Godzilla vs. Kong (The Monsterverse)

[allegro]

Absolutely fantastic review! Love the last line.

I enjoyed that review, as well. Thanks, @Corvus T. Cosmonaut

[screwdriver]

I think it's nearest peers, off the top of my head, are probably Pacific Rim and Batman Begins, both of which are superior, in my opinion.

Near to Pacific Rim because of genre, obviously. Pacific Rim had a slightly different pacing issue, where it's predictability made its plot sequences a bit of a grind. But at least those characters were entertaining to watch. Both movies are trying to build some kind of mythology, but the direction, set design, and characters make it's mythology much more interesting. Godzilla shows little concern for this mythology... it's a bit of an after thought. In Pacific Rim it's a mystery! Pacific Rim also chooses a slow build approach to it's big action sequences, but where Godzilla turns away at the last minute, Pacific Rim never fails to execute. You come away from those scenes wanting more, but not unsatisfied. Godzilla is one case of blue balls after another.

Batman Begins is a peer as a reboot that tries to place an emphasis on characters and slow rolling. Even though it is some time before Bruce Wayne dawns a mask or encounters another costumed character, We are engaged by his intriguing personality and the way he interacts with the characters around him. He is relatable, describable and has some depth. Batman Begins is also light on the action, but at no point in Nolan's Batman does the movie cut away from him in the middle of a fight with Scarecrow or Joker or Bane, and then settle on Gordon for 20 minutes before coming back to Batman. Imagine that: Batman is showing down with Bane, and instead of Bane conclusively ending the fight, the movie cuts and we here over the radio that Bane broke Batman's back. That never happens in anything I've seen before. All of those sequences resolve before the audiences eyes. In Godzilla, the most interesting character is killed within the first hour, so unceremoniously that we might not even realize he's dead! Crazy! None of Batman's major exposition takes place in a news cast, either.

interesting, sounds like we just have different tastes

Pacific Rim was the biggest "eh" to me. Maybe if I had had zero expectations I would have found it enjoyably fluffy, but that just didn't happen. I found the characters just insultingly bad, generic, and cookie-cutter -- I assume by design which is fine but that's just not my cup of tea. Moreover, the movie WANTED me to care about them. Godzilla, the characters just felt like a means to anchor the story -- not the center of the story.

Batman Begins is interesting, because to be honest, I loved the shit out of that movie when it came out but ... now I find the third act so frustrating I can't stand it.

I guess... I wasn't watching Godzilla for the fights, I was watching for the overall spectacle and the sense of awe, and that requires some seduction and misdirection. The cut-aways -- for me -- generated suspense even though I knew what was ultimately going to happen.

Similarly, it's interesting to me that you reference Nolan not cutting away from the "fights," which is true, he doesn't (though frankly Nolan's action cinematography esp in Begins was dreadful dreadful dreadful). But Nolan DID cut back and forth from certain things in Begins -- it was a nonlinear timeline -- and that worked really well; that's why Begins 1-2 act are so great. Godzilla was narratively linear but as you note not perspectively linear. That was effective to me in similar ways.

[onthewall2983]

[kdrcraig]

Saw this last night and liked it but I agree with a lot of the complaints I've seen. The cut away to the news footage of the first fight I thought was pretty jarring. Got all pumped by seeing Godzilla standing there for the first time all pissed off and the cut away just killed it. The 'main' character was pretty bad, Cranston killed it and Spoiler: I didn't mind how he died off screen, I'll bet there's a deleted scene for that.

I dug all the backstory, if you can call it that, on the MUTOs as I wasn't expecting to really know much about them. But there are some things there that didn't really make sense. Spoiler: If they lay that many eggs then why were there only two of them? A lot of animals lay tons of eggs and only a few survive but these things are pretty much invincible. When we were trying to kill Godzilla in the 50's why was he even active? There weren't any MUTOs running around at that point.

Pretty minor gripes I think, I enjoyed it enough that I'll most likely end up buying in on blu-ray. The last 45 minutes or so were definitely kick ass.

[Mr. Blaileen]

I saw this last night. Maybe I would have been more upset about the lack of Godzilla in the first half of the movie if I hadn't read about that already..but it didn't bother me a whole lot. I liked the suspense-building, slow burn that the movie had going on. For me, it made it that much sweeter when Godzilla was finally shown and he let out that huge roar. And I agree with screwdriver, I wasn't really there for the monster fights. If the movie was packed with big baddies fighting it out, it might as well have been a Transformers/Pacific Rim movie.

