Godzilla has Ken Watanabe and Bryan Cranson heading the bill, so you think it'll be awesome on that alone.
Bzzzz. Sorry, wrong answer. One is a minor character and the other dies in the first reel, leaving you with nobodies. [Ha! Not quite a spoiler!] That's ok, I understand why studios minimise screen time for expensive actors, but it's a bit of a let down.
The other let down (and I'm sure I've written this before, but don't remember where), is the plot. Let's break it down. See if you can spot the plot holes.
1. Ancient radiation-eating cockroach is awakened in Japan. It needs to find a mate so heads out across the Pacific to the US, where the only other known example of this genus is housed in Yucca Mountain, along with a load of spent fuel rods.
2. Lady-cockroach (I'm unclear on the sex, so go with me on this) also wakes up and busts out of her food-filled home and heads west to meet up with her cockroach love.
3. Meanwhile, the only thing above the roaches in the foodchain, Godzilla, wakes up and tries to eat the first critter. This results in some damage to Honolulu, matched by the damage down by lady-roach in Las Vegas. They all converge on the west coast of the US.
So far, so good.
4. But then the army decides to lure everyone out to sea out of harm's way. This involves dangling a single nuclear warhead in front of lady-roach and leading her to the sea, through downtown San Francisco. The same roach who just left Yucca Mountain, a nuclear waste smorgasbord of Dubai brunch proportions, is meant to follow a few crumbs out to sea. Why wouldn't the stupid thing just sit tight in her food palace and wait for her beau?
5. Because it's a mega insect, of course. Ok, fine.
6. But why would the army go through the centre of the city? That's a court martial right there.
7. But the really dumb thing is the ending. With about five minutes on the warhead clock until detonation, our hero, Ford Brody, sails it out to sea and far from land in a tugboat. (I'm not exaggerating about that time or the mode of transport, by the way.)
8. In the final scene, Ford manages to somehow avoid the explosion. The only way to make sense of this is that it's actually his last wishful thought as he and the city of San Francisco are vaporised.
It's a pretty dumb film. My friends left the theatre actually angry about how bad it was and how much Bryan Cranston's character was killed off early on [remember that half-spoiler, above?]. But I enjoyed it more, and had a sold laugh at many of the logical inconsistencies, only some of which are mentioned here. Watch it on late night TV in a hotel room on a business trip, but don't pay for it, and not if you have a good book you could read instead.
+1.0 Money Trains
Bzzzz. Sorry, wrong answer. One is a minor character and the other dies in the first reel, leaving you with nobodies. [Ha! Not quite a spoiler!] That's ok, I understand why studios minimise screen time for expensive actors, but it's a bit of a let down.
The other let down (and I'm sure I've written this before, but don't remember where), is the plot. Let's break it down. See if you can spot the plot holes.
1. Ancient radiation-eating cockroach is awakened in Japan. It needs to find a mate so heads out across the Pacific to the US, where the only other known example of this genus is housed in Yucca Mountain, along with a load of spent fuel rods.
2. Lady-cockroach (I'm unclear on the sex, so go with me on this) also wakes up and busts out of her food-filled home and heads west to meet up with her cockroach love.
3. Meanwhile, the only thing above the roaches in the foodchain, Godzilla, wakes up and tries to eat the first critter. This results in some damage to Honolulu, matched by the damage down by lady-roach in Las Vegas. They all converge on the west coast of the US.
So far, so good.
4. But then the army decides to lure everyone out to sea out of harm's way. This involves dangling a single nuclear warhead in front of lady-roach and leading her to the sea, through downtown San Francisco. The same roach who just left Yucca Mountain, a nuclear waste smorgasbord of Dubai brunch proportions, is meant to follow a few crumbs out to sea. Why wouldn't the stupid thing just sit tight in her food palace and wait for her beau?
5. Because it's a mega insect, of course. Ok, fine.
6. But why would the army go through the centre of the city? That's a court martial right there.
7. But the really dumb thing is the ending. With about five minutes on the warhead clock until detonation, our hero, Ford Brody, sails it out to sea and far from land in a tugboat. (I'm not exaggerating about that time or the mode of transport, by the way.)
8. In the final scene, Ford manages to somehow avoid the explosion. The only way to make sense of this is that it's actually his last wishful thought as he and the city of San Francisco are vaporised.
It's a pretty dumb film. My friends left the theatre actually angry about how bad it was and how much Bryan Cranston's character was killed off early on [remember that half-spoiler, above?]. But I enjoyed it more, and had a sold laugh at many of the logical inconsistencies, only some of which are mentioned here. Watch it on late night TV in a hotel room on a business trip, but don't pay for it, and not if you have a good book you could read instead.
+1.0 Money Trains
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