Well that was unexpected.
Wow...my first Godzilla movie ever seen in theaters. No joke, every time I have seen any Godzilla movie it has been on either satellite tv or home video. So how does this Godzilla movie hold up? It was great, albeit slightly odd at points. Allow me to elaborate. Okay Sherman set the way-back machine to when the first trailer hit. I liked the tone, the visuals, and the music...until Godzilla showed up. He looked cool, glowing red, slightly decaying look but the eyes looked like googly eyes, and his tail was too long, it was bigger than he was! And this particular Godzilla stunts the 2014 Godzilla, and that's a big dude. And later on down the road, I heard rumors about Godzilla well, not looking like Godzilla. That he actually evolves throughout the movie. This worried me a lot. And it's true. When you see him at first he looks like this friggin' tadpole...thing, he's got no arms and really looks like if you cut off a stegosauraus' front legs. It's so odd. But then he changes and looks a bit more like he usually does. He looks like he came from Hell, and that fits perfectly with the movie, Godzilla is supposed to look terrifying. Now we touch on the last aspect worthy of note, Godzilla's atomic breath is bizzare. It's purple but not, and I can roll with that, I got used to how he looked, and his atomic breath looks awesome in purple but it's not straight up like that. I'll try to explain, it starts off like just red fire but then transforms into atomic breath, but not only that it turns into a fracking lazer beam! It doesn't look like fire it looks like lazers! But wait, there's more! It comes out of his mouth, it comes out of his tail (I swear to God above.), it comes out of his fin's. Yeah. Now, Hideaki Anno created Neon Genesis Evangelion, a confusing show about giant robots fighting, kinda like with Gundam but with a paradoxical plot but I digress. He wrote and directed the movie, so you see the inspiration from that show bleed through into this movie, Godzilla shoots like a hundred lazer beams out of his fin's at enemy planes and missiles. It's very anime. Whoa, I've went on this long and I haven't touched base on the actual movie.......let's roll that review! The plot is basic like other Godzilla movies, Godzilla rises out of Tokyo Bay and the Japanese government must find a way to stop this fearsome beast. Now there are many excellent things about this film, first of all the editing. It is so slick, and so well done, they know exactly when to cut. It is fast paced, but knows when to linger on a moment, it really helps with the humor of which there is a bit, and drives the story at a satisfactory pace clocking in at roughly two hours. Next is the acting, the cast is great although the film is subtitled all the way through, there is no dub yet but there will be. So seeing the real Japanese actors working their craft was a real treat. Lastly is the mood, the tone of the story, and it is highly realistic. This feels real in every sense of the word. This is what would happen if such a creature appeared in Japan and the government had to deal with it. Bravo movie, bravo. Flying colors in this respect. Godzilla is in the movie a bit, but the focus is on the humans trying to cope with such a presence, in fact dare I say, it does it exponentially better than the original 1954 version. That is how good they nailed the realistic edge of this film. You know, for the first Godzilla movie I have ever seen in theaters, this did not disappoint. The film is in theaters nationwide until the end of this week, so if you're a big G fan go see this movie. Well worth your time and money.
You know, for this week I had several science fiction classics to review, but now I'm kind of tempted to do a handful of Godzilla reviews instead. I certainly have a few to review, and I'm happy I reviewed the original because this movie has a few nods to it. I might change it, I may hold off on it. Hell, maybe I'll even start November with a monster mash in Tokyo...