Be Afraid-- Very Afraid

Rating: 3/10 (26 May 2014)

**Spoilers Ahead**
Being a monster movie newbie, I did fully know what to expect with the new adaptation of Godzilla. Judging by the previews, I predicted possibly an "end of the world" time film where the movie's hero would somehow find a way to defeat said monster villain before the world was destroyed. I was in for a shock. When the movie began I had high hopes; a very moving scene came within the first 15 minutes or so, and I was sure I was in for an enjoyable experience. Boy was I ever wrong! I don't fancy myself a cinematic genius, but I believe I have seen enough movies to tell when one is a complete flop. "Flop" is not accurate enough to describe the utter debacle that is "Godzilla." The only actor in the film that actually had any depth of character was killed off in the first hour of the movie and we were left with the character "Ford" to walk us through the rest of this over-wrought adventure. Side note-- it took me at least an hour to figure out Ford's name was in fact Ford. Could this be for the sheer ridiculousness of the name or the fact that I was fighting a nap in the movie... I cannot tell. In these types of movies, I believe the goal is for the audience to care about the characters we are watching; cheer for them-- want them to survive. I'm sad to say, but these characters inspired none of that. The acting and characters-- however bad they were-- was not the worst part of the film. My biggest gripe would have to be that the main character did almost nothing to advance the plot; and even worse -- the monster just sort of seemed to follow our "hero" around. Ford has a layover in Hawaii? Monster sighting! Ford is headed to Vegas? That's just where monster number 2 happens to be! Ford's family lives in San Francisco? One guess on where the big culminating battle will take place! I think if Ford would have decided to take a day trip to Disneyland, Godzilla & Co. would have been right there ready to destroy Space Mountain. In the movies (slight) defense, Godzilla looked pretty epic and .. yeah, that's all I have in the pro category.
I hate to be negative Nancy, but this movie was bad. Seriously awful. Not the worst I've ever seen, but the worst I've seen this year. The scariest part about this film is that Godzilla lived and the studio may try to make a sequel.
I give it a 3/10 only for the well done CGI and my own (admitted) ignorance of the monster movie genre.