I knew the human relationships were going to be Bob's complaint about 20 minutes in, and I couldn't agree more. Cranston's character and Serizawa and his assistant were the only characters I ever wanted to know more about. I wanted to know more about Cranston's background--how did he as an American come to be one of the lead scientists at a Japanese nuclear power plan, how does he feel about living in Japan, who were those other people he teamed up with when going to the quarantine zone, what are their motivations, is there some kind of huge underground network of people trying to expose the truth of what happened that day (who aren't associated with or aware of Serizawa's organization)? I'm aware he explained it was a fisherman who attached the things to the boyies which allowed him to hear the MUTO's call, but I sort of felt like he was also hinting that he was working with other scientists as well.
And Serizawa and his assistant seemed to have something going on--not romantically, but at one point she called him sensei, which suggests she looks to him as a teacher or mentor. What is their relationship, how long has she been studying with him, did she also lose somebody in the nuclear plant disaster? And about Serizawa, how did he get ahold of his father's pocket watch, did he have much to do with forming that organization that was watching the MUTO at the nuclear plant, does he have a family, does anyone else within his own organization feel the same about Godzilla's reason for existence?
Every other character who wasn't them was just absolutely grating. The main character "Ford Brody," which is a name so painfully American it makes me ashamed to be an American, is so bland and emotionless he makes Kristen Stewart look like Tim Curry. And I'm not even exaggerating--Kristen Stewart's facial contortions might be pathetic, but at least she TRIES to contort her face. This guy just straight up left all his facial muscles at home. The wife and kid are loaded down with so much cliched, foreshadowing dialog every scene they're in feels like a parody of disaster movie families. "You're going to be here in the morning, aren't you dad?" "We'll still be here, it's not like the world's going to end." Uuuuugh.
And speaking of the kids, none of the kids in the movie actually BEHAVED like kids. Every kid that has any screen time seems to be under heavy sedation, all they do is stare blankly at things. Brody's kid barely reacts to seeing him after coming back from spending 14 months overseas, barely reacts when he's separated from his mom, barely reacts when seeing the monster both on TV and in real-life, and barely reacts to being reunited with his dad. The girl in Hawaii who sees the tsunami coming does that "kid walks away from their parents because they see something none of the adults see" cliche and doesn't react any more than saying "Dad...?" in a cautious way, even as the water comes rushing in. The kid Brody saves on the monorail in Hawaii doesn't seem to be terribly bothered after being separated from his parents, nearly killed by falling out of a monorail car, and being accompanied by a stranger through an exploding and flooding city full of hurt, screaming people. The only time I can recall kids actually behaving like kids is when the bus driver on the Golden Gate bridge is having to tell the kids on the bus to quiet down so he can hear what the military officers are telling him, because at that point they aren't terrified yet, they're kind of excited and bouncing off the walls.
Then I couldn't help but go all CinemaSins on a few of the details in the story. Why were the battleships and aircraft carriers following Godzilla so CLOSELY? They could have easily been capsized if Godzilla decided to raise his head up while they were on the open sea, and then they actually WERE capsized when he rose up with them right on top of him in San Francisco Bay. What were they expecting, for Godzilla to feel a few toy-sized boats overhead and go "Oops, guess I'm stuck in the water here, these little floaty things are in my way." And how in the HELL were any of those nukes able to function after being broken-up and manhandled by the MUTOs? How the flying fuck did the dog that was tied by a leash to a palm tree in Hawaii able to break his leash and outrun the tsunami when it clearly shows on screen that the water made contact with him WHILE he was still tied to the tree? Even if the force of the water broke the leash without killing him, he would have been swept up in the water and wouldn't have been able to run ahead of the wave. And gee, it sure was smart of them to send Brody--the only guy left alive in the ENTIRE MILITARY who knows how to arm or disarm a nuke--with the nuke as it slowly trundled across the west on a freaking train car that they KNOW will be a huge target for the MUTOs. If they only needed him to arm or disarm it, then why didn't they safely fly him to the nuke's final destination and let the more expendable soldiers handle the escort?
Bob said he was left wanting to see a story that's more about Serizawa's disagreement with the military on how to handle Godzilla. Well, I was left wanting to see a story that was more about several different groups of people all working together to get their plan going. Instead of having one character that's involved with EVERY SINGLE task from start to finish, have several teams of different people doing different things which all come together to save the day. They never even have to meet or know each other on a personal level, at least not until the finale. But to me, seeing different people doing different things but all striving toward the same goal and having their efforts converge into something that's greater than any of them could have done alone is a LOT more satisfying than seeing ONE person get deus-ex-machina'd through a story which was carefully crafted to make sure they are the ONLY ONE that could EVER have done ANYTHING that needed to get done to make the mission a success.
