My Godzilla Marathon

Got a kick out of those quick truncated reviews!

Shin Godzilla: While I didn’t find any of the characters particularly interesting, I felt like each at least had somewhat of a developed personality. I didn’t really care for Godzilla’s first or second form, but I really like his third form, it’s just so disturbing and nasty looking. One particular destruction scene is on a whole other scale than any other previous Godzilla movie. The movie really shines in it’s use of political commentary. Though you do get a lot of complaining from characters that outright state the message of the movie, it’s can actually be quite subtle by just showing you what a really goes on in the Japanese government. A Godzilla movie that makes you think is a good movie in my book. 4/5.

Planet of the Monsters: Extremely one note characters that is not at all helped by the lack of Godzilla. If there is movie that should make people complain about a lack of Godzilla, it’s this one. He had way less screen time than the 2014 movie. But I must admit that I thought the climax was satisfying and I was able to stay awake whenever Metphies was on screen. 3/5.

City on the Edge of Battle: A horrifically boring movie with characters from the previous movie having absolutely no development from their experience in the previous movie. It’s not really the lack of monster fights that bothers me, it’s the complete lack of interesting characters who almost only speak in technobabble. Not even Metphies can save this movie. The worst disservice this movie gave was when it pulled a Rian Johnson and “subverted my expectations” by giving me no actual MechaGodzilla, just a big city. I’m not against twists, I’m against terribly written twists! 1/5

Same problems with the first two plus a terrible Ghidorah design and a monster battle I can’t even call a monster battle. A better word is an “interaction”. The only thing that raises this movie above City on the Edge of Battle is the scenes between Haruo and Metphies. 2/5

Godzilla 2014: Only real complaint is Ford Brody. Good Godzilla gravy was he boring. He only had ONE scene were I thought his acting was believable. Besides that he is an emotionless cliche action hero who has an annoying surfer accent. Besides that everything is great. Joe Brody and Serizawa were wonderful characters (too bad they were tragically robbed and we were stuck with the bland as bread son). The tension is kept perfectly throughout the film. The special effects still hold up five years later. The scale is perfectly shone and the monster battles, while short, are excellent. The themes are more shown that said aloud with the only exception being the “let them fight scene”. 4/5.

Alright guys, here it is, KOTM:

Warning, possible spoilers:

The critics were WAY to hard on this movie. That’s definitely not to say it doesn’t have problems, but the complete lack of awareness of the positive qualities of this movie on the critics part astounds me. So let’s just get the negatives out of the way. There is a noticeable lack of interesting characters. But I do have three that I enjoyed watching: Mark Russell, Emma Russell, and Serizawa. The others characters were a little too simplistic or underdeveloped, especially in the case of Alan Jonah. If this movie wasn’t being made before Infinity War I’d call him a Thanos knockoff. Another complaint is that the dialogue can be kinda cringy in some places. Not a lot of the many jokes landed for me. But I think those are my only two real complaints. Mark Russell is a great everyman who dosnt have grand motivations like his ex-wife or Alan Jonah, he just wants he family back. Kyle Chandlers acting was really believable to me and their never was really a dull moment with him. Emma Russell is a good grey anti-hero, torn between, as would Dumbledore, what is right (not commiting genocide even though environmental progress will be much slower or become nonexistent) and what is easy (committing genocide to save the planet). She had a great redemption arc at the end of the film and her fate at the end of the film made me want to salute in the middle of the theatre. Without getting too heavy into spoiler territory, Serizawa goes through a great arc that culminates to an end so emotional I was left feeling like a screwdriver was in my stomach. And I must say even the non interesting human character still did a fantastic job acting. The monster action was vicious, tense, well choreographed, and well shot. Michael Dougherty not only continues Gareth Edward’s great use of scale, he improves on it. All the mocap actors did a fantastic job. You could really tell what the monsters were thinking and feeling. The cinematography was brilliantly lighted and shaded and the different color contrasts were a nice touch. The soundtrack builds up the emotion and tension in each scene, and all fit perfectly in the context of each scene. I was left with an experience of both terror and wonder, with a feeling in my stomach that wouldn’t leave me. It’s certainly not a perfect Godzilla movie, it’s not as “deep” as it would like you to believe, and while it handles it’s themes decently it definitely doesn’t compare to how many other Godzilla movies handled their message. That said though, you’ll still be left with plenty to chew on from it’s various messages, and you’ll be in for quite that ride when the monsters are on screen. 4/5.

My main complaint with the movie is that the humans kept talking when the Kaijus were fighting. Damn Kaiju-teases..... Other than that, movie was bloody amazing! Especially loved the callbacks in the music and Godzilla's roars to the OG 1954 Godzilla. 9.5-9.999999/10 for me!