If only it approached “half.” I went to an 11:00 AM showing today. After the trailers, the flick probably began at 11:15. I checked my watch when we finally got to actually see Godzilla fighting the MUTOs for longer than a second or two. It was freakin’ 12:56.
This was a Godzilla movie for people who don’t like Godzilla movies. Talented, respectable actors given nothing to do but chew scenery (Cranston), worry (Olsen), look shell-shocked (Watanabe), bloviate with military jargon (Strathairn, amusingly referred to as Admiral Exposition in some review I read today), die prettily (Binoche), and stand around in a bloodshot, hangdog, neck-too-big-for-your-bomb-nondefusing-head daze (that other guy).
I have seen Godzilla movies both excellent and execrable, but this was the first time I was bored outta my freaking skull by a Godzilla movie. The much-vaunted “slow burn” was way too slow, and the payoff was much too paltry.
At least it sets up a world that knows of Godzilla’s existence, so the sequel won’t have to spend all that goddamned time teasing around mysterious seismic events and inexplicable biomass formations that intermittently glow like fossilized Hedorah-turds. The world now knows Godzilla as “King of the Monsters” and, apparently, “Savior of our City.” So just let Gigan and King Ghidorah swoop on in from outer space, have a few more of our ancient kaiju friends awaken, let the planet crack under the terrible footfalls of the ensuing battles, destroy the capital cities of the world like they started to do in Final Wars ten years ago (omitting the Power Ranger karate fighting, please), and you’d have some top shelf reboot of Destroy All Monsters breaking every box office record in the world in 2016. Or at least you’d have a movie worth watching more than once.
My advice to director Edwards: save money on the A-list talent. Spend more on the creature FX next time. Leave the soldiers and survivors picking through the aftermath-rubble to the next Saving Private Ryan. We’re not here for the thespiating, particularly since the human angle of the story was so profoundly uninteresting. We’re here for the monsters.
So listen to Watanabe: “Let them fight.”