The last third of the movie was, of course, awesome.

It didn't really bother me, but I'm not really sure why they casted Bryan Cranston for such a tiny role..I mean he did a good job, but it was such a small role that they could have put an unknown actor in there and achieved the same effect.

Lastly, I loved the color scheme they used for a lot of the movie. All those rich greens and smokey, dusty grays contrasted nicely with the frequent orange-y explosions throughout the film.

With the sequel already announced for this, I'm very curious as to where they'll go with it...they didn't really tease much or give any clues at the end about where they could be going next.

[Deadpool]

Finally saw this today in regular old 2D. I liked it. I specifically avoided reviews and this thread until today, too.

The human characters were pretty disposable (even though only 1 principal actually died), and I guess the story was maybe a little thin? The origin of the monsters was interesting though and the creature design/animation phenomenal.

As for a lot of the action playing out on TV screens in the background - I thought that was a beautiful and very brave choice. Upholding the human POV for the majority of the movie was really fascinating in that regard. When it finally switches to Godzilla's POV, it's meaningful. It makes me think of something David Fincher says on the Benjamin Button commentary: he was criticized for spending a lot of $$$ on shots in that movie where it's the back of old-looking Benjamin's head in the background for about 3 seconds. Why spend all that money on such a seemingly insignificant shot? In his opinion, and mine, it's the casual moments, "non-money shot" moments like that which ultimately sell the illusion. Similarly, seeing the military attack the MUTO in Vegas via a TV screen gave the situation more gravitas than if the attack was front and center.

I also loved the scene on the train tracks. Very tense and surprisingly scary - in fact, the few scares in this movie were all pleasant surprises. The sound design in that scene was amazing. The MUTOS made beautiful/terrifying noises.

This piece from The Dissolve argues that this Godzilla is a "post-human" blockbuster. Not sure if I agree with everything in it, but it's an interesting read, and definitely makes me want to see the movie again.

[orestes]

Cutie Godzilla with the booty.

[Findus]

Contains some Breaking Bad spoilers

[cashpiles (closed)]

The problem with this movie is that it sucks. Or rather, the first third is cool for build-up, and then when you see the muto emerge.... you just lose all hope because it looks so CG and shitty. You don't really care about the human characters at all... You just want them all to die... The only character you care about is Cranston.....

I think it has to do with a problem of focus. They could have kept it human scale and focused on a few key characters.... OR they could have told the story from Godzilla's perspective... The camera would be on Godzilla and the movie would unfold through Godzilla.

Instead, they mashed it all together... Never knowing what scale to work at... inconsistent focus...

This movie gets 3/10... 3 points given for the first third of movie.

[kdrcraig]

The first third of the movie was the worst part

[nvr_mind]

The problem with this movie is that it sucks. Or rather, the first third is cool for build-up, and then when you see the muto emerge.... you just lose all hope because it looks so CG and shitty. You don't really care about the human characters at all... You just want them all to die... The only character you care about is Cranston.....

I think it has to do with a problem of focus. They could have kept it human scale and focused on a few key characters.... OR they could have told the story from Godzilla's perspective... The camera would be on Godzilla and the movie would unfold through Godzilla.

Instead, they mashed it all together... Never knowing what scale to work at... inconsistent focus...

This movie gets 3/10... 3 points given for the first third of movie.

Speak for yourself, I enjoyed it greatly.

[Microwave Jellyfish]

Rodan.

Mothra.

King Ghidorah.

http://bloody-disgusting.com/news/33...ghidorah-sdcc/

Yep.

[neorev]

Rodan.

Mothra.

King Ghidorah.

http://bloody-disgusting.com/news/33...ghidorah-sdcc/

Yep.

Totally psyched at this news!
But just curious how he plans on squeezing all of these monsters in.

Also, Legendary Pictures is making a movie based on Skull Island a.k.a. King Kong's home turf...
first Godzilla... not King Kong from Legendary... think we'll be getting a Godzilla vs King Kong movie?

[Microwave Jellyfish]

Errr, actually, it is very possible that they won't squeeze all of them into the next movie.

UPDATE: We have now learned that Legendary was not specifically talking about the sequel itself, just that the three monsters will appear in upcoming "Godzilla" sequels, not all in Godzilla 2.

http://www.comingsoon.net/news/movienews.php?id=121103

Supposedly it's going to be a trilogy, so... three classic Toho monsters, two more movies. I'd like Mothra to be left to the third one, I think the MUTOs gave us the needed "flying insect" fix for a while.

