Godzilla Vs Kong (March 31, 2021) Movie • Page 43

Yeah, I mean you don't get a close-up of Godzilla until an hour in which is kind of a bold choice.

 

Watched this last night while my whole family was asleep. My hearing sucks and I had it on quiet so I missed about 80% of the dialogue, but it didn't matter at all. This movie was pretty great. Pace was absolutely perfect. No filmmaker is probably going to be allowed to make one of these by a major studio with no human characters / name actors whatsoever, but I feel like this got as close as you realistically could to that idea. This didn't waste any time on the humans or bullshit, overly complicated explanations.

A giant gorilla fighting a giant lizard monster is inherently silly and unrealistic and the more exposition you waste on trying to ground it and make it sound realistic the dumber it sounds.

My biggest critique is probably that the scale of these monsters and the devastation they were leaving in their wake didn't really register and would oftentimes get lost in the shuffle, even as you could clearly see that they were actively throwing stuff in to try to combat that, like a helicopter flying by that seems the size of an insect, etc. For everything he did well, I just don't think Adam Wingard had the same eye for framing things in the way Gareth Edwards did where these monsters felt like truly gargantuan forces of nature.

For me this was a perfectly executed B-movie, where Godzilla '14 had much loftier ambitions but doesn't stick the landing. A few creative decisions / choices completely hamstring that one and hold it back from being a masterpiece.

Godzilla '14 > GvK = K:SI >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> G:KOTM

 

yeah fair enough. for some reason what I remember of when it came out was just a whole lot of negativity, but that could just be my memory exaggerating that or I just kept running into a vocal minority. def a strong choice to have no Godzilla action for a full hour, but I think the slow build with a lot of terrific actors doing the lifting works and it is fully worth the wait when he does show up (Jesus the cinematography in that film was superb)

 

What’s funny is I see a lot of complaints that KOTM doesn’t have enough monsters fighting lol.

 

I remember enjoying, but being disappointed by 2014 when it came out. I loved all the fight scenes, but was bored by the human stuff post Cranston death. On rewatch, it has without a doubt the best human story of all of these because it is the simplest. Just a guy trying to get home to his family.

 

It seems like I am a bigger fan of Aaron Taylor-Johnson than most people, and even I feel like the film was asking too much of the audience to accept that shift from Bryan fucking Cranston.

 

How to Fix the Human Problem in Blockbuster Monster Movies - Nerdist

 

How To Fix The Human Problem: Watch "The Host" and "Shin Godzilla" and see how they do it.

 

I try not to hold a movie accountable for its marketing, but the trailers for this basically billed it as Heisenberg v Godzilla so it was a letdown when he died for a lot of people. On rewatch, I don't really mind his absence in the rest of the movie. As I said, I found myself enjoying the simplicity of ATJ's story. You could definitely tweak some things to keep Cranston around, maybe have him sacrifice himself at the end with the bomb, but it's hard for his character to have much more to do after the MUTO's awaken.

 

Yeah on first watch in theaters it was disappointing to see BC die so early in the movie after the Cranston-heavy marketing lol but watching later/now it is still very enjoyable.

 

I think "Godzilla (2014)" was also helped a lot by the theatrical experience. Seeing that in IMAX was amazing. My old, cheap roommate watched it on TV and complained that he couldn't see anything because it was so dark.

 

This is a little nitpicky, but I do wish the monsters in this world emerging had an explanation rooted more in climate change. Godzilla emerging to as the balance is a good metaphor for the destructive force of nature that has come from climate change, but I wish the MUTO's were awakened by something more closely tied to fossil fuel emissions. Like maybe it was a coal mine or an oil field that the first one emerged from. Or they were just woken up by rising temperatures.

 

I laughed out loud at the CNN chyron that flashes on screen after Godzilla's first scene in Pensacola - it says "8 DEAD; DOZENS INJURED". It reminded me of the old GI Joe cartoon where the normal people would always bail out and say something like "Wow, I'm glad I ejected in time!" to avoid having too much carnage and too many casualties in a kids' cartoon. Big G had just knocked a flaming helicopter out of the sky onto a crowd of people rushing to escape death where it promptly exploded, reigning fire, jet fuel and hot shrapnel all over them. And literally seconds before the chyron, we see him atomic breath at a building where you can still clearly see little people inside through the windows trying desperately to escape, and then he blasts through a parking lot filled with people running and vehicles. Godzilla just standing there and farting would kill 8 people, nevermind stomping all over the Pensacola coast blasting everything with atomic breath.

It is a silly complaint, and it didn't really bother me, but I did chuckle at it.

 

My friends and I laughed at that too

 

Gotta appreciate any Shin Godzilla love that I see.

 

I still find the massive sub-basement *in Pensacola, Florida* much funnier than the "a few dead, a few more injured" banner lol

 

The absolute lack of security or locks on anything at a super secret facility is also quite amazing.

 

Yeah, there was like zero security lol

 

The complete lack of emotional weight about the mass death and destruction is definitely a big flaw here. There are a handful of second-long shots of civilians watching the Hong Kong fight or about to be crushed, but we don’t really see it and the perspective(?) of most of the fight is so broad that it would be impossible to see any humans on the ground even if they were there. Could have used something like an extended ground-level scene of a random civilian running for cover while all we see of the fight is K and G’s massive feet or collapsing buildings barely miss them. Just to convey like “oh right there were probably millions of people who just died in about a 30min span” lol

Even having the scientist guy die from the HEAV explosion would have been *something* but nope all that melodrama and he walks away unscathed

 

My absolute favorite part of 2014 Godzilla was the Monorail lights coming back on to reveal the Muto stomping around the airport. They also should have put in the shot of Godzilla roaring as the doors closed that was in the trailer that didn’t make it into the movie.

 

They changed the doors closing shot to one with him kinda wrestling a muto above his head and it's from the side, if I remember correctly - it's a little change but I absolutely fucking HATE it haha. They ruined such an iconic, great looking shot.

 

Yup! That shot from the trailer is pure terror. Also, the trailer for KOTM is one of the best trailers ever. Whoops!

 

I do think Godzilla '14 is the strongest out of all the Monsterverse movies, but with a few slight changes I think it could've been something more along the lines of Jaws only with giant monsters, as opposed to just a really solid Godzilla movie.

 

I don’t care about the civilians perspectives in Hong Kong during the fight. Show people running for a few seconds and that’s all I need to see

 

I want to see what Edwards can do with a really good script. I really like both Godzilla '14 and Rogue One, but they feel like they could have been all-timers with better-written characters.