It's a very good story and I love how respectful it was of the Godzilla cannon - not just him but also Mothra, Rodan, the three headed monster etc. The cast was very high quality and the effects were tremendous - there was some impressive destruction.
But it didn't work for me - at least as not as well as I would have liked. I've been trying to figure out why. I think it's mostly because it didn't work as drama. There's too many characters who are too much alike, which I know was symptomatic of many classical Godzilla films but surely was easily fixed.
Stuff like the kidnapping of Vera Farmiga felt functionary. Dramatic opportunities seemed thrown away - like Farmiga being someone who wants slabs of the world's population wiped out, or Charles Dance being this manic eco terrorist (never believed it) or Millie Bobby Brown being involved in stuff. Kyle Chandler hangs around and guesses accurately without doing that much heroic stuff. Thomas Middleditch says lines. It's like half the characters could have been merged or something.
Structure of dramatic scenes seems off - one minute there's one or two creatures, then there's seventeen. There's too many scenes of actors standing around in that plane looking at scenes- which again is admittedly close to the original, but why not try to improve that, get in some pace, and drama.
I think that's the main problem - the filmmakers don't miss the drama. They've got actors and effects and noise and spectacle but they can't create scenes or build narrative tension. Sometimes it works like Ken Watanabe's death or the final battle but too often things are thrown away. It means too little and as a result I didn't care.
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