Official Home for Universal Critic's Reviews Thread

Damn, I just barely saw this! I hope they add a feature in which I could delete my own discussions. 

Eh don't feel bad. I JUST NOW got it up. And besides, the mods might choose to do something else entirely or nothing at all.

There really isn't much review clutter right now to speak of. You're existing thread is just fine. That and since I'm not a mod, even if your thread wasn't fine, there isn't jack I could do about it lol. 

I posted this not because there presently is a problem.....but rather just to perhaps head off a problem before it begins. We'll see. 

In the meantime......I so cannot wait for this movie :-)

86 at rotten tomato 

Keep in mind with aggregrate websites, their methodology definitely affects the score. 

IMDB for example, has a terrible/nonexistent verification system, allowing movies to become bloated up or weighted down by false reviews. 

Rotten Tomatoes too has a problem with its methodology in that it only gives it a 'Fresh' or 'Rotten' rating in a pass/fail sort of way. 

This means that a review which gives a movie of 6/10 can be still counted as a 'Fresh' rating. The total percentage Rotten Tomatoes shows is the number of total 'Fresh' ratings, rather than the added up scores of each of the reviews.

So let's say you hypothetically had a film, which had 100 reviews, and and they were all 60%....Rotten Tomatoes would report that movie 'Fresh' with a 100% rating, making it look awesome, while it was actually just slightly above average. 

Basically Rotten Tomatoes is better at reporting the CONSISTENCY with which a movie receives good or bad scores, rather than actually determining whether or not the movie deserves a High/Low score. 

This methodology is working toward's Godzilla's advantage right now, as there are VERY few reviews actually giving Godzilla a 90% score. Most are giving it a 60-80% score. But Rotten Tomatoes has it at 90%, a much higher score than most of its reviews, because those are all still technically 'Fresh' scores. 

Not criticizing, or anything. It's awesome Rotten Tomatoes has it ranked that high, as a lot of people rely on that site to determine if they want to go see a movie, so it's doing Godzilla a tremendous favor. Just make sure you take Rotten Tomatoes total scores with a grain of salt if you yourself are using it to make a cinematic watching decision. 

In this way, I think Metacritic is superior to Rotten Tomatoes in terms of its methodology. Although looking at Rotten Tomatoes "average score" usually works just fine. In that category, Godzilla has a 7.9 right now.

checked the Tomatoreader before going to work, based on 11 critics 91%. Was not expecting that

Yeah I know, pretty awesome right? :-)

 TAKE THAT PACIFIC RIM!!! (Pacific Rim only averaged 71% in its pre-release reviews)

Nice work, Madison. Featured and stickied for the effort you're putting forth.

@MADISON:

Great explanation.

Folks can also go to MRQE.com to read reviews from hundreds of critics (once submitted).

Damn, the 90%ish ratings didn't hold for as long as I would have liked :-( Down to 77% now on Rotten Tomatoes.

Damn that's a shame. Hopefully it rises back up to the 90s.

The film has only been reviewed by 14 people, so a single positive/negative review will cause a noticeable change. Hopefully it evens out in a few weeks in the late 70's - 80's range. The Metacritic score doesn't really match up for me with the review scores.

Yeah you're right Tarrellzilla. Hopefully when more people rate it, it will get higher than what it's at now.

Ratings go up and down for Rottentomatoes and Metacritic as the reviews are submitted.  For Rottentomatoes the reviewers who like the movie always seem to be counted early on.  Maybe this is purposeful.  For example, the movie "Neighbors" had a rottentomatoes score of 100% for two weeks.  Now it is down to 74%.

Though luckily there are few but most of the negetive reviews concerning mainly 2 aspects:

1) Lack of Godzilla's screen time...which I'm not buying now till I watch it on the theater and more importantly that's not a factor as long as the story plotted & filmed nicely like many other awesome creature features out there (including JAWS) where it pays off at the end with great build up & character development, like Mr. GE also said on his numerous interviews. 

2) Lack of proper character deveopment: if this is really true than it can turn out more or less disappointment for some of the viewers. Cause I can wait for the king as long as they build up the premise for his cracking showdown with a good story & characters. Some of the reviewers particularly pointed out Aaron Taylor's lead as Lieutenant Ford for somewhat weak characterization. Hope this is half-true, cause as far some of crappy reviews posted with more than needed plot summary that he's the one with whom we will go through the journey to meet & see our favorire monster after all this long years. 

Toho Kingdom's review:

http://www.tohokingdom.com/reviews/mirjahangir/godzilla_2014.htm

5 STARS, BABY!!!! :D Toho Kingdom is a hard gader... they gave Destroy All Monsters two and a half stars, for crying out loud!

And here's Sci Fi Japan's similarly strong review:

http://www.scifijapan.com/articles/2014/05/10/godzilla-2014-review/

To be honest, whenever I saw Gareth Edwards talk about Godzilla, he was almost always making excuses for making the creature. It was like he was kinda of embarrased, and "meaning" or "story" had to be firmly estabilshed alongside foreplay, we were often reminded about that, and that caused me to think he might not show Godzilla that much.

Given this is during "blockbusters" (other movies), you have to show more Godzilla. That is a no brainer.

The immediate jumpt to "Action Porn" etc like the Transformers is not what most people are talking about.

