Thursday, May 29, 2014

Jason watches GODZILLA (2014)

And it's...actually pretty good. I'm not much of a rabid Godzilla fan, I've seen a few of the Toho studios movies (including both versions of the original) and maybe a few more (including the unfortunate first attempt at an American remake.) And I vaguely remember the Saturday morning cartoon from my childhood where Godzilla and his kid Godzookie were the goody guys.

With that background, I thought Ken Watanabe did a fine job grounding the movie in its Japanese roots. His perspective that Godzilla was not a destruction-bent monster as much as a natural re-balancing force there to fight the other monsters was invaluable. Bryan Cranston was as brilliant as expected but sadly underused compared to his prominence in the trailers (I can't say more without a major spoiler.) The progression of the monsters from Japan to Hawaii to San Francisco actually made sense, and dammit but San Francisco is a fun city to destroy. And the military operations were realistic-ish, by Hollywood monster movie standards.

The did, however, tease Mothra way too much for him to not show up. But hopefully that's for the sequel.

Running Time: 123 minutes
My Total Minutes: 363,481

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