the arrogance of men is thinking nature is in their control and not the other way around.
i watched godzilla this morning with sis #2 and y. it was on the condition that i could get to watch x-men: days of future past at a later date.
- i had reservations about this at first (because i'm not familiar with the mythology), and i went in with zero expectations. that works out well in most cases, right?
... wrong. about 10 minutes into the film, i became annoyed. that developed into anger when the hour mark rolled around, and then into relief when, for the love of all that is holy, it ended.
simply put, godzilla was an uneven mess. it failed in achieving a balance between the human drama and the monster aspect. there was barely any emotion in the script to manufacture the former; and there was too little focus on the titular character until the final twenty minutes or so, and by then, godzilla is pretty much playing second fiddle to aaron taylor-johnson's ford brody.
- it was so bloated with characters, and yet, none of them struck a chord with me because of their paper-thin characterisation. they had no motivation, no personalities, nothing. the one character that had any emotion and the slightest shot at character development -- joe brody -- was killed too soon (even if i hated where his motivation came from. really? his wife had to be stuffed into a fridge?), and who are we left with? aaron taylor-johnson, who has the charisma of a plank.
- in my ideal world, dr serizawa and dr graham would be the co-protagonists (alongside godzilla, of course).
- i hated that this took place in so many locations. we were going from one place to another in the span of less than five minutes -- it was ridiculous. the film is cluttered enough as it is; can't we keep it tied to a significant setting or two?
- this could have been salvaged if it didn't take itself as seriously as it did. i just realised that there were no light-hearted moments in this, and everything was bathed in grey, like that would help further the notion that this is supposed to be a dark, introspective look at ... fuck, what even is this film's end-game, theme-wise? it's not humans (or technology) vs. nature because the MUTOs were accidentally disrupted into surfacing, and godzilla was doing his thing because it's in his nature as an alpha predator, not because the humans asked him to help. likewise, it's not about human curiosity bringing about the destruction of mankind. the human characters never really had a hand in introducing the MUTOs and godzilla.
oh, maybe family, since the second brody generation could come out of this stronger than the first one did in such similar circumstances? then again, all the MUTOs were trying to do was to start a family, and they were hunted and killed for that, so ... probably not.
... i got nothing.
- so many deaths, so little fucks to give.
- godzilla has fire-breathing powers??? and he couldn't have used that from the very start, ending the battle earlier instead of making us sit through ash-tinged tedium for half an hour???
- the two MUTOs nuzzling each other was so sweet, aww. really, they just wanted to start a family!
- godzilla giving the female MUTO an alternative, fiery rendition of CPR and decapitating her was just about the only "holy shit!" moment for me throughout this film.
- i'm on the fence about the soundtrack. it's lovely in some parts, too loud and obnoxious in others.
- what i'm not on the fence about, however, are the opening credits and cinematography. it's a shame that it all went to pot from the first couple of minutes, and that such beautiful camerawork was wasted on this dreck. even though i hated that more than half the film's events happened at night, it was still well lit enough for the audience to see what's happening, for which the same can't be said for other films that choose to take place at night in a misguided attempt to show how "serious" they are. the shot that stuck with me was the red streaks, symbolising the soldiers falling from the sky, set against a fire-razed san francisco, all shown from a distance -- it was stunning.
- i'm tired of the military's heavy involvement in films of this nature. how about showing wide-scale disasters from the perspective of other groups? i'd have loved to see this from elle brody's point of view, which ... oh, was what could've been, apparently. gdi.
- the kid strays away from brody and manages to be reunited with his parents? wow. such coincidence. much bullshit. wow.
- i imagine the doggy paddle to be godzilla's preferred method of swimming.
- godzilla at the end is like, "peace out, fuckers. don't be bothering me anymore."
these are the first lines of the film:
boyd: dr serizawa? jerry boyd. just to warn you, it's a mess. it's a total mess.
how accurate.
rating: 1/5