Godzilla: Zilla

joelio feb 5 2010

This was a good edit. I never had any real problem with the original, theatrical version of the film; although that being said, I haven’t watched it for a while, and watching this version did make me remember things that irritated me about the original.

As far as the story goes, I thought it was brilliantly done. The film now has a different tone which I’m gonna compare to the likes of Cloverfield, even though in my opinion Cloverfield is a far, far finer example of a monster movie (Cloverfield is among my favourite films). The movie is much more action packed and exciting, as opposed to the original, where there was a whole bunch of scenes halfway through that just stopped the film dead in its tracks. This I think is one of the biggest flaws of the theatrical film; the human characters were much less interesting than Zilla himself, and even less so when we have to put up with them for twenty minutes at a time in between one of Zilla’s midcity romps.

The start was well paced, with Zilla making his intro just ten minutes in. Good choice here. The movie is quick and to the point. As we get further along, it almost felt like the whole “search for the eggs” subplot was the main story arc – which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, although I do prefer to see a giant monster smashing up a city to its hearts desire. But to me, Zilla in this version had more of a goal than he did in the original, which was simply ephasised by, again, the notable fewer scenes involving the human characters.

I liked how you reduced Audrey’s character, and I also liked how you introduced her as a minor character and then brought her forward to be a much more major character. That was nicely done. Oh, and good job of reducing the news reporter, the mayor and the mayor’s assistant – the smaller their roles were, the easier it was for the movie to flow.

The action scenes worked better for me in this more tightly knit version of the film, so bravo on the pacing and plot.

However, having given you this praise, I do feel a desire to point out a few things I had problems with… The audio frustrated me. There were many, many hard audio cuts that I noticed, where I felt a less subtle fade would have been more appropriate. Examples of this are after we have the shot of the bridge during the evacuation, we instantly cut to a shot of the mayor’s helicopter, and the audio is a slow “euphoric” (for want of a better word) melody in one shot and then in the next is more of a “military” trumpet tune. Sorry, I’m terrible at describing music cues, but my point is it just happened too suddenly for my liking – and I was disappointed to find that there were several more as the movie progressed. However, this may also be due to the fact that I’m actually a perfectionist, so don’t get too worked up about it :-D

Nevertheless, I praise you for making this somewhat dragging monster film into a real, high-paced action flick, that actually had a monster in it. As soon as I get unlimited broadband, I’ll download the DVD and add it to my shelf; I think this one is one that deserves to replace the original. For the brilliantly laid out storyline, albeit with a few technical issues I had problems with, I give this edit seven stars out of ten.

rmania may 23 2009

I enjoyed this edit. It knocked out all the crappy comedy and side stuff and keep the action going as much as possible.

tmbtm may 20 2009

This is a good edit! This movie is now quite pleasant to watch. BUT I think one big annoying thing (to me) still remains… the constant overt the top music. In many scenes that music kills the tension. I don’t know if it would have been doable from a technical point of view to completely remove the music during some scenes and/or replace it by something less shiny and heroic, but I think it could make this edit even better. Just my two cents. Other than that, great job! :)