This was upsetting

Rating: 5/10 (19 May 2014)

I have been anticipating this movie for a long while and was stoked to see it upon release. But I didn't. I was nervous because of the impending redux of the icon, and waited for some reviews to pop up. Needless to say, they were high and very praiseworthy.
But when I watched this, I wanted to go in with an even playing field. I wanted to see this as a standalone movie, as well as a franchise funhouse. Sadly, I was checking my watch constantly. Bryan Cranston carried this movie as far as his character could, creating a very stable and honest personality with some backbone, albeit in an awkwardly- dialogued role. The rest of the cast, however, were thrown together in a way that bored me to tears, especially the main lead by Aaron Taylor-Johnson. Having been a fan of Aaron's past roles, this was one of his weakest. The attempt of emotion came off as over-dramatic at times where there wouldn't be as much emotion, while he brushed off the more somber and grounded moments. Could be a strong character, but he just came off as a wooden actor. His character's role is to keep the movie rolling, and I get that; but at least present him in a way that doesn't rely on simplistic stock writing. Ken Watanabe didn't really do anything in this movie except stare off into space and tell the military to let a bunch of giant monsters duke it out (and, at any point of this movie, I would've totally agreed) and playing the mother nature card. Elizabeth Olsen and Carson Bolde's characters were only there so we could "root" for our protagonist, but honestly, they could been taken out of the film and I wouldn't have even noticed.
The M.U.T.O.s (or what I thought would be Mothra), looked pretty decent, except they had a striking resemblance to the Cloverfield monster. There wasn't much originality to these creatures, more like staples of generic monsters to give Godzilla a motive to be in the movie (acceptable). Speaking of which, Godzilla's new model almost made me shed a tear. He looks beautiful and I was totally into him. In comparison to his older designs, this one gave me goosebumps... Too bad he doesn't show up until an hour and a half into the movie. The build up was almost worth it, until he was gone in about two minutes after that.
In fact, said monster that the movie is named after is only in the film for about 20 minutes. The M.U.T.O.s had more screen time than our hero, but man, each time you get to catch a glimpse of him, it's freaking magic... until they cut back to our generic cast of militia. I was very happy to see Godzilla's signature moves, though (Atomic breath and tail whip), and the battle scene was an adrenaline ride, for it's lengthy 5 minutes.
But on the topic of Godzilla's short appearance, I'd like to say there's a difference from building tension and prodding the viewer. The first few glimpses of Godzilla were great, and I was totally digging it. You see Godzilla a few times here and there, and it gets you ready to dig into the main course. Then, he finally appears, roaring in Honolulu (freaking badass and amazing) and then suddenly it cuts AGAIN (but that's okay, it's still just the beginning). After seeing him swimming through the water 5 times, there's only so much you can take of snapshots and reeling you in with the same scene. As a fan of monster movies, so I get the intention, but the execution was just lax and got real stale pretty quick.
This isn't the worse Godzilla movie, it's just a different time. It plays off of the original and the story is thrown together because, screw it, it's Godzilla. The idea of the hydrogen bomb being used to kill off the M.U.T.O.s was a great touch, and having other monsters in the movie besides Godzilla was a homage to the different monsters developed by Toho. The movie sets out to get feedback on how the monster is influencing the humans, but could the writers at least throw in something to look at? At least from a critical standpoint, the fans of the franchise can agree the characters aren't memorable because they are cardboard cutouts of every generic character ever made. How can the main lead just blow in the wind and expect to carry us through 2 hours of "building tension"? They used generic monsters doing Godzilla's job: destroying the city and scaring people.
I'm not too sure how I feel about Godzilla siding with the humans (protecting them, letting them follow him, etc.), and I want to dig into this deeper, but I'm just upset that my expectations weren't met. VFX can only carry a movie so far, and when the camera is pointed at living people and actors, it's hard not to get swept up in wanting more of a main course. I will say, that seeing a new "Godzilla movie" was a thrill, and although this was a little stale in my opinion, hopefully this will get the icon back into the mainstream.