Godzilla Review

A theater nearby had a special showing of the new Godzilla movie at 7 this evening, so I went out and saw it.  This was a big deal for me, I've been watching Godzilla movies for a long time.  I saw the first American Godzilla movie back in 1998, and back when Blockbuster was still a thing, my family rented a bunch of the old Japanese movies.  They were cheesy, with bad acting, terrible plots, and at least until the 1980's reboot series, the monsters looked really dumb.  But that was part of their charm, and the fights were pretty good.  Of course, I've seen the original, which is actually a very good movie.  As for the 1998 Godzilla, well, let's just say the best thing that came out of that movie was the cartoon they followed it up with.  It was very Saturday morning, but the Godzilla in that actually did things, actually fought monsters, and didn't get killed by a couple of missiles after getting tangled in some cables.  Honestly, the bar for this Godzilla wasn't very high after our last attempt.  Even so, this was a big deal for me, I really, really wanted this movie to be good.

Fortunately, it was good.  The story wasn't the most compelling, but Godzilla movies have never been about that.  I don't go to a Godzilla movie to care about the human characters and whatever nonsense they get into.  Actually, I thought there was a little too much human action in the second half of the movie, and not enough monster action.  There was a thing with the nuclear bomb that needed deactivating, but it kind of detracted from the main attraction.  I suppose it was necessary for the main character to be there so that he could torch the eggs of the Massive Unknown Terrestrial Organism, or MUTO.  There won't be any more of those things running around.

Enough about the people though.  Some people might care about the actors and the acting, but I don't.  What I care about is the monsters.  We're introduced to the MUTO's first, and yes, there are two of them.  They're a male and female of the same species, the male flies from Japan to San Francisco by way of Hawaii, stopping there long enough to torch Honolulu, and the female, who was stored in Yucca Mountain with a bunch of nuclear waste, crosses the desert, runs right through Vegas, and to San Francisco.  When I heard there was a flying monster, I thought immediately that it was going to be Rodan, but I was wrong, and I'm glad I was.  If there are sequels, then maybe they can go to the old monsters, but I think it was good to bring in new ones for this movie.  I'm not sure I agree with the design, they were a bit weird, but they worked.

Godzilla is unamused by tiny monsters

And now to the main attraction.  It was almost exactly one hour into the movie when he first appears on screen, aside from a brief moment in the opening credits.  He looked good, very reminiscent of the Japanese Godzilla from the 80's and 90's.  For some reason, we seem to like giving our Godzillas a square head, but that was my only complaint.  He was big, and interestingly enough, not all that mean.  He wasn't really all that interested in humans, and he never actively destroyed anything.  I like that, I like that this Godzilla wasn't a bad guy, and I liked that the military didn't even try to fight him.  There was one scene where the Navy is following Godzilla to San Francisco, and they are right there next to him, not more than a couple hundred feet away.  They must be brave people, even if Godzilla wasn't trying to kill me, I would maintain a bit more distance than that.

With multiple monsters, a fight is inevitable.  Godzilla is presented as a balancing force, who is bent on destroying these new monsters, who are disrupting the order of the world.  So, he's the good guy.  The battle goes down in downtown San Francisco, and while I wish there was a bit more of it, the fight is very, very good.  This Godzilla fights like the Japanese version, which is to say, a bit dopey.  He forgets multiple times about the flying MUTO and is constantly being surprised by it.  He lets a building fall on him for no good reason.  I chuckled at that, because I don't know how many times I've seen that, and it's never worked once.  The entire fight is very well done, but there are several points of levity in there, especially if you know Godzilla.  Minor spoiler if you don't know how these movies work, but Godzilla finishes off the second monster with one of the greatest moves I've ever seen, in any movie, anywhere.  I won't tell you what it is, but it was amazing.

I guess I've come to the all important rating part of the review.  I'll give it an 8.5 out of 10.  When it was good, it was very good, but I got too much people stuff, and not enough monsters beating each other up.  That's a shame, because when we did get to that part, it was very impressive.  I would recommend watching it, and I'll probably go again.  And buy it on DVD when it comes out.  I do love me some Godzilla.

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