Review: 
(2.50 / 5) Godzilla is a 2014 sci-fi monster film directed Gareth Edwards, starring Godzilla, a fire breathing dragon. The movie had record screenings, broke weekend records, and was positively received by several critics. Godzilla operated under a $160M budget, and grossed nearly $530M worldwide.
The movie begins with the uncover the skeleton in a mine somewhere in the Pacific Rim where they find two spores, one that was dormant, the other hatched and escaped through an opening, leaving a trail into the sea. The movie then goes fifteen years forward to 2014 to a nuclear plant. The facility experiences problems and the two monsters, MUTO’s they’re called, escape and head for the states. Somehow their escape finds sends some form of communication throughout the ocean calling on Godzilla to meet in the U.S. mainland for battle.
So, as I always do in my reviews, let’s talk about what worked. Well, things blow up, and the monster is a good guy. Outside of that, I’m stumped. How in the world this movie tripled its budget in profits is beyond me. How Rotten Tomatoes gave it a 74% has me scratching my head wondering what I missed.
So let’s talk about what I didn’t like. Well, I thought the storyline was typical in that the MUTO’s mutated from the radiation. Speaking of the MUTO’s they could have done a better job on creating them. I thought they looked like two steel praying mantis. I found it comical that the military knew they needed a massive explosion to destroy the MUTO’s, so what do we get? Soldiers firing their AR15s at the monster.
I realize that Godzilla is a legend, and as a kid, I liked it. Watching it as an adult was a different story. The movie is action-packed, and if that’s what you’re looking for, it’s two full hours of it, but if you want a storyline, you might be disappointed. I know there’s a lot of fans out there so I’m anxious to see what they have to say.
For me, I always had more of a personal emotional attachment to these movies, and what Edwards does is bring out the familiarity of those past films so maybe I’m reacting more on nostalgia, but I think its something deeper than that and its hard to explain, my blog explains things a little better. Seeing a legitimate Godzilla film again since 2004 was a very exciting time, and especially since the last theatrical film in America was in 1999, so we were way overdue for another. That’s where the record-breaking I think came from. We were actually seeing a legitimate Godzilla film after so many years, and not that piece of garbage 1998 film. This film looked and sounded like a Godzilla movie, it had all the familiar locations and tropes (I hate using that word) while giving Godzilla a fresh new look yet is still familiar. All Godzilla story arcs have pretty much been the same formula, and I think they actually tried to change it more towards the human element which failed because it lacked any characters, minus Michael Cranston and Ken Wantabe.
I guess it similar to why people get so excited over TMNT, Star Wars, or Ghostbusters. People went crazy over The Force Awakens, I didn’t because I have a luke-warm love/hate relationship for the movies, but with Godzilla, I cried when I saw trailers for it coming out. I was pumped and ready. So I guess it just depends more on how much the character affects you, if that makes sense. I love Godzilla, but I have no real attachment to The Ghostbusters or seeing Han Solo again. That’s the way I see it I guess.
Mario, I agree. I didn’t see the appeal (sorry Aaron, but I get where you’re coming from, too). I suppose it really is one of those nostalgia films, because I love Ghostbusters and I was okay with the reboot (it wasn’t great, but it wasn’t the abomination the critics say it was).
Where I disagree with you is the MUTOs. I think they were very well designed as a creature, but I surprisingly didn’t see them as monsters. I guess that’s where they failed for me. They were just giant mutant things trying to have a baby. I know lots of people like that.
“They were just giant mutant things trying to have a baby. I know lots of people like that.”
Lol, Chad.
I have no personal attachment to this movie, so this isn’t Nostalgia talking for me, but I have to agree with Aaron. I think you missed something in this film.
I started out expecting to hate this movie. I had whiskey and I was going to take a shot for everything ridiculous an expected to be too drunk to write the review afterward (been a long week) but I was shockingly sober at the end. A couple shots for elephant trumpeting and weird monster skins and that’s it.
The main thing I enjoyed in this film was the characters and the family relationships. I go into great detail about it on my response, obviously, but the cliff-notes version is that the dialogue was natural, the performances were great, and I really rooted for every single character. The director had the amazing ability to show me some intense moments even from people in the background (like when a nurse is shattered because he loses a patient when the power goes out) and subvert expectations from main characters. We expected Joe Brody to live because he was Brian Cranston, because he had so much riding on discovering the truth and surviving, and when he dies all bets are off for his son’s survival. Every time Ford, his wife, or his son were in danger I was breathless to see if they survived.
Also, radiation created/mutated none of these monsters. They were all ancient beasts that ate radiation.
Mario, I get where you’re coming from with this. I loved Godzilla as a kid, too, but I couldn’t for the life of me figure out why this movie was so HUGE when it came out. Sometimes I wish I could remove the adult part of my brain and just enjoy some of these old monsters as a kid again.
Oh, and I kind of liked the way the MUTOs looked.