Broken and Bad

Rating: 4/10 (17 May 2014)

OK, firstly the disclaimer that I'm a reasonable chap that likes films of all genres and degrees of quality, I have no grudges against the genre, the director or anyone of a number of other spurious reasons that people could use against me.
So, that out of the way, on with my review which I'm guessing you'll have already realised is unlikely to be particularly positive.
There are two main reasons I went to see this film:
1 - The reviews. Literally every review I have read in the popular press and online media has been overwhelmingly positive.
2 - Bryan Cranston - Huge huge fan of Breaking Bad, love Bryan Cranston as an actor and feel he brings depth to any moment he spends on screen.
I'll address these two points separately and will do my utmost not to let point 2 bleed too much into point one although the absence of point 2 certainly contributes to my distrust of point 1.
Yes, I get the fact that it's far far better than the Roland Emmerich version. That was a piece of Hollywood dirge of the highest order, churned out around the same time period as Independence day and a whole load of other 90's/turn of the century disaster/monster/alien invasion/end of the world type of movies, most of which seemed to feature Jeff Goldblum playing exactly the same character in each one. But just because it's better doesn't mean it's a great film. Certainly not the 10/10 rating film that overwhelmingly seems to be cropping up in reviews.
If I was to do my best to boil it down to a few short points the problems are as follows: 1 - The dialogue 2 - The acting 3 - The pacing 4 - Minimal Godzilla 5 - Convincing but dull CGI 6 - The characters 7 - Too much military stuff 8 - Point 2 which I'll get onto in a minute
The dialogue is so lacking in soul and humour, every interaction between the characters is like pulling teeth. But less interesting The acting is so lacking in soul and humour, every interaction between the characters is like watching people acting badly The pacing is all over the place - just when it starts getting interesting they spend several minutes focusing on some pointless bit of dialogue between two badly acted characters Godzilla is in it for about 5 minutes. Slightly less than Bryan Cranston (yes, I'll be detailing that particular issue in a moment, wait for it) The characters are so ill developed it's as if they've been imagined by a 3 year old "the happy woman spoke to the sad man and the boy. The boy is sad as well but gets happy when he sees his daddy" There's so much macho patriotic American military nonsense in this film it almost made me long to watch Independence day again for a respite.
And, then onto point 2.
Bryan Cranston dies in the first half an hour of the film. This is not only terrible because he's billed as the main star, it's terrible because he is the best actor by a hundred million miles, terrible because as soon as he dies the film just does not recover. At all. And terrible because of the realisation that the promoters of this movie have so cynically utilised the obvious draw of having Bryan Cranston in the movie purely to pull in all the Breaking Bad fans.
I know I'm a victim and yes I do feel foolish but I would have probably accepted it if, say he'd been in it for the same amount of time but spread out over the course of the film. They could have quite easily kept his character in there, providing a bit of Jeff Goldblum style scientific opinion, but no, 30 mins or so into the film he is killed off in the most uninspiring manner possible and suddenly, you realise, no more Cranston. What momentum had been built up to that point was immediately shattered.
I honestly cannot fathom why there are so many great reviews of this film on here and indeed in the press. Do you people have eyes? Are those eyes having their visual signals interpreted by a rational and functional brain? Have Warner Brothers paid you all an enormous sum of money to write the equivalent of Linkedin recommendations for a film that you clearly realise is a steaming Godzilla sized turd?
I'm already having disagreements with friends of mine over this film and I'm sure many of you on here will disagree with me but, honestly, I cannot remember a film that has brought me so close to walking out before.
But the CGI wasn't bad.
So we'll end on a positive