WHY GODZILLA NEEDS A LITTLE MORE R-E-S-P-E-C-T

I just saw Godzilla.  Maybe you are thinking about going to see it too?  Giant monster destroying cities, what is not to love, am I right???  Well, just in case it is on your bucket list, you can go ahead and stop reading this.  Stop reading now.  Unless you want a total blow-by-blow breakdown of why it TOTALLY SUCKED. Or blew, your choice.

Not the monster itself, of course.  The monster was great!!!  And in a neat twist on the old Godzilla premise, he is actually one of the good guys!  “WHAT?????” you say?  "Godzilla is a GOOD GUY????  Doesn’t that make him TOTALLY UNSCARY????"  In a word, YES.  Yes, it does.  But he was still great.  Lovely to look at, and all that.

Not so lovely to look at was Bryan Cranston’s wig.  Wtf was that?  They drop 100 million dollars and can’t manage to scrounge up a convincing hairpiece?  Seriously, it was a good thing he (spoiler alert) DIED so early in the film without resolving any of his open ended plot points because all I could think about when he was onscreen was the hedgehog on his head.  And let’s address the “15 years later” moment when we all breathed a sigh of relief, thinking this MUST be the explanation for the bad rug, because “15 years later” he will be losing his hair and look like a normal person again.  But wait a minute…wait a fucking minute here…”15 years later” after living through a nuclear incident, the devastating loss of his wife and the stress of trying to discover the truth behind what really happened, the man is still in full follicle.  That ridiculous thing is still in residence on his scalp.  Did I say wtf yet?

So the lead of the movie, after several red herrings with talented stars we recognize, was some kid I’ve never seen before.  Now, that does not mean he is not a star; he may very well be.  But I don’t have a clue in the universe who he is and after watching him for 2+ hours, I don’t care to know.  Were the charismatic leads all booked?  Or did they get a load of the FUCKING AWFUL script and allow the best boy’s nephew to take over the role?  I didn’t care if this kid lived or died, and that would have been fun if he had actually gotten eaten or something good like that.  But he managed to survive being 5 minutes away from a nuclear blast that would have made Hiroshima “look like a firecracker” completely unscathed.  Darn the luck!  And the writing.

He was also briefly teamed up with a nameless Asian child for no discernable reason.  No point to it, making it seem both vaguely racist and also from some previous version of the script.  Maybe this was a tip of the hat to “Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom”?  Maybe the name “Ford” was a tip of the hat to Harrison?  Maybe I don’t care in the least.  Actually, there was a LOT of hat tipping, from “Jaws” to “Jurassic Park” (hmmm, perhaps this was meant as homage to Spielberg?) but sadly all it did was remind me that this was not “Jaws” or “Jurassic Park” and it was a damn crying shame, too.  My kingdom for a “Smile, you son-of-a-bitch” moment!  This movie was more akin to “Airplane” than any of the classic creature features, mainly because I could not stop thinking to myself, “I guess I picked the wrong day to quit sniffing glue!”

And how about the other monsters?  I know, I know, GODZILLA is monster enough for ANYBODY…except these particular film makers, who thought they would throw in a little CGI lameness to spice up the proceedings and give Godzilla a formidable foe or two.  You know, I could watch Godzilla take down the Golden Gate Bridge all day long, folks!  Godzilla wreaking havoc with his giant Godzilla-ness would have been good enough for me, especially if there were a little heart and characters I felt for…but NOOOOOOOOOOO!!!  They had to throw in this interminable plot about the other (much faker, much less interesting) monsters.  I would like right now to offer some kudos to Ken Watanabe, who seemed as bored and frustrated as I was.  Thanks, Ken, I appreciate your empathy!!!  Next time don’t trick me into seeing a shitty movie with your respectable name!  Double that to YOU, Mr. David Straithairn!!!

I recently saw “Sharknado” and was amazed at how sharks flying out of the sky and swallowing people whole could seem dull.  But “Sharknado” was Mardi Gras compared to this thing.  Godzilla, Hollywood has DONE YOU WRONG.  You didn’t deserve it in the least, ESPECIALLY now that we know you are actually one of the GOOD GUYS.  Hey buddy, whadda you say you wreak a little havoc in tinsel town, see if you can’t scare up some decent scripts and actors with a little self-respect.  And charisma, while you are at it.  For all your good intentions, you are still a pretty intimidating character, after all.  Don’t be shy, go ahead and ask for what you want, which at the end of the day is just a little respect, am I right?  For your fans and moviegoers, too.