Godzilla Officially Released in Theaters – Discussion and Spoilers

Hey, so Godzilla was released today in Australia and I went to go see it, so I thought I'd share my thoughts plus I noticed there's not an actual discussion on the movie in general so I thought pretty soon everybody'll be seeing it too, so let's discuss it here! Yaaaay!

Anyway, let me start by saying if you're after a movie with lots of Godzilla and plenty of GODZILLA destroying stuff, then you're out of luck. Godzilla is on-screen for maybe 10 minutes of footage and the majority of that is through the viewpoint of humans, so most of the scenes are fleeting at best. What you do see is awesome, but I definitely left the cinema wanting more. Godzilla is also the hero of the story. I know I speculated that when we saw the first MUTO toys and was snapped at for that being wrong but that is most definitely the case here.

So, as for the story. Basically, Godzilla and the MUTO are ancient beings that lived "when the earth was far more radioactive" and feed of radioactivity. Godzilla was awoken in the past and during 1954 they set off bombs to destroy him, although it failed. The MUTO are parasites that were discovered deep in the earth, when a mining site collapses. They had eaten a monster (implied to be the same species of Godzilla) and cocooned themselves. Two cocoons, one is deemed dead and the other hatches, travels to a nuclear site in Japan, consumes it and then re-cocoons itself.

The human story takes up most of the footage. Joe Brody worked a the nuclear plant with his wife when the MUTO attacked and his wife was killed. Since then he became obsessed with discovering what the true story behind the site's collapse. 15 years later he gets arrested and his son, Ford, who now has a family in San Fran, comes to bail him out, but gets convinced to check out the Quarantine Zone where they used to live. There, they discover that Dr. Serizawa and his crew are experimenting on the concooned MUTO in order to understand it, just as the MUTO hatches and Joe Brody is killed in the confusion. For the rest of the film, Ford is finding his way back to his family in San Fran while constantly running into the MUTO or Godzilla, who is hunting the MUTO. The cocoon that was deemed dead is discovered to actually be a gigantic female, non-flying MUTO, which proceeds to hatch and head for San Francisco, making a quick stop off at Las Vegas in order to destroy it. The majority of the movie chronicles Ford racing the MUTO and Godzilla to San Fran.

Godzilla wants to hunt the MUTO because he is an "Alpha Predator" (Apex?) and he wants to "restore balance". He appears when the flying MUTO reaches Hawaii but the scene cuts away before the two fight, which I found very annoying. The only glimpses of the battle are seen on a small TV screen that Ford's wife and son are watching. When the MUTO flees Hawaii, Godzilla follows it to San Francisco, where it wants to meet its mate and lay eggs.

The big scenes of the movie all happen in San Francisco, where the three monsters collide. Godzilla himself isn't on screen for the fights too much, because the movie follows Ford, who is with the Halo team trying to deactivate a nuclear bomb that was being used to try and lure the MUTO and Godzilla away from the city and then detonate. Most of the fights are seen from Ford's view looking up and there is far more focus on Ford and the bomb then on the monsters themselves. What we DO see is epic, Godzilla is huge and fierce and the MUTO are also pretty awesome. Godzilla is his classic self, grabbing, wrestling, throwing, slamming with his tail, biting and, most importantly, breathing that blue atomic breath of his, glowing blue spines and all.

The movie ends with Ford blowing up the MUTO's eggs and managing to get the bomb off-shore enough to not threaten humans, Godzilla crushing the flying MUTO with his tail and dispatching the giant female with an Atomic Breath straight into the mouth. Godzilla collapses and Ford is reunited by his family, however Godzilla soon awakens, to the cheers of the people (A TV-Screen reads "King of Monsters, our city's saviour?") and Godzilla returns to the ocean, diving and swimming away.

Godzilla 2014 definitely focuses a lot on the humans, which isn't a bad thing early on, but I FAR preferred Joe Brody to Ford Brody. I was really surprised when Joe unceremoniously died in the MUTO's first scene. I love Aaron Taylor-Johnson in Kick-Ass, but here all his personality is just bland. There's nothing notable about him, you wouldn't be able to decipher a single trait of him either then "blank slate hero character". His son also has the distinction of being THE WORST child actor I've seen in ages. The kid would probably died if he had to show emotion. I think the reviews of Rotten Tomatoes are being very fair with their scores. Its current 84% seems really good, but I wouldn't be shocked if it settles at about 75-79%.

The movie was good. It reached my expectations but it didn't exceed them. I didn't leave going "Ohmygod that was so amazing" like I did with Pacific Rim, I left thinking "Yep, that was pretty good". I was never bored during the movie, but I often felt like I wanted more. I'm not exaggerating when I say the first two Acts are like a big Godzilla strip tease and the third Act doesn't quite feature the big fight the movie was leading up to as much as I would've liked. Still, it was definitely a fun movie and worth the watch. I recommend it.

Sorry about my incoherent wall of text, I'll let the movie settle in a bit and then probably be able to discuss it better.

I have heard A LOT about there being a Mothra reference. I sure didn't see one, though.
But there IS a returning actor from the 1998 film! Doug Savant cameos as a medic. I forgot about his role in that film, but I always love seeing my much loved Desperate Housewives actors in films!

