musukogoji

This movie insulted me. It insulted my expectations, my intelligence, and my loyalty to a franchise I've loved for nearly 10 years. This movie may feature four classic monsters from the original Japanese films, but it is not Godzilla. It doesn't have the impact, weight, or spirit of the films that came before. The plot centers around a government strike force of soldiers and top scientists trying to stop an eco-terrorist organization from releasing monsters all around the world to wreak havoc on all civilization. And no, this absolutely ludicrous plot is not where my issues lie. Actually, I liked this kind of direction. It harkens back to the original series, where the sequels immediately became more lighthearted and campy following a dark and moody first installment. Even the constant scenes of human exposition are something I can handle, since the things they have to say are at least interesting. What I take issue with is how it handles elements from the films I grew up with. The monsters are all bland and uninteresting. They don't have the personality or identifiable traits of their Japanese counterparts, leading them to seem more like generic movie monsters. Rodan especially just feels like an afterthought, while Ghidorah and Mothra only have a few brief moments of uniqueness. The film also utilizes some very vital elements of the original films in ways that hold no significance whatsoever, bogging them down to the max in an effort to cram in as much fan service as humanly possible. I found its uses of the Oxygen Destroyer and Burning Godzilla in particular to be very underwhelming. But the average moviegoer wouldn't really notice contrasts with the Japanese films. So how does this one hold up as a movie in its own right? Not very well. Again, most of the human scenes consist of massive barrages of exposition, which lends its way for very little character development. The last film at least had a unique thematic style to make up for this, but since the focus is this time to just make things flashy and simplistic, there's nothing to justify this flaw. Aside from some choice moments, and a very impactful scene centered around the character Dr. Serizawa which I found to be surprisingly poetic, the scenes with these characters are nothing more than excuses to break from the monster action. And while on the subject, I will fully admit that the action scenes are at least a lot of fun. A little clunky sometimes, but enjoyable all the same. The special effects are unbelievably fantastic and the sound design is great (other than the monster roars, which all sound basically the same and REALLY don't help in giving these creatures more of an identity). Though I do have to complain about the overall bland music. The only time anything really stuck out to me is when the original Japanese movie themes were used, and I am very much against them being in this film. I love those tunes, but the music of the last film helped it stand on its own more, while this feels more like mindless fan service. I could go all day about the problems I had with this movie, but I'll just say this: I feel catered to. I feel like someone in a studio watched me enjoy a series of 32 films, and then decided to put random things from said films into this one to gain my approval. And I didn't enjoy this feeling. What I watched in the theater today is what the average person thinks every Godzilla movie is like. This movie has no identity, other than being a pathetic imitation of what came before, and I am insulted to have waited 5 years for this complete waste of a film.

Just to be clear, I am a huge fan of the Death Note manga/anime. I had thought about watching the original before seeing this movie but I refrained from doing so. That's because I really liked the anime, but I could tell by the trailers that director Adam Wingard was trying to make this film its own thing and I didn't want to end up comparing the two.

I've read a lot of this movie's negative reviews on IMDb, and not once did I see someone calmly explaining the flaws of the movie and why that caused them to hate it so much. I saw angry fans who were complaining that it was different from the anime. And I have nothing against that. If the fans want a faithful live action adaptation of a series they've come to know and love, that's perfectly understandable. But in the past 11 years, we had already gotten that twice. There were already two live action Japanese films retelling the story of Death Note very faithfully. Then there was the Japanese mini-series in 2015. Again, a very faithful adaptation. The anime itself was practically a carbon copy of the manga (aside from the ending), so the fans already have plenty of retellings of the same story. So, what's wrong with seeing something different?

When I heard about this film adaptation, I knew it would fail in the eyes of Death Note fans. They would either hate it because it's just another rehash of a beloved story, or they would hate it because it would stray to far from the source material. Personally, I was hoping it would be very different. That's because even if it was bad, it would still be unpredictable. If it were accurate, I would be able to predict anything that happened because I'm already very familiar with the story. But with this film, so much had changed that I could never be sure what was going to happen next. The movie did recycle some plotpoints from the anime, but for the most part, the filmmakers came up with their own twists and turns to try and make it exciting not only for newcomers, but longtime fans.

As for the supposed "whitewashing", well that's just a ridiculous argument. First of all, it's an American film. So doesn't it make sense to have American actors in it so it connects better with American audiences? It's not like in Doctor Strange (2016) where The Ancient One, a character who was Asian even in the film, was played by Tilda Swinton, a white British actress. The characters in this film are American, so they're logically played by American actors. It's like when America remade The Ring or The Grudge or The Departed. Every character in those movies were white, despite them being Japanese in the original and no one ever complained about those films. If the character's were still Japanese, but played by any other race, then I would see the issue. Second of all, that argument is only made when talking about the white actors playing characters who were previously Japanese. Yes, I did hear many people complaining that L in this movie is black, but never did I hear anyone complain about the character named Watari. In this movie, he's a middle-aged Japanese man, but in the anime/manga, he was a white, elderly, Englishman. Third of all, if this film was really guilty of whitewashing, then why would L, the palest character in both the anime and manga, be played by a black actor?

As the title says, I'm not here to review the movie. I didn't want to talk about my personal feelings about it in this case. I don't want fans of the Death Note franchise to hate this movie because it's different from the original. And there probably are some reviews I missed that actually talk about the problems in this film, because it's far from flawless. But I know there are still some who will see something different and instantly shun it and that's really just not fair. It's obvious that this film is trying to act on its own, separate from the rest of the Death Note franchise and I believe it should be treated as such. So, if you're a fan who was disappointed about the differences in the story, try looking at the film again and just try to at least see what the filmmakers were going for and just see if there's anything about it you can appreciate.