This movie is a mess - a nightmare of shifting tone where slick production values in one scene become '90s Ultraman quality special effects in the next. But it's hard for me to truly hate the movie because it knows how stupid it is. It's as if the filmmakers just threw in a bunch of ideas and things they thought would be cool to do and did them regardless of how it would sit together and then filled up the cracks with jokes. It's not good at all, but I don't hate it.
Gordon and the Xillian leader steal the show with a one-two punch of deadpan non-acting and cheerfull over acting, respectively.
It's good to see many of these monsters back after so many years, but becuase there are so many we never get to spend a lot of time with them and most are regulated to one or two cool moments in veritable cameos.
I don't like that we can't see Godzilla's eyes most of the time. Even on a rubber suit the eyes are important for emotional connection to the character.
Epilogue
I finally did it: all 28 movies chronologically, and what I learned was that nothing beats the original series of films directed (mostly) by Ishiro Honda and Jun Fukuda. There is fun to be had with the 2nd and 3rd series, but they are terribly uneven... and as a whole not very good.
But let's wish Toho - and Godzilla - luck! May Godzilla one day rise to his former glory!
