Review Detail

First of the music alone makes even the disclaimer appear terrifying and the manner in which it carries on up until the start of the movie makes for a truly ominous and atmospheric experience especially the chanting and the way it rises in intensity and crescendo’s at the end but speaking of audio the majority of the 5.1 Surround Sound audio gives a great sense of immersion to the majority of the chaos and desolation as it truly felt I was among such destruction and carnage unable to escape in some instances well barely being able to escape in others.

I’ve never understood why this movie and similar movies to this often seem to be littered with jokes as there often intrusive and diminish the tension that many of these life threatening situations could have had, it almost feels as if the people behind the production of the theoretical cut were afraid to instil tension into both the product and their audience despite it being a kaiju movie. Thankfully with the vast majority of these tension killing jokes atomised into oblivion the kaiju’s feel much more threatening and dominating in comparison to the human meatsacks where it is made much more apparent that they are treating this globalised threat with more caution and gravitas thanks to the removal of most of the jokes.

The removal of the multiple exposition dumps also helps to make the film feel not only more intelligent but more trusting in it’s audiences ability to figure out and understand the overall plotline though I will say I do think more of the films dialogue should have been cut particularly the parts where certain characters state the obvious or utter things that break immersion such as ‘’Jesus it’s like the whole skies alive’’ ‘’That’s because it is’’ or where a scene telegraphs what’s happening and what someone is going to do or what there thinking based on there body language only for others to spell it out and diminish the subtlety with obvious statements and intrusive dialogue.

The deleted scenes relating to Andrew Russel’s birthday and Maddison’s use of the radio are a great addition to the edit as they successfully expand on the familial aspect of the film pertaining to both Mark & Maddison giving them more humanity and relatability and making them easier to root for especially Maddison who I consider to be the most sympathetic and routable character within the whole film minus the incident where she chooses to stay with her mother though she thankfully redeems herself of that mistake later, even in the theoretical edition I not only felt great pity for her but wanted her to survive the kaiju attack unlike most of but not necessary all the other human meatsacks in fact speaking of said meatsacks.

Your version of Emma Is much better handled due to the subtle audio implementation and the removal of some of her forced attempts at sympathy by the film makers as such she is much better established as a delusional Anti Villain driven insane by grief with a lot more emphasis on the villain part of the trope, though the bit about Maddison claiming that Emma was gonna restore balance does feel like it comes out of nowhere due to said balancing line from Emma in a much earlier scene being cut.

I love the use of the first song that plays during the ending credits as the tension and crescendo increases alongside the imagery that flashes by maintaining the tension and fear that is brilliantly instilled into this edit, the fact the ending credits listing implies that Godzilla along with the rest of the monsters are played by themselves and not human meat sacks (though I think that was part of the theoretical version) brings a smile to my face as does the use of Joker’s theme from the Dark Knight. I truly felt the escalating sense of tension and dread in that sequence.