1) Bring Godzilla out earlier. I know people will disagree with this one for suspense issues, but they could have had Godzilla present in this movie 30 minutes earlier and achieved the same suspense they did. As viewers, when you are paying to see a weekend movie named Godzilla, you actually want to see Godzilla in the movie more than just 10 minutes of actual screen time. We should have seen more of him in the Hawaii scene, and there should have been at least one more 10 minute scene of him fighting things and destroying stuff.
2) If you are going to advertise everyone's newly beloved Bryan Cranston as the main character, he better be the main character. When he died, I think half the audience gasped in frustration. I almost would have preferred the actor that plays his son dying, and now, after having lost two loved ones in the movie, Bryan Cranston has to get busy avenging both of their deaths. His emotionless son didn't do it for me. Bottom line, more alive Bryan Cranston, less dead Bryan Cranston. (Do you think he will ever be in anything again where he doesn't wear a hazmat suit?)
3) Why in the world did they set that timed nuclear warhead for an hour and a half?? AN HOUR AND A HALF PEOPLE!!! That is barely enough time to run away from it, but just for fun, let's review what they did in that hour and a half. He set the timer, then they started a train journey with the warhead. Next thing we know it is night. They stop the train to inspect the bridge to see if it is intact. Then the big spider-bat monster attacks them and the bridge. He steals the warhead and leaves. The main character is then at a meeting where they are planning to parachute into the city to find the bomb. They then go up in the plane to over 30,000 feet! Then they parachute out. They land in the city and regroup, then hike around the city to find where the spider-bat monster has hid the bomb. They find it, and it is in like a 4 story deep pit. They climb down, and manage to free the bomb from the upside down monster cone it is lodged in. At this point, the bomb says it has something like 30 minutes left!!!!! What!? Then, because they can't disarm it, they somehow manage to get it out of the 4 story deep pit with a couple of guys, and drag it clear through the city to a docked boat all while Godzilla is fighting the spider-bats. They get it on the boat, and then they are attacked. The main guy is then somehow able to get the boat going later on, and it travels out into the ocean. A helicopter then comes and picks him up, and takes him to safety, and then the bomb explodes......Anyone have any explanations for this? Why didn't the screen writers solve this problem by just deciding to set it for 48 hours, or have a remote detonation? Just him putting on his parachute and being sure it is going to open would have probably taken him 45 minutes. Just them all trying to find each other in the city after parachuting in probably would have taken an hour and a half alone!
4) Why are they bombing radiation eating monsters with a nuclear bomb? We already established in the movie that both Godzilla, and the other aliens are powered up by nuclear radiation...and the scientists and government know this...and we decide that the best weapon to take them out is a nuclear bomb. I am confident the military is equipped with other weapons that are not nuclear that could probably bring those aliens down. I mean we literally saw one of the monsters eat a nuke like it was a burrito. Isn't bombing them with a nuke similar to giving your enemies a steak dinner and a nice bed to sleep in?
5) All the women in this movie are useless! This is a screenwriter problem. Bryan Cranston's wife dies immediately. His son's wife (the Olsen Twin's sister) is useless, and puts her child on a bus headed towards Godzilla. (Did every mom watching this movie not lean to their husbands and say "What is she doing! I would never do that?!") Ken Watanabe's right hand woman just looks frustrated and grunts the whole movie. They could have benefited from a strong woman who had her head on straight in this movie.
6) More Godzilla, less Mutos. The spider-bat monsters, aka, Mutos, were actually pretty cool. But, when they first came out, I was wondering what movie I was in. This is a classic example of the movie trailer doing such a good job of being secretive, that I had no idea those big monsters were even going to be in the movie. When the big monster first came out, I leaned over to my wife and said, "Godzilla looks weird in this movie." Didn't know there would be more than one prehistoric creature, but I ended up being glad there was. I just wish we could see a little less of them, and a little more of Godzilla in a Godzilla movie.
7) Have you ever noticed in movies and TV, people don't have peripheral vision? Remember that scene where they are in Las Vegas, and there are like two helicopters in the sky, and they are looking in those storage facilities for the Mutos? Then they open the door and the Mutos has busted out, and is now like 10 miles away? And it is a 10 story tall monster? And the helicopter guys didn't see it until the people on the ground did?
8) Godzilla killed the Mutos, but that doesn't mean he is a hero! After Godzilla kills the Mutos, and takes a nap in the city and then wakes up, everyone is like, "Yeah! Godzilla is our friend! Thanks for saving the city!" Then he knocks over a few more buildings and probably kills a few hundred people on his way back out to sea. It's like Superman. "Thanks for saving the city Superman, but over a million people died in the process." If that were real life, I don't know if I would ever be able to sleep again knowing that thing was in the ocean. I would never go near the coast, wouldn't go out on a boat, wouldn't want to live in a big city, etc. Would Discovery Channel's Shark Week even be scary anymore? In fact, the world would probably ban together to form some type of plan in case Godzilla ever decides to resurface. Maybe we could make big robots the size of Godzilla so we could punch him into submission when he comes back. (We are talking about you Pacific Rim...)
9) I felt kind of ripped off going to a disaster movie and not seeing the Statue of Liberty destroyed. Just saying.
Do you agree or disagree with me? What other things could have made Godzilla better? Let us know at https://www.facebook.com/Simplefilmcritics.