Godzilla: King of Monsters

Going in: I hope?. I expect it's going to be a hamfest. I really just want to see the monsters and the music. And honestly, the sound will be amazing on Dolby Cinema. I went on 5/31 with Guillermo.

Popcorn: 6.5/10. There's not a whole lot of "wrong" with this movie. I wanted to see monsters fight off each other and there was a lot of it, but the humans I struggled with. Guillermo told me that, as a Godzilla fan, it was much more satisfying because there were a lot of nods to the old movies. Also, much to my embarrassment, I told Guillermo the wrong theater and we missed the Dolby Cinema experience. We went with IMAX and it wasn't horrible, but I feel I missed an opportunity.

Art: 7/10. The best part was Ken Watanabe and Millie Bobby Brown and all the monsters. The sucky part was the story.

Acting: 6/6. Once again, the child actors save the day. Aside from Ken Watanabe (who is just awesome no matter what), Millie Bobby Brown is beyond solid. As these child actors grow, we're going to have amazing cinema. From an acting perspective, no one person took me out of the movie (unless it was Kyle Chandler brooding); it was more the characters. Oh, and the monsters were so cool!

Music: 3/4. The music was really, really good. It was able to key in on dramatic moments and move it. I left there thinking I wanted the soundtrack. It wasn't top tier, but it was just under.

Filming: 3/4. Pretty much any of the monster shots were cool. Lighting was well done and color was used well, even if it was a bit obvious.

Art Dept: 3/4. Nothing stellar in the art department. It wasn't bad, but nothing stuck out to say.

Editing: 3/4. Same with editing. I wasn't taken out of the story, but nothing popped.

Story: 4/8. Okay. Story. Some marks they hit. There was loss and an earned victory. There weren't any WTH moments and the plot was driven by the characters. But the main characters weren't believable. In terms of theme and dramatic argument, nothing was really put forth. One side was there, but there was no counter and the transition from one point of view to another was clunky. So, monsters fighting = good; humans fighting = bad.

Directing: 5/6. This was an okay movie. Had there been stronger character development, I would have liked it more. But it was consistent and you do have to see it on the big screen. This isn't something that plays as well on TV.

Production: 3/4. This was my first Godzilla movie and the premise was interesting. I don't think it quite delivered and the story fell apart a bit. But I will say that first trailer hooked me and that's what led me to seeing it. And I don't regret seeing it.

Thematic thoughts (major spoilers):
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Alright folks. Time to talk about story. This movie did not do well in that department. One of the main characters, Dr. Emma Russell, believes that she has to release the monsters in order to save humanity which is just insane. If they had some sort of coherent thought as to how she got to that point, it would have made more sense.

See, people don't just rise to the level of terrorist from the position she was in. To get to that level, you have to be a little more than extreme. And her daughter going along with was just weird. At the end of the movie, I couldn't reconcile it. I didn't see her reversal as redemption but more of a return to sanity. It felt not necessarily forced, but artificial.

The film's argument was to deal with overpopulation and resource consumption. If you have a way of restoring earth's resources but have to sacrifice human lives, do you do that? With a tour-de-force such as Godzilla, you have an extreme version of that. That's a great start, but getting to that level should be a little bit insane - like the grief of her son tied to that philosophy made no sense.

Anyway, just some thoughts. It might have also been a better movie if the dramatic argument was between the monsters. That would have been cool.