GODZILLA!! (2014) - 3 1/2 stars

This is going to be a tough review. It is very similar to my Amazing Spiderman 2 and Man of Steel review. 

SPOILER ALERT!! THIS REVIEW WILL PROBABLY CONTAIN SPOILERS! DON'T READ IF YOU HAVEN'T SEEN THE MOVIE!

Overall, I thought the film was good. It is a great thrill ride and suspenseful drama!

For starters, I'm not the biggest Godzilla fan but I have seen my fair share. I was very excited to see this film since the first announcement. It has been so long since we last had a good Godzilla movie. The 1998 Godzilla that starred Matthew Broderick was a disaster! With this film starring Bryan Cranston and Ken Watanabe, I was very excited.

The movie starts out with the origins of the beast. At least we think. The opening credits with the archival footage and nuclear bombs was a nice touch and a great way to setup the film. Having recently re-watched the original 1954 film, it was very nostalgic for me. Bryan Cranston was great in his role. He really brought something to the character. The scene were he is frustrated and talking to them about what he knows was very emotional. Ken Watanabe was really good in his role as Dr. Ichiro Serizawa just like in the original film. What really drew me away from the characters was the fact that Bryan Cranston wasn't in it that much. From the trailers that I saw, I thought he would have been one of the main characters. Instead we get Aaron Taylor Johnson who you would know better from Kick-Ass. We follow him around trying to get back to his family back in the US. He was OK but I didn't feel like they promoted him correctly. Elizabeth Olsen who plays his wife was ok but nothing special.

The visuals and sound effects were great!! The size, scope and design of Godzilla and the other monsters are fantastic!! Once they reveal Godzilla, you are amazed! I know that at least 2 or 3 times, I verbally said out loud "OMG!" It was great! The disaster scenes were fantastic with the MUTO in Hawaii causing a tidal wave and Las Vegas breaking through the casinos. I also liked the scene with Aaron Taylor Johnson on the train tracks and the MUTO attacks it. Very intense! It was some of the best disaster porn I have seen since the movie 2012 or Olympus Has Fallen.

It was a great suspense build up to the reveal of the monsters. You get glimpses and you hear them a lot in the first part of the film but it takes a while to build. I liked that suspense. Now here is the problem with that though. I don't think most audiences will like it. They came to see a Godzilla movie and they want him from beginning to end. 

I liked it but I didn't like it. It takes too long! And when the great action fight scenes with Godzilla and the MUTOs happens the director or the editor, cuts away! The monsters see each other and then the director or editor says "Ok, let's go back to the humans!" WHAT?!? I wanna see them fight!! I get it. You are teasing the audience. Ken Watanabe's character at one point says "Let Them Fight!" I agree! Let them fight and let us see it! We do get a great battle between Godzilla and the other monsters but it is a little too late. I wanted to see more and earlier. But let me tell you, when they do fight, it is awesome! Very big and EPIC! Godzilla is fantastic! VERY BIG!!! I kept waiting to see if they were going to use the atomic breath and they did!! It was so cool!! Godzilla's back lights up and then BAM!!! He even opens up the last MUTO's mouth and breathes down his neck! WHAT?!? AMAZING! That is what I wanted to see more of. 

Overall, I would say it was good! The build to the reveal is good and the climax is great. But I just wish they had more. Like I said with Amazing Spiderman 2 and Man of Steel, it was good in parts but not amazing! I would have liked a little less human story. It kind of got into the way. I didn't care about them except Bryan Cranston but he wasn't in it enough. Also, there was a little too much convenience! Something bad was going to happen and then oh let's just let them get loose or find safety. Every-time! I understand it some of the time but all of the time?!? I didn't expect Elizabeth Olsen's character to live but she does. So convenient! Kill off some of the characters besides Bryan Cranston. I would say if you go see it, it should be in IMAX! I would recommend the film but lower your expectations some. I might actually bump up my review to 4 stars but I need to see it again.

3 1/2 stars out of 5.

The Amazing Spider-man 2 - 3 Stars

SPOILER ALERT!!! IN CASE YOU HAVEN’T SEEN THIS MOVIE, PLEASE DON’T READ THIS REVIEW! I WILL PROBABLY SPOIL VERY IMPORTANT PLOT POINTS! 

Now that is out of the way, WOW! What an interesting movie. Let me start by saying, it is a good movie but not Amazing! After seeing the first Amazing Spiderman movie and really enjoying it, I was very excited to see the second. The marketing on this movie has been great but a little saturated. I managed to not watch too much promotion for fear that I would have seen 80% of the action in the movie. Little did I know that the entire Rhino sequences would be placed right in the trailers. Ok, let’s start with the characters. Andrew Garfield and Emma Stone are great as Peter Parker/Spiderman and Gwen Stacy. The chemistry between the two comes off on screen in a fantastic way! It probably helps that they are in a relationship in real life. However it’s not a natural thing to do. I don’t think Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt’s relationship ever came across to the screen in that natural way. One thing I didn’t like about this Spiderman character was that he had this heavy New York accent that seemed to come out of nowhere. As Peter, I couldn’t even here it but all of a sudden as Spiderman he became a New Yorker. Very weird! A lot of people might not catch it but I did. Jamie Foxx is a great actor. However in this film, all I kept seeing was Jamie Foxx. As an actor that is playing a villain in a superhero movie, I should see you lose yourself to that character. Kind of how I feel Andrew Garfield does with Spiderman. Silly quips and cheesy one-liners for Jamie Foxx’s character as Electro were kind of stupid. Changing his voice with the electric synthesizer sound didn’t really help him lose himself as an actor. Don’t get me wrong, I loved the sound. It was pretty awesome. Dane Dehaan as Harry Osborn was really good. He was supposed to come off as this “I’m better than you” type of attitude and I think he pulled it off well. You could feel the evil inside of him. I also believe Dane Dehaan is going to be the next Leonardo Dicaprio.  I would love to see the two of them in a film. To wrap up this segment, I hated Paul Giamatti as Rhino! So stupid and unnecessary. I understand they are trying to set it up for the Sinister Six movie but he was awful!! Bad accent and horrible acting. Totally took me out of the mood I was in. Especially the end scene!! The same can be said for Chris Cooper as Norman Osborn.