7/10

There ain't no post-credits scene either, I waited but there's not even a single roar!

Saw the movie today as well and I really really enjoyed it. It was far from the perfect Godzilla movie or the best but it was a damn good one.

Godzilla (2014) – In 1998 Sony released an abomination of a movie that was called “Godzilla.” While the movie had some really great effects at the time, the overall results of the movie were less than stellar. It also does not help that the creature called “Godzilla” in that movie never truly resembled the monster everyone knows and loves. That movie was also filled with terrible one liners, dated jokes, and hardly stands the test of time at all. In fact, the only thing the movie had going for it was its hype. As such, it was obvious as to why there would be mass skepticism brought about when Legendary announced they were going to be creating their own Godzilla movie. Thankfully, their take on the king of the monsters is truly one to behold.

The movie’s plot is extremely simplistic and yet, done with care for the monster’s origins in both the world the movie takes place in and in our own reality. If there is one thing Gareth Edwards has proven with this movie, it is that if you care about the original source material enough you can truly create a great experience to go with it. There is also a certain amount of suspense the movie holds to keep the viewer interested without boring them or annoying them.

The characters of the movie are pretty good, even if some of them are underused or seem to have the invincibility shield surrounding them. Bryan Cranston’s character is good while Ken Watanabe plays a scientist named Serizawa and is probably one of the best characters in the movie. It was extremely nice to finally see his talents and acting used in great detail here. Cranston’s son, Ford, is a pretty likable guy but he could have been developed a bit better. His wife, on the other hand, was utterly useless as most females tend to be in the Godzilla universe.

The monsters of the movie were done very well and the new design for Godzilla looks great on screen. He is the biggest incarnation of the monster yet, standing at about 110 meters, which is taller compared to the Heisei Godzilla whose height was 100 meters. The MUTO make for an interesting set of monsters to give Godzilla his motivations. Thankfully, the designs are followed greatly but top notch effects as the CGI never seemed to drop in quality one bit during the movie. In fact, as far as the effects go, despite it being all CGI, they are some of the best the series has ever had, and rightly so.

Some of my favorite scenes cannot be said because of spoilers, but the HALO jump scene from the trailer is truly fantastic to see when you are watching it as part of the movie and it gives great depth to what is transpiring during those moments. The music used in that scene just adds up the tension to it.

If there was anything I needed to complain about it would be the lack of monster action. There is quite a bit of it, but at the same time there is just a tad too little of it. Thankfully the movie is extremely well paced and does a great job at building up the monsters with an added bonus of suspense in the process. It is also one of the few movies in the series to truly treat the story as an anti-nuclear one, mimicking the original’s message. Overall, while there are some nitpicks to the movie, I give it a nice 8/10 as it is one the best Godzilla movies released thus far and I look forward to seeing what Legendary can come up with next in their Godzilla universe.

BTW, there is nothing after or during the credits, so there is no need to stay if you don’t want to.

My favorite scene was the build up of Godzilla's atomic breath attack.

#AtomicFrenchKiss

Seriously though,great movie. A little too much time on Ford,who in the end did absolutely nothing. Protect the train,failed and only survivor. Defuse the nuke,failed and only survivor.

Oh,as for the Mothra reference,it was in the classroom.When they show the teacher,the poster to the right. The biggest bug on there is a moth with the exact same colors as Mothra. Also in the Brody household after the nuclear event in Japan,one of the cases had a gigantic cocoon in it.

I did enjoy the fact that they showed the MUTO and then Godzilla I think about 30-40 minutes into the film.Even if it was just a tail,it ramped up from there on.

it blew my mind, i was crying from how good it was

for me it too much human dramatic scene. I need more monster rampage scene. and that atomic breath was Epic.

My prediction was correct; in a few hours its settled at 75% on Rotten Tomatoes, I expect it'll stay hovering around there.

I wouldn't have minded the emphasis on human drama had they stuck with Joe. Ford just could not carry a film well. He was extremely bland, I couldn't find myself caring about him or his family.

Makes sense their isn't a post credit scene since we don't know if Toho will let them do anything more with Big G. My guess it all hangs on the Japanese fans response to the film as to whether they'll let legendary take another shot at it or make the next one themselves.

Honestly, while I think this one wasn't FANTASTIC, I think Legendary can do more with Godzilla then Toho. I'd be very happy with a sequel.

I thought it was fantastic,even very well paced for a two hour movie,but the thing that dragged it on,like you said before,was Ford.

If they make a sequel and it's got more focus on Godzilla then it'll be perfect. Still have the humanity aspect of it,but with better actors and less of it.

I mean they showed Godzilla. If a sequel does happen,they can't exactly hide him the second time. lol. That and they really didn't hide him for too long in this one. I've seen a lot of people say that it took a while to see him. While it was about 45-50 min in before you do see a full shot of him,it's still satisfying. And heck it is about the half way mark,so it's not bad.

They also gave us plenty of MUTO shots,so we still had a big monster to be in awe at till Godzilla showed up.

Btw,if I don't see a "Boomer will live!" or Doge meme after that Hawaiian scene,I don't know what's wrong with the internet.