Kraken OfTheDeep

Aggressively poor writing robs the decent cast of coming across as anything but bad. They are further hampered by a terrible plot, forced into continually making the worst possible decision at every conceivable point. It would have been actually comical in a meta-aware horror-comedy like Happy Death Day to watch them flounder around like this. Unfortunately, this terrible film plays it unerringly straight. I wasn't halfway through the film before I wanted the characters to just hurry up and die already. Sadly, the biggest flaw of the movie is it takes until 3/4 of the way through for the sharks to actually show up. I say sadly, but perhaps I should have been grateful, since the effects are so bad that I ended up wishing they'd never shown up anyways. Once the sharks do show up, however, the action at least picks up and the film goes from a slog to... mildly entertaining. Not good, but I stopped wishing for the sweet release of my own death. The movie then goes on to pull a Return of the King and have three different endings, one of which was thematically consistent with the preceding movie, one of which was would have been fine if predictable, and then the actual ending which was so stupid it belonged in a Sharknado film (impossible physics and all). If you want a woman versus shark movie, watch The Shallows with Blake Lively instead. If you've already seen it and need to scratch that shark itch, last years Great White with Katrina Bowden was decent.

The best way to summarize 'Godzilla: Singular Point' is simply "what if Neon Genesis: Evangelion, but with Godzilla and written by an emotionally stable math professor?" If that sounds at all interesting to you, please watch this. I absolutely loved it. The kaiju designs are fantastic, the new take on the lore is imaginative, Godzilla themself is a force of freaking nature (and draws a lot of clear inspiration from Shin Godzilla, which makes sense), and the visuals are stunningly gorgeous. Does it have it's issues? Yes, for sure. Like it's spiritual predecessor (Evangelion) it suffers from an over reliance on narration and exposition, and it can get lost in the Big Picture(TM) ideas that are clearly things the writer is trying to work out for themselves. But, it does so with a stylistic zeal and fast pace that keeps the story buzzing along. Also like Evangelion, this one has a POLARIZING ending, the emotional impact of which will depend heavily on how the central themes resonate with you personally. For me, I god dang LOVED the ending, but not everyone will. Like Evangelion, despite the huge exposition dumps, it deliberately doesn't spoonfeed you the answers at the end, though the answers are all there to puzzle out if you were invested enough to pick up the hints earlier. 5/5 stars, not everyone's cup of tea but perfect for me.