As far as the visuals/action, the new changes that they made to the Spiderman suit were great improvements.  The white eyes instead of the black. The belt they added. The web shooters being more integrated and upgraded. Adding little things like fabric folds for when he is swinging so that it catches the wind, just gave it that more punch. The action scenes were awesome! I loved the two big action sequences with Electro. Great use of sound and visuals. The score was very nicely done as well. The mix done for Electro was a cool new trick. Hans Zimmer has always been one of my favorite composers. However there was one scene where Peter is trying to put together a graph of all the clues about his parents death in his bedroom and there is a montage with the song “Gone, Gone, Gone” by Philip Philips. That was totally out of place!! It was like what are we watching?? Am I in a romantic comedy now all of a sudden? It was totally out of left field and removed me again from the movie! So stupid!! The way they created Electro’s costume wasn’t very creative! Basically they stole the same design that was used for Dr. Manhattan from The Watchmen and combined it with Mr. Freeze from Batman and Robin. Very un-original!!! I understand you can’t do the comic thing with the giant yellow bolt on the head but change it up some how.  I felt like the visual effects of the electricity coming off his hands and body was pretty cool and I liked the effect of him transporting himself into the outlets but I still had issues with the costume and makeup.

As for the plot, I felt like it was all over the place. The most interesting aspects of the film were the chemistry between Peter and Gwen. I also liked the chemistry between Peter and Harry. However they really didn’t spend a lot time developing the relationship between the latter. Why was Electro so mad at Spiderman? Did he really have to get so obsessed with Spiderman after he only met him once? How come we didn’t spend more time with his character Max before he changed into Electro? Why did we have to repeat the same plot steps that were done with Jim Carrey’s The Riddler character in Batman Forever? Go back and re-watch it. It’s the same thing! Again WHY IS RHINO THERE?? Why did we only spend 5 mins with Chris Cooper in a bed? (Who is not really dead by the way.) How did Harry Osborn become the Green Goblin and be able to fly on the glider so easily? Oh and I hated that Gwen was able to help Peter figure out the magnetic web shooters so easily!! Why is she helping?? Why is Aunt May taking nursing classes? I think they had originally planned to use Aunt May as a nurse to help with the death scene of Gwen Stacy but it ended up on the cutting room floor. I thought the plot needed more adjustment. There were way too many villains and it seemed as though the director didn’t really learn much from Sam Raimi’s Spiderman 3.

The best part of this movie to me was the death of Gwen Stacy! Sort of! I loved how they basically took the comic book pages and put them on screen. Slight changes but still gave us the death scene us comic book fans wanted. Everything from the costume to the way she was killed. I knew it was coming but most of the audience that was with me didn’t and they just gasped!! I did too actually! It was very emotional and impactful! The pain on Spiderman/Peter’s face and actions are fantastic! Again I think this plays into the relationship that Andrew Garfield and Emma Stone have. The way the movie shows the passage of time after her death is really cool with Peter standing at the gravesite during the seasons. Now here is where the “Sort of” comment that I made earlier comes into play. I think they should have waited to kill off Gwen until the 3^rd movie. In the comics, Gwen Stacy and Mary Jane are friends. They should have built that friendship in this movie and then used the 3^rd movie to introduce the love building between Mary Jane and Peter Parker after her death. How do you introduce Mary Jane as her friend now? I also think the death scene is where they should have ended the movie. They could have shown Peter Parker trying to cope with the death of his girlfriend and trying to get back to reality but struggling. Movies don’t always have to have a happy ending. Leaving it on a sad note and have the audience wanting to come back for more would have been better. Instead we get a quick little speech from Aunt May and then another audio recording from Gwen’s graduation speech just like we did with Uncle Ben’s voice mail from the last movie. Go back and watch the end of Amazing Spiderman 1. IT’S THE EXACT SAME THING!!! And then we get the stupid Rhino scene! Sure let’s have Rhino shooting at police officers and a crowd just chanting instead of running for fear of their lives. Then let’s bring in a little kid to save the day and have him talk to Spiderman for 5 mins while the Rhino just stands there. It was so stupid and lazy!!

Despite what it might sound like in this review, it was a good movie. I had fun at times watching it and it is a visually stunning movie. I just wish they had more to offer after the first one was such a great re-boot for me. I’ll probably watch it again and buy it on Blu-Ray. I’ll give this movie a 3-star rating.