Best cinematic experience of my life in terms of EPICNESS.

Rating: 8/10 (25 May 2014)

I was very young when I watched Godzilla (1998) and love it back then. In fact, it was one of my favourite movie of that time. Sure, I watched it again recently and it was no where near as good as it was in my memory but that didn't change my love for Godzilla. 16 years later, they released this movie and I was unbelievably HYPED UP for it. I had to wait 8-9 days since it's release to watch and during that time, I saw a lot of hate towards it. Lots of negative reviews, with most of them focusing on about Godzilla's way too less screen time, movie being boring and not many fights. IT got me worried. And to top it off, I watched it after X-men Days of future past, which was an excellent movie. But thankfully, GODZILLA DELIVERED!!
The story wasn't anything outstanding, but it was good enough in my opinion and served well for the movie. It has some undertones like Nature restoring order, Man vs Nature etc which I liked.
The movie has a more serious tone overall, no lame ass humor thankfully. It is also a slow burner, not your typical big budget block buster movie. And if you go in hoping for a Godzilla vs Monster mash or lots of fighting, destruction in a fast paced way like Pacific Rim or Transformers type movies, you will surely be disappointed. It is more akin to old classic monster movies, with lots of teasing and build up. And Gareth Edwards (The Director) delivered on that front masterfully. Sure, the movie feels slow during the first 20-30 mins and you don't really see THE BIG G for about an hour into the movie but the slow build up was DEFINITELY WORTH IT. I can't really describe how awesome it felt when Godzilla finally surfaced and we slowly get to see him in all his GLORY. My heart rate was unbelievably high. SO MUCH EPICNESS.
This movie easily redefines the word EPIC. And that is thanks to the amazing camera work/cinematography and directing. Many of the shots are through POV and you get to really feel the huge scale. It was majestic. It was like the director just wanted you to soak in all the Epicness and scale of the moment. Soundtrack drops, eerie silence and all you can see is Godzilla or the other monsters and hear the rumbling of their presence. The amount of truly epic scenes in this movie is seriously too damn high. Sure, many of them don't involve Godzilla vs other monsters but I didn't care.
Monster vs Monster action really doesn't get going until the finale as they tease it throughout the movie, but BOY what an amazing finale it was. UFFFF it was OOOZING with EPICNESS. People actually clapped and cheered during some scenes, which I haven't witnessed in quite some time now. The other creatures, M.U.T.Os (Massive unidentified terrestrial organism), weren't pushovers. They gave Big G one hell of a tough time.
The CGI was amazing. The destruction, the MUTOs and Godzilla all looked great. Loved Godzilla's design. He is HUGE (not FAT) and mean looking. The MUTOs are creepy good. They gave them emotions too which was a great touch.
Soundtrack was surprisingly refreshing. It felt like those old monster movies soundtrack which I actually don't really like. But somehow it really worked with the scenes in this movie. Also, that creepy chant or whatever soundtrack from 2001: A space odyssey was also used in the movie during some truly epic scenes and it made them EVEN MORE EPIC.
This movie is not without flaws though. The human characters either weren't really interesting or the movie was so EPIC that it made them insignificant. :p Well aside from Bryan Cranston that is, who I thought was great. BUT he got very little screen time, which was a huge letdown. The scientist, military general, the family, all the clichéd characters that you see in such monster or destruction type movies were all present. There were some cheesy/cliché scenes too which you get with such movies.
Overall, I would say that it is without a doubt THE BEST CINEMATIC EXPERIENCE OF MY LIFE in terms of EPICNESS. I have never been so BLOW AWAY during some scenes like I was in this movie. I really don't get majority of the hate. Even with its flaws, the EPICNESS far far outweighs it. And if there ever was a movie that was meant to be seen in a cinema, this would be it.
8.8/10