Review Detail

I'll start off by saying that much like the theatrical version, this edit has some good and some not so good. The audio and visual quality were top notch and there was just one instance where the visual editing felt abrupt but not enough to deduct any points (the scene where Serizawa is asked what other team members he needs). The opening credits were very cool and well executed.

The narrative is where I have the most issue with this edit. I understand why the scene at the nuclear plant was cut, but the acting by Juliette Binoche and Bryan Cranston in that scene is very good and it also is an important factor to Bryan Cranston's character development. Cranston doesn't get enough screen time as it is, along with the titular character Godzilla. By cutting out that scene it introduces Ford as the main antagonist but because his scenes in the theatrical cut are lackluster, most of them have been cut in this edit, which causes some structural issues.

Cutting Ford out of the monorail in Hawaii and cutting him from the train tracks in somewhere USA was a great decision but this causes some confusion about how the character is getting around and makes Ford even more generic and uninteresting when compared to the original version. His family suffers similarly. Cutting the scene where Ford's wife pawns off their son to a friend has wisely been removed as well as some other "character developing" scenes, this causes a disconnect between the audience and the character, which again exists in the original version but are exacerbated in this edit.

That being said, this is a short edit and once the action starts it doesn't really stop until the end and it does feel like a more Godzilla centric movie overall in this case. I would tell most people who haven't seen Godzilla to watch the theatrical cut, but the people who were disappointed in the original versions and just want to see Godzilla kick some ass, I would have them watch this edit.