The Big Guy: Godzilla Review!

        As David Ershon famously said in The Other Guys, "Americans live for excess.  American sports contracts, Wendy's Baconnator, with extra bacon."  When it comes to movies with BIG heroes or CGI battle sequences, most of the time, movie goers love watching things go BOOM.  On the eve of another Transformers movie, and just months after the nerd favorite Pacific Rim, here comes the grand-poba of them all:  Godzilla.
        Godzilla is set in our present day world, and involves Walter White, i mean, Bryan Cranston, who plays another scientist.  He works in Japan at a nuclear power plant when something goes terribly wrong and his wife is killed in a radiation leak.  This causes Mr. Cranston to plunge into a 15 year search for the truth about "that terrible day."  Obviously, you've seen the trailers and know that it is not an earthquake, but something much worst that caused a nuclear power plant to collapse and expose millions.  Anyway, this leads to other scientist, the navy and Mr. Cranston's son, Ford, to become involved in the plot.  But, let's get to the nitty-gritty:  Does the movie deliver the goods when it comes to the big fella?
       For what it's worth, i give the movie 3/5 stars.  It is an average popcorn, summer going, blockbuster.  Godzilla does look amazing, as do the bad monsters he's up against.  These monsters apparently need nuclear energy/radiation from our nukes to survive, and Godzilla is nature's way of restoring the balance for humanity's inability to stop destroying the earth or creating weird animals because of our nuclear tests back in the 40s.  Anyway, Godzilla looks great, as do the other monsters, which is to be expected with a budget of over $160 million and a great CGI team.  No, the problem is not Godzilla.  The problem comes with the "other details" of the film.
       The director, Gareth Edwards should be applauded for not jumping right into action and destruction scenes, Transformers style.  In fact, he does a good job building up to the BIG FELLA entering with his ferrous scream.  Mr. Edwards even tries to build some chemistry with the actors, trying to get some empathy for the characters involved and build a palpable sense of urgency for Godzilla's entrance.  No, where the film fails is "the other stuff."
       The movie, frankly, jumps around too much.  There are scenes that begin in 1999, then present day, then present day San Francisco, then Oakland, the Hawaii.  There seems to be so many small intercut scenes from one area to the next that the film quite literally doesn't gain too much traction.  Then, when it does get rolling, Mr. Edwards falls into the same trap that every big budget monster film seems to go for:  fighting monsters in the dark.  From King Kong by Peter Jackson, to the recent Pacific Rim, monsters seem to like fighting in the dark, rendering the CGI or "Bigness" of the film moot because we CAN'T see anything very well.  Yes, there are parts where we see Godzilla quite well, but for the most part, everything seems to happen at night, or we literally get small snap shots of the beasts (a TV monitor in a casino, hospital, or elevator doors closing as we see monsters engaged in battle, etc.).  It is truly a bit of a downer, because again, Mr. Edwards tried to at least get a story going, characters interacting and diagnosing what is truly at stake.  Too many times in monster movies, the directors don't even try to engage in character development (Here's to you Alien remakes, and the truly awful Transformer films), making the CGI the only "story," which ultimately, doesn't engage anyone or leave an impact because frankly, we've seen it all by now.
         Now, with all that said, Mr. Edwards does have some fun with his film.  He must give dozens of "props" to directors or films he loves, specifically Jurassic Park.  The big foot prints, the looking through a fogged car, the big monster scream at the lonely human, etc.  He clearly owes Spielberg a lot, which is great, but again, it takes a bit away from his vision of Godzilla.  It's hard to say if Pacific Rim impacted the direction of this film, but i can only wonder, as there seemed to be a bit of "kudos" to that film as well.  Whatever the case, the film had a huge opening weekend, does a decent job as a "summer action flick" and should not leave you bummed you went to see the big fella.  My only question, when it comes to these things (sense i am a nerd) is: Can Godzilla be killed?  Does he get a remake with Superman, and what happens if Marvel gets involved?  My head is spinning...