Call it monster porn.
Like porn, there were plenty of slow, lingering scenes where you wonder where everything was headed. And several stacked prologues which slowly built the Godzilla universe, while wasting the screen time of Ken Watanabe.
The main fault of this Godzilla movie for me is how it’s filled with so many human characters which weren’t fully fleshed out, I couldn’t really sympathize with them.
Or maybe that was the movie’s statement. In the grand scheme of things, we are just annoying distractions in between giant fighting monsters.
But the movie was a visual treat: Tracking shots that emphasized how tiny we humans are. A motif of children’s faces seeing the impeding disaster. Wide angled shots of the path of destruction. Many of these scenes lacked sound, giving a detached and sometimes despairing air to what could be seen.
There was very little sexual fanservice. No shirtless men, despite the cute human protagonist who was not Ken Watanabe. Why did the movie allow Ken Watanabe to be a total wimp? That’s just wrong.
Then, there were the monsters. The antagonists were reminiscent of one of the Angels in Evangelion: angular with two many legs. Godzilla itself was less dinosaur and more like its classic Japanese design. Where the movie lacked in human fanservice, it made up for it with monster fanservice, including giant monsters making out.
Like I said, monster porn.
The monster fight took a long time to happen, but when it did, this fanboy was squeeing with delight in the theater. And there was a moment when I nearly clapped.
Some people might complain about the movie narrative trying to cram too many plots and simply abandoning them while not contributing to any kind of resolution. And I agree. But I watched “Godzilla” for Godzilla. I was not disappointed.
It’s kinda suffering from the same problems as the Bay Transformers films: where everyone else’s B-plots are overriding the true star of the show, here hopelessly reduced to a walking Deus Ex Machina. Just like how Optimus Prime was blinking in and out of the plot while the humans dawdled about, here Godzilla is reduced to not even being the main threat.
They should’ve called this film Not-Rodans vs Godzilla
Yes, definitely.
It was okay – but it could have used MORE Godzilla.