David Arnold

A summer blockbuster to get the summer rolling in high gear. Fast action, well-cast and talented players make this a great flick to kick off "blockbuster season". Enjoy!

This movie riveted my attention from the beginning to the end. It is not just the amazing (and often disconcerting) action but also every word uttered. You are engaged throughout. Extraordinarily human: noble, helping, fearing, falling, rising to the occasion and caring. Do we care even half as much today?

Perfect casting and perfect characters drive this charming, funny and lifting movie to a B+ rating. I left the theater refreshed and happy and saying out loud to the credits rolling, “I hope you win lots of Oscars; you deserve it!”

I think this movie is remarkable for its day and age and it holds up well 65 years later. It has incredible special effects. It doesn’t hit some of the American public touchstones; that’s what makes it so unique and interesting to me. Clearly there is some homage paid to King Kong, the movie that inspired Godzilla. But the theme and story line runs deeper; it’s a dark movie, touching on some real issues of the time. I saw the original in Portland a few years back years back. I was stunned at the sound and fury and effectiveness of the special effects. And it’s a MUCH better movie without the intrusive Raymond Burr character in it. This is a movie about a disaster in a nation that had recently gone through. There weren’t many references to that left in the American version; not hard to figure out why. The current “Godzilla: King of the Monsters” is worse than I would have imagined. What movie-makers think will impress, thrill and engage an audience is sometimes horribly off mark. Quick review: “Annoying, too long, too loud.” No nods to the history of the story. Too many lead-Ins into the next movie. I don’t like watching things that are impossible presented without regard to the business of suspending my disbelief. And I don’t think that heaping excess on excess is very entertaining.