It’s almost unfair to review this movie.
I really have no idea if I should even review this movie because it is Part 1 of 3. Not like Lord of the Rings Part 1 of 3 where each movie could theoretically be watched on its own because they each have a satisfying ending. This movie is literally Part 1 of 3 with it ending on a cliffhanger and I have to wait for the next two movies to see what the point of the whole thing was.
It takes thirty minutes to explain the premise of the movie, time that could have been used to introduce the characters, which they do, but they don’t really go anywhere. There are no character arcs. There are just characters that we recognize as the main characters. They don’t go anywhere however, because this is Part 1 of 3. There is nowhere to go because this is still technically Act 1 of the trilogy.
The animation is an interesting blend of computer animation and hand-drawn rotoscope that seems jerky at first, but eventually you get used to it. Some of the visuals are actually cool to look at. Godzilla, however, looks more like a black blob on the landscape with no defined features. I know there’s only a few way you could design Godzilla, but he just looks black. Shin Godzilla at least had red veins that added spots of color. And as long as we’re on the topic of designs, why are the aliens (yes, there are aliens) in this movie either space elves with weird hair or black guys with weird eyebrows? Seriously, there’s actually two alien races in this movie (that took me until an hour into the movie to realize that) and they are either space elves or black guys. I refuse to believe that those designs were the best they could come up with.
When the action gets going, the movie actually starts getting interesting. Unfortunately, the action happens at the last 15-20 minutes of the movie and isn’t really satisfying with the hour of exposition we had to sit through. Then the movie continues for an extra 5 minutes because it needs to set up Part 2 of the trilogy, thus ending on an unsatisfying note.
There is nothing else to say about this movie. It is Act 1 of a trilogy so I have to wait a few years for some kind of resolution. The characters are boring, the designs are boring, the action is cool at time but they go by too fast to hold up an hour and half long movie. I’m just left wondering what the point of the whole thing was.
Tim Lilly 