#all this for a movie thats just a schlocky b-movie at best

[trivorowo]

After binging the entirety of death note watched the netflix movie. It's an odd one for sure, with many, many *choices* What confuses me the most is the final song that leads into the credits. The power of Love by Air supply. For some reason, this is the thing which has stumped me. Not the terrible teen romance, not their interpretations of characters, not the slightly off kilter chase scene, but this dang ending song.

It just wraps this entire baffling movie in an odd bow, doubly so with the slightly open ending.

[hail2theprince]

(LONG OPINION POST)

Addressing critic's poor reception of Godzilla: KOTM

So, Godzilla: King of the Monsters is currently sitting at 45% on Rotten Tomatoes, and every rotten review I see is more ridiculous, asinine, and dismissive than the last.

And as much as I'd like to ignore the opinions of people who clearly don't give a rat's ass about Godzilla, its frustrating to see a film that was clearly made with so much love and reverence for this 65 year old franchise getting torn to shreds by people that don't care about it, dont appreciate it, and have no interest in trying to understand it.

I hate to be the person that says the critics slamming the film just don't "get it", but thats simply the case. With the exception of the original 1954 film, Godzilla as a whole has never been taken seriously by film critics. Understandable to a certain degree, given the infamously cheesy camp-fests the films became in the 60s and 70s. But despite decades worth of movies of high quality and serious tones and metaphors, for whatever reason the most widely held view of the Godzilla franchise by film critics is of schlocky, childish, B-movie nonsense, unworthy of genuine appreciation.

Most attempts at analysis and review by those with no love or appreciation for the franchise are, at best, generally colored with tones of arrogant dismissal or, at worst, aggressive deconstruction and nitpicking of every aspect of the films, citing aspects as negative that are, for most Godzilla fans, actually positives.

For example, the bizarre double standard of the difference between Godzilla (2014) and KOTM. The most common criticism of G'14 was the lack of screentime for the titular monster, a frustrating bait-and-switch lack of monster battles, and the bulk of the film following bland and uninteresting human characters and story.

Now in KOTM, all of the major gripes critics had with the previous film have been addressed and rectified. Godzilla and his epic battles with his fellow kaiju dominate the runtime, and the human side of the story has been dialed back in favor of balls-to-the-walls monster action. And yet somehow these things are now part of the "problem" with the movie, with the most common complaints being an excess of monster action, a flimsy, at times nonsensical plot, and a lack of screentime for interesting, fully fleshed out human characters and human drama.

I'm sorry, but interesting human characters and human drama are not what Godzilla is about. Yes, it can help, but I argue the lack of a compelling human narrative and even the lack of a rock solid plot doesnt detract from a Godzilla film because, let's be honest with ourselves, whatever other deeper meaning or metaphors or subtext a Godzilla movie may have, at the end of the day, the primary appeal is to watch giant monsters fight each other and destroy shit. It doesn't NEED to have a strong plot, it doesn't NEED to have fully realized human characters. That's not what its about. Its about the monsters. And if your expectations and opinion of the movie are hinged on anything else, you need to change your priorities for judging the merits of a GODZILLA MOVIE. Instead of shitting on something you already know you won't like, just leave it as what it is for the audience it was intended for: a love letter, made by Godzilla fans, FOR Godzilla fans that will appreciate it for what its really all about.