They just mean there should have been more from the Star Creature. This isn't 1954, this is a different era, and your trying to capture young people as well as old.

If this holds out, what on earth was Gareth & co thinking?

Why be embarrased to show Godzilla?

What was wrong with Cranston as the lead?

I know most of us haven't seen the movie, but you gotta wonder how they screwed those things up so badly (IF TRUE)

@Talisman There are 17 solid minutes of Godzilla time, which is around the usual time for most SERIOUS Toho Godzilla movies. In fact all reviews, except for just a few who seem to just hate the whole monster aspect of the movie (hey, they knew what they were going to see, if they don't like it they shouldn't get to review it without a legitimate reason that isn't picking on something you dislike for the sake of it), say the moments with Godzilla are just spectacular. Here's a problem I also want to address: Critics spend their time analyzing a movie instead of enjoying it, thus their perceptions are different than those of us who do it for entertainment. We can't take their word for anything until we see it for ourselves. Shove their bull out of your mind and wait until you see it to make a decision. This is why I prefer reviews by normal movie goers who watch for enjoyment than those of critics.

that's what i was thinking too.  Alot of Toho's  Godzilla movies ( i'm thinking especially Godzilla vs Biollante, and even my 2nd favorite of all time, Godzilla vs King Ghidora '91) didn't have as much Godzilla in them as people think, and the actual fighting is kept between 15-20 minutes  if that, ( in the case of vs Biollante, i think it's even less than that, but that's one that even i'll admit, can use ALOT more Godzilla) ... but what i'm trying ot say is,  it's being called out in this film, but 20 or so solid minutes of godzilla action is actually pretty much the norm for some Toho godzilla movies recently 

RT has now rose to 84%.

The last 2 weeks I've watched many of the older "serious" Godzilla movies (everything from 1954, heisei & millenium series, I don't really like the showa series...) and in most of the films gozilla has less pure screen time then 20 minutes (except Final Wars).

And it doesn't mean in the new Godzilla that the action starts in the third part. There is thrilling action in the first hour, but more with the MUTOs and stuff. Godzilla comes later in the second half.

In some old Godzilla films there is the human intro & storytelling, later a monster is attacking Japan with first action and destroying scenes and then Godzilla comes out of the ocean and fighting (killing) the other monster in the last part.

So it isn't the first Godzilla with this style not having full action from the beginning on. Most of the movies are made in this way.

I don't worry, I still expect the best Godzilla ever and I am also interested in the plot turns, the MUTO reveal and MUTO action, Bryan Cranston and so on, so I don't need the full load from the first minute and I don't want "bullet-time with crazy camera angles action" like in the transformer series in a godzilla film! That would not fit :)

87 on RT

85% on RT

89% on RT

Metacritic score is slowly going up, from 59 to 61. At least it's green now :) Rotten tomatoes looks promising, rating 7.3/10 (went up from 7/10)

90% on RT

Metacritic - 63

The film seems to be more or less leveling out on Rotten Tomatoes with 90% of the 40 reviews being fresh.  And there's finally a consensus:

"With just enough human drama to anchor the sweeping spectacle of giant monsters smashing everything in sight, Gareth Edwards' Godzilla satisfyingly restores the franchise's fire-breathing glory."

I can basically grasp what the movie will offer based on what is, to me, rather common knowledge or maybe I just follow movies a little too well. The human element in the film as I've heard from multiple sources but nonetheless expected from the onset, will experience some type of drop in momentum or development in favor of what we can all expect to be the final battle between the three monsters near the movie's end. From a writter's perspective I fully understand if that descision was made in order to prevent the human drama from outshining the film's climax, especially with all the fans who could care less for a human driven story in a Godzilla movie.

As far as what people are saying about Aaron's performance being dwarfed by Cranston's, I think that's obvious. Aaron is not a bad actor, however, he plays a military father who comes off as you're average military grunt but with the burdens of his father's obsession and making sure he keeps his family safe because, well, that's his character. Someone as relatable as possible, given the extrodinary circumstances. On the other hand we have Joe Brody, arguably the more important of the two just based on the simple fact that his purpose in the film is much more deeply connected with Godzilla than anyone elses, save for Ken's character of course. That being said, Cranston's character is going to have to be someone who can draw in a certain level of emotion that can be felt from the film's start all the way to it's end.

Joe Brody and Ford Brody stand on two very different paths and I'm glad they do. I want Joe's performance to go beyond the other characters because I think that's what kind of character he is. The one that you think about the most whereas Ford Brody is more akin to Brad Pitt's Gerry in World War Z, a slightly above avergae military father who is played by a amazing actor. In a grounded setting, we need to be reminded that everyone isn't overly dramatic, scritpted with cliche's or even as engadging as you think they should be. Thats reality, not every important character having to put on a stellar performance for the sake of all-star acting, I'm pretty sure theres tropes for that sort of thing. If it's believable than I'll take it. The alternative is a competition of actors all battling to out perform one another in a film that isn't even about something as needless as that, especially a giant monster flick. Lets all remember what we're watching here. This isn't Breaking Bad, the greatest human drama on television, this is a Godzilla movie remade with better story telling, believable actors with heart and visuals to be remembered.

dropped back down to 85%