their chemistry is okay. My complaint with them is though how they were characterized like Johnson, he plays the generic soldier who is coincidentally always present whenever the monsters appear. It just feels like your typical character in an action film and you will not feel invested at it. As for Olsen, she was great at showcasing at how scared her character is no matter how small those nuances are, I just wish that we get to see more from her character so that (like in Johnson's character) we would also feel invested with it. Cranston, Watanabe, Hawkins and Binoche in my opinion were the emotional core of the film no matter how limited there characters were on screen because through these characters, you will actually feel the strong chemistry between them and will make you invested with these characters but it's all thanks to their strong performances. Like Cranston and Binoche, they play the mom and dad of Johnson's character and they were able to show that they are husband and wife/ mother and father. The emotions through this character were just overflowing it served as one of the highlights of the film. When it comes to Hawkins and Watanabe though, their characters are different from the former characters, they showed how invested they are in the field they are working on and showed how dedicated they are to find out the truth, especially Watanabe who is one of my favorite characters on the film because he was like the narrator of the whole film and explains what is happening without it being annoying or being too "explanatory" for the audience and the moment he said "Let them fight" it just fills me with joy.
The film wouldn't be as good as it already is if it wasn't for the technical aspects of it, from the VFX, original score, and cinematography, this film delivered. The VFX of the film was very impressive because of how detailed it is, from the falling rubble, to the small textures of Godzilla and the designs of the creature, it was all solid and it was very believable that it doesn't take you out of the experience. The cinematography is probably one of the best I've seen in a big effects film because it showed the grand scale and scope that the film is going for and it showed how great the fighting scenes of the monsters are, to put it simply, it's hauntingly beautiful.However, these are not my favorite technical aspect of the film, my favorite is the magnificent score by Alexandre Desplat. The score was just haunting, it was sharp and it really delivered on keeping the suspense high. At times I just took a moment where I just listened to the score and it completely meshed perfectly with the scenes it was showing. It was just memorable and probably one of my favorite scores I've heard this year.
Lastly, I want to talk about Edwards' direction. Do I think he did a great job directing this? The answer is yes. The positives of his direction are how well he integrated human drama to the plot of the film, his handling of tension was great, the overall tone of the film was fitting to the way told the story, the way he showed how these monsters would fight was just a delight to see and I really liked his slow burning take on three acts of the film. Now, here are my negatives on his direction, I was not a fan on how many times he teased the fight between Godzilla and the MUTO, at first it was good but then he continually does it that you can't help but feel a little annoyed (but the payoff is worth it though). My last complaint is the editing in this film because it was a bit sloppy and it's like one scene is jumping to one another and felt that it has no transition.
Overall:
To top it all off, this reboot of the King of Kaijus is great cinematic experience, with a good plot, a great score, a beautiful cinematography and monster fights that will surely geek you out. Edwards did a great job directing this film because he was not only able to capture the original spirit of Godzilla but also able to add his own flavor and uniqueness to it. While the film sure did have its problems, in the end the good outweighs the bad.
Grade:
Favorite dialogues/lines:
Vivienne Graham: In 1954, we awakened something..
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Joe Brody: You're not fooling anybody when you say that what happened was a "natural disaster,". You're lying! It was not an earthquake, it wasn't a typhoon! Because what's really happening is that you're hiding something out there! And it is going to send us back to the Stone Age!
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Ichiro Serizawa: The arrogance of men is thinking nature is in their control and not the other way around. Let them fight.
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