Eighteen minutes. According to the encyclopedic Alex Withrow at And So it Begins... that's how long Michael Keaton appears onscreen as Beetlejuice in the Tim Burton classic. Eighteen glorious minutes. While sometimes, less is indeed more, that still seems like not enough time with the character, considering how iconic he is (not to mention the movie's named after him). How is it possible that the film manages to succeed despite such limited face time with the big guy? Oh, right. It's because the human characters were unique and interesting, and worth giving a shit about. That's how. It all seems so simple.
I don't know care how many times you say Godzilla in a row, he simply isn't going to appear. Well, not enough anyway. In the latest film featuring the legendary monster, I'd be shocked if he's onscreen for eight minutes, let alone eighteen. Sure, when he does flash that handsome, scaly mug, it's f--king incredible, but the rest of the time I found myself unable to care about the people. Capable actors undoubtedly, but Lydia and Otho they ain't.
I loved director Gareth Edwards' previous creature flick, Monsters [review]. Loved the minimalist approach, loved how we barely saw the monsters. But even more so, I loved the lead characters. They were great. But after leaving his first mega-budget flick Monday night, I felt cheated. Big time. I wanted to see Godzilla. And I wanted to see him a lot.
Instead, I found myself spending way too much time with some lame ass giant insect-things (MUTOs, apparently), and a cast of characters each more generic than the other. At least something like Pacific Rim [review], which also had a slew of boring human characters, got the action right. That shit was inspired lunacy, with the big budget routinely punching you right in the Kaiju. But this Godzilla? Shit. Sometimes it felt like a Michael Bay flick. But worse.
Now that may seem harsh, but hear me out.
In Bay films, when the world is doomed, we get these grand slow motion shots, sweeping across various locales, clearly portraying the distress (or unity) globally. They're f--king cheesy, no doubt, but at least it suggests that important things are happening on a large scale. Here, it seems like the MUTOs destruction and subsequent arrival of Godzilla would be featured after weather and traffic, unless you lived in Honolulu or the west coast. If George Bush hates black people, what would Kanye say about this movie's president? The commander-in-chief not only doesn't send every available resource to the west coast, he doesn't even show up at all!
Instead, we're left with David Strathairn as Admiral Stenz, and he's moderately concerned at best. If all I had to stop a giant laser-breathing dinosaur was a team of potentially retarded extras and a dressed down Kick-Ass, I might break a f--king sweat. But not this dude. Give him a nuclear bomb you'd find in a pawn shop plus a ragtag team of white guys and he's good. I mean, they can parachute from orbit and have access to Thomas the Tank Engine. What more do you need?
I might be taking it a bit hard (and lashing out like a confused middle-schooler), but clearly I was disappointed with this one. But what I will not be disappointed with, are the Yays and Boos. Only because I expect nothing from them in the first place.
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| That's me on the right. So desperate to see Godzilla up close, I'd jump out of a f--king plane. |
I loved director Gareth Edwards' previous creature flick, Monsters [review]. Loved the minimalist approach, loved how we barely saw the monsters. But even more so, I loved the lead characters. They were great. But after leaving his first mega-budget flick Monday night, I felt cheated. Big time. I wanted to see Godzilla. And I wanted to see him a lot.
Instead, I found myself spending way too much time with some lame ass giant insect-things (MUTOs, apparently), and a cast of characters each more generic than the other. At least something like Pacific Rim [review], which also had a slew of boring human characters, got the action right. That shit was inspired lunacy, with the big budget routinely punching you right in the Kaiju. But this Godzilla? Shit. Sometimes it felt like a Michael Bay flick. But worse.
Now that may seem harsh, but hear me out.
In Bay films, when the world is doomed, we get these grand slow motion shots, sweeping across various locales, clearly portraying the distress (or unity) globally. They're f--king cheesy, no doubt, but at least it suggests that important things are happening on a large scale. Here, it seems like the MUTOs destruction and subsequent arrival of Godzilla would be featured after weather and traffic, unless you lived in Honolulu or the west coast. If George Bush hates black people, what would Kanye say about this movie's president? The commander-in-chief not only doesn't send every available resource to the west coast, he doesn't even show up at all!