[Self.Destructive.Pattern]

:SPOILERS:

What a HUGE disappointment this movie was. Cranston dying so abruptly just pissed me off... there was no reason for that to go down. I felt like I was watching a transformers movie with the human characters having a horrible plot and being completely disposable.. and getting small, short glimpses of what the monsters are doing and or fighting with each other or even destroying things. Get them off the freaking tv screen and show them to me! I thought it was cool seeing it go down on the tv's in the background maybe once or twice.. but teasing the audience time in and time out was very frustrating to watch. The effects were really great, and the monsters looked amazing. They really just need to work on the human plot and give us some more monsters in the face.

[Conan The Barbarian]

I'm sure the sequel will be filled with tons of monster action. I saw it again and stand by my love for it.

[Frozen Beach]

Godzilla Resurgence screenings in the US
http://astoundingbeyondbelief.tumblr...gojiscreenings

[Frozen Beach]

There are more showings than the ones mentioned on that tumblr page I posted
http://www.funimationfilms.com/movie/shingodzilla/

[RJK]

My wife is a huge Godzilla fan, so she's super excited that this is going to be in US theaters. We got our tickets earlier today.

[neorev]

I recently watched Edwards' Godzilla again after seeing Kong: Skull Island. Honestly, I find myself liking this movie much more than when it first came out. Perhaps I was in the right mood or forgot about my old expectations, but it helped let the good things about this movie come through and appreciating the decisions made to show certain things as the movie progressed. I dunno, I just found myself enjoying it more than before and picking up on moments that I hadn't noticed before.

[Haysey_Draws]

Calling it now, Godzilla vs Kong will focus on the 2 fighting before having to team up against a bigger threat...MECHA GODZILLA. Created by the silly humans at monarch (or another) to defeat them both but ends up going rouge.

[Microwave Jellyfish]

[ImTheWiseJanitor]

I either want better human drama (you know, that actually goes somewhere and does things) or absolute minimal focus on human drama in this new movie.

I enjoyed Godzilla, and moreso Kong as a whole, but the constant lack of focus on the MONSTERS THEMSELVES is kind of a letdown. Not that there has to be giant monster battles happening the entire time, but...like, what do they think people love giant monster movies for? :/ If you’re going to give us human interaction, make it worthwhile and memorable, not expendable like the entire family story from the first Godzilla (of the rebooted franchise).

That said, I’m still really stoked for the upcoming trailer, and I’ve gotta say, if we don’t get at least a tiiiny glimpse of our new monsters, I’ll probably feel as let down as I was with the first Venom trailer - with zero footage of Venom in it. Maybe that’s unfair, but that was one of the most disappointing teasers I’ve seen. Give us something to chew on!

[Haysey_Draws]

As much as i Enjoyed Godzilla (2014) and Kong, Shin Godzilla was by far the best version of the monster i've seen for some time. I'm still excited for 2, just please make the last 10mins of the 2014 the focus of the new one, that last battle was freaking amazing!

[neorev]

Definitely looks like they're going bigger with this one...

[marodi]

Give it to me right now!!!

Rodan, Mothra, King Ghidorah...GOJIRA!!!

I need a time machine, damn it.

[StockAvuryah]

My body is ready for another tail smash

[neorev]

@StockAvuryah
Aww man, that moment... I remember my theater erupting into applause when that happened.

[Microwave Jellyfish]

It'll take way more than a whip of his tail to bring these guys (and girl) down.

This trailer is pure magic - a total 180 on those creepy and foreboding G'14 ones, but it works just as well. I couldn't stop smiling by the end of it. This is what those Star Wars and Jurassic movies should make you feel. Hope the film lives up to it.

I wish Jon was still around.

[StockAvuryah]

It'll take way more than a whip of his tail to bring these guys (and girl) down.

This trailer is pure magic - a total 180 on those creepy and foreboding G'14 ones, but it works just as well. I couldn't stop smiling by the end of it. This is what those Star Wars and Jurassic movies should make you feel. Hope the film lives up to it.

I wish Jon was still around.

I prefer everyone being scared as fuck and the camera acting like the monster is stretching through the clouds because it's so big. Like damn, Gareth, I hope they do as well as you did.