A Mixed Bag Of Awesome And Average

Rating: 7/10 (28 May 2014)

Let me start this off by saying, I'm a huge Sci-Fi guy, when I heard a few years ago that they were releasing a new Godzilla after the Ten Year gap in the series, I was overjoyed and had spasms of happiness uncontrollably. I have very fond memories of growing up watching the original Toho films, with Rubber Suit Godzilla, his shaking spikes, and his interesting grasp of martial arts, however as silly as those films were I loved them as a kid and would watch them on repeat. There was a sense of awe and greatness when the world(or at least Japan) seemed on the brink of destruction only to have the big G come kick all the assorted monsters asses.
So I had high expectations for this film, that being said those other movies, as noted previously were made with rubber suits and miniatures, certainly a well looked upon director with 160 Million bucks could make quite a Godzilla film right? Well the answer is interestingly in the middle. The movie most definitely has its share of awesome moments, notable Godzilla's first full appearance almost an hour in, and his fleeting few minutes of fighting towards the end these moments truly capture what makes Godzilla great, but you see that's the problem Godzilla is only in the movie for like 20 minutes, and only like 5-7 of those minutes is he actually doing things we want to see. Now I totally understand the idea of holding something of till close to the end, and then having it Burst out in sheer epic style, the Star Wars movies with there Light Saber fights handle this well, now imagine if there was a Star Wars light Saber fight, built up to the entire film, and when it finally happened the two fought for like 30 seconds and then one epically beheaded or chopped the other in half, sure it'd be cool, it'd be fun, but it wouldn't have the power of Luke's fight with Vader in return of the jedi, or Obi-Wan and Anakin on Mustafar in Revenge Of The Sith, your left with what is more or less a cool opening fight, great for the beginning but a bit disappointing if that were the end.That is essentially the Achilles heal of this Godzilla the film holds everything back until the last possible moment, and then when we get it, its not as good as we were hoping it'd be, its awesome sure, its pretty cool, I have to admit I even had a bit of a spasm when a certain BLUE something made an appearance. And the various finishing moves were badass and very big G, but that doesn't quite account for having to wait 2 hours to see them.
For the majority of this film we what is essentially your typical disaster film with folks running around trying not to get stepped on buildings being destroyed and all that, and the military trying to nuke the creatures just as you'd expect. I think my biggest complaint is the amount of shots of the other creatures who Godzilla fights, wondering through cities causing mass destruction, WHY ARE WE SEEING THESE? Couldn't this have been communicated via news report? Like they did with Godzilla's first actual fight turning it into a punchline? Couldn't we have saved the budget for more Monster fighting? If I had gotten a solid Ten Minutes of Godzilla punching these tag teaming monsters in the face and then finishing them off, I would've probably given this thing a 9 or 10. But the movie doesn't give us that, it wants to make us comfortable with just enough to get by, and that was something I never felt like was happening in the old films. I'm not saying every movie has to be "Man Of Steel" with 45 minutes of it devoted to things getting blown to shi* but it would be at least nice to feel like one got what they payed for in spades, instead of maybe the film just barely passing the "Alright" line.
In summary Godzilla is an enjoyable if flawed film, and if you like the old films you'll probably enjoy this just for the little greatness it does have, that being said, lets hope the announced Godzilla 2 and 3 have a lot more monster fighting. GODZILLA FOREVER!