Instead, we're left with David Strathairn as Admiral Stenz, and he's moderately concerned at best. If all I had to stop a giant laser-breathing dinosaur was a team of potentially retarded extras and a dressed down Kick-Ass, I might break a f--king sweat. But not this dude. Give him a nuclear bomb you'd find in a pawn shop plus a ragtag team of white guys and he's good. I mean, they can parachute from orbit and have access to Thomas the Tank Engine. What more do you need?
I might be taking it a bit hard (and lashing out like a confused middle-schooler), but clearly I was disappointed with this one. But what I will not be disappointed with, are the Yays and Boos. Only because I expect nothing from them in the first place.
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| This is actually a still from the upcoming Malcolm in the Middle movie. |
Yaaaaaaaay!
- Even if they didn't really have anything to do, I liked the cast. Cranston may have turned the intensity up to 11, but he was pretty solid regardless.
- And Olsen? My God. Soooo hot.
- Those guys running on the bridge when the initial MUTO comes to life! Oooohhh....that's gotta to hurt.
- I don't really recall the science of the original films, but I liked what we had here. I liked how the monsters absorbed radiation, not to mention all the explanations for previous nuclear um, testing.
- That massive chain reaction at the Honolulu airport was incredible.
- Alright, fine. You got me. Once. But, yeah, I almost shit my pants on the lone jump scare. Damn birds.
- Even though it kind of reminded me of the shit-tastic The Happening, that was some eerily awesome shit when all those fighter jets start to fall from the sky. Well done!
- And finally, Godzilla. When he's there, it's great. His fight scene at the end was incredible. I thought the tail whip was the coolest thing ever...and then it happened. FINISH HIM!
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| This was my face when the credits rolled. |
BOOOOOOOOOOOoo!
- Cranston's hair. That was a wig, right? Or did living in Japan force him to get an old Japanese woman's haircut?
- So...Hawai'i is this flick. And like every film before it, Hawai'i has no Hawaiians. What the Hell is this?
- Olsen has a husband in the service and can't even add a photo of him on her iPhone? C'mon now.
- And speaking of, this lady isn't really rattled by anything. Her work day was only slightly busier because of attacking f--king space beasts.
- While we're talking about jobs, it seems Lt. Kick-Ass has some random bomb-related job, or something. Who cares, right? Well, turns out...that specialty is exactly what we need, You know, because the regular guy died. And stuff.
- Crazy Bus Drivers. Damn, bro. I haven't been angered this much by a bus full of kids on a bridge since The Dark Knight Rises [review].
- I never learned how to dive. Really, it's kind of sad. I hadn't even thought about this until I saw Godzilla dive into the water at the end of the film. Then, and only then, did I see myself in the great beast.
- Ken Watanabe! I love this guy. If only he got to do more than look bewildered, slowly bring his hand to his mouth and say, Godzilla? Could he at least have mentioned Godzilla-related turbulence?
- Sets. This movie looks as if it was entirely filmed on them.
- Speaking of cutting corners, why is all the Godzilla footage so hard to see and/or brief? I get three cameras showing me that damn cat body-checking a dog, but a MUTO attacks Vegas and its here's the UAV footage of the event, sir. Don't even get me started on 'news footage' or those damn shutting doors....It only upsets me.
- And finally, the extra ridiculous shit:
- One time, it's Get me a visual on that [giant f--king monster], soldier and he gets a flashlight out and shines it into the jungle.
- These things show up out of nowhere! How does something thousands of pounds and hundreds of feet tall surprise you? What the f--k, man? Hey, what's that directly above us? Oh shit! It's a 200 foot cockroach eating an actual submarine!
- This post. In it's entirety. It's like I expected a movie about Godzilla to be great.
Obviously, the more I think about it, the more irritated (and irritating, I suppose) I am. This was a wasted opportunity, hopefully to be rectified with the recently announced sequel. Or as I call it, the direct opposite of Beetlejuice 2.