Let me preface this post by saying that I, like Bob, have always been a huge fan of the original Godzilla movies. Especially the first two black and white films and the Heisei series, which brought Godzilla back into the role of central antagonist and not the campy defender of the Earth. I appreciate that in this most recent adaptation, the big guy has at least been portrayed in a manner truer to the original form than the 1998 Roland Emmeric movie. That's one thing this most recent movie has going for it.
That being said, I agree that the TITLE CHARACTER of the movie had far less screen time than should be due to such a legend of cinema. Godzilla should be showing his face, alone, regularly during the film as he follows the MUTOs and leaves destruction in his path, perhaps recovering some of his expended energy by gobbling up radiation at a nuclear plant as he was wont to do in the Japanese films. I found the news clips and cut-aways from the Kaiju action nearly infuriating.
One thing Bob leaves out when he makes reference to Jaws, the practical reason the shark wasn't shown during the first half of the movie was NOT to build suspense, it was because the animatronic shark failed to operate. In the end these setbacks had the unintended affect of creating suspense in a movie where the central antagonist could not be relied on to function in their scenes. An entirely CG character should have no such limitations in ability to perform during the scripted scenes. And should conversely take ADVANTAGE of the enormous budget in order to put more on display. (Especially in a cinema landscape so recently treated to the visual spectacle of Pacific Rim, which pulled no punches on it's Kaiju action.)
As a better example I would recommend a comparison to ALIEN and ALIENS. The original Alien hid the creature from view and offered very brief glimpses over the course of the film in order to let the audience's imagination make the monster more frightening. ALIENS as a sequel, (And make no mistake this GODZILLA movie is one more sequel in a MASSIVE franchise) mounted the suspense in a gradually-building manner but offered a much larger pay-off in creature action than it's predecessor did. After re-watching many of the older Godzilla movies recently in preparation for the 2014 release, it's amazing how often the 5-minute-kaiju-smackdown-climax became the lone point of interest for an otherwise boring film.
I won't bother commenting on the script in general except to agree with Bob and most of the other film critics coming down on the bland acting and uninspiring central characters, which felt very lazy and cliche-ridden. And that focusing on the Dr. Serizowa character and his far more interesting back-story would have made for a much more focused and interesting movie.
My main concern especially as an artist was the incredibly underwhelming design of Godzilla himself. I may be in a minority here, but I was decidedly NOT impressed by Godzilla's overall appearance. I will say that I'm glad Godzilla's appearance was more reminiscent of the original design than Patrick Tatopolulos's design was in 1998. But what saddens me is that I have seen several more interesting amateur designs on Devianart than the design produced by heavy-wight Hollywood special effects gurus. For example: http://fc08.deviantart.net/fs70/f/2013/103/7/d/frank___did_you_call_it_thunderthighs_again__by_nebezial-d61m0bq.jpg
Ugh, he could have looked SO much cooler than he did.
That being said, I agree that the TITLE CHARACTER of the movie had far less screen time than should be due to such a legend of cinema. Godzilla should be showing his face, alone, regularly during the film as he follows the MUTOs and leaves destruction in his path, perhaps recovering some of his expended energy by gobbling up radiation at a nuclear plant as he was wont to do in the Japanese films. I found the news clips and cut-aways from the Kaiju action nearly infuriating.
One thing Bob leaves out when he makes reference to Jaws, the practical reason the shark wasn't shown during the first half of the movie was NOT to build suspense, it was because the animatronic shark failed to operate. In the end these setbacks had the unintended affect of creating suspense in a movie where the central antagonist could not be relied on to function in their scenes. An entirely CG character should have no such limitations in ability to perform during the scripted scenes. And should conversely take ADVANTAGE of the enormous budget in order to put more on display. (Especially in a cinema landscape so recently treated to the visual spectacle of Pacific Rim, which pulled no punches on it's Kaiju action.)
As a better example I would recommend a comparison to ALIEN and ALIENS. The original Alien hid the creature from view and offered very brief glimpses over the course of the film in order to let the audience's imagination make the monster more frightening. ALIENS as a sequel, (And make no mistake this GODZILLA movie is one more sequel in a MASSIVE franchise) mounted the suspense in a gradually-building manner but offered a much larger pay-off in creature action than it's predecessor did. After re-watching many of the older Godzilla movies recently in preparation for the 2014 release, it's amazing how often the 5-minute-kaiju-smackdown-climax became the lone point of interest for an otherwise boring film.
I won't bother commenting on the script in general except to agree with Bob and most of the other film critics coming down on the bland acting and uninspiring central characters, which felt very lazy and cliche-ridden. And that focusing on the Dr. Serizowa character and his far more interesting back-story would have made for a much more focused and interesting movie.
My main concern especially as an artist was the incredibly underwhelming design of Godzilla himself. I may be in a minority here, but I was decidedly NOT impressed by Godzilla's overall appearance. I will say that I'm glad Godzilla's appearance was more reminiscent of the original design than Patrick Tatopolulos's design was in 1998. But what saddens me is that I have seen several more interesting amateur designs on Devianart than the design produced by heavy-wight Hollywood special effects gurus. For example: http://fc08.deviantart.net/fs70/f/2013/103/7/d/frank___did_you_call_it_thunderthighs_again__by_nebezial-d61m0bq.jpg
Ugh, he could have looked SO much cooler than he did.