Newest installment of monster film may be worst movie ever!

 

 

The release of Godzilla filled theaters in its first weekend of release, but the movie left a lot to be desired in this author’s opinion.  An unexpected storyline and poor acting left this viewer underwhelmed.  In fact, the only redeeming factor of this movie for me was that I saw it at matinee price.

 

The 1998 remake of Ishiro Honda’s 1954 film Godzilla was not particularly well received.  As someone who saw that version of Godzilla as well, I can say that that poor effort was miles better than this one.

 

Bryan Cranston of Breaking Bad fame is in this release of Godzilla, and he is one of the few who delivers a good performance.  Cranston is not in the movie for very long though, and after his appearance, the movie only goes downhill.

 

Without giving too much of the storyline away, Godzilla is a hero in this movie.  Yes, you heard that correctly, Godzilla is a hero (or anti-hero if you want to look at it that way).  How Godzilla and his nemeses came into being is complicated and doesn’t make much sense.  Conversely, the attempts to stop the destruction of San Francisco do make sense but only in the context of the weak plot line of this movie.

 

It’s difficult to describe just how bad this movie’s plot line was without giving away everything.  This strikes me as a situation where the director was attempting to be so creative and cutting edge that the plot line totally got away from him and became a jumbled mess.

 

The acting in this movie was abysmal.  Cranston was good in his limited role, however Ken Wanatabe, who in my opinion was very good in movies like Inception, The Last Samurai, and Batman Begins is very rigid and shallow in his role.  I would like to think this is the fault of the role in which he was cast.

 

David Straitharn, who was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actor in the 2005 film Good Night and Good Luck and was also a Screen Actors Guild Winner for Best Cast in Lincoln, was likewise nothing to write home about in his role.  In every role in this film, it appeared to me that the actors were never permitted to fully develop their characters.  This seemed the case with Straitharn as well as Wanatabe.  Again, this was, in my opinion, a fault of a plot line that created one-dimensional, cookie-cutter roles that didn’t allow their actors the opportunity to create truly memorable, multi-dimensional characters.

 

I would not recommend anyone see this movie.  I would give it a passing grad of a “D,” because it did have good special effects.  Yet, one would expect that of virtually any movie in 2014.  The best part of this movie was when it ended.  My advice is that, if you must go to the movies, see something else.