I thought that was part of their charm. I saw the 1998 Godzilla, and honestly it was probably the best out of all the Godizllas I've seen. I saw a lot of the old Japanese movies, but they're just unintended comedies as far as I'm concerned, with all kinds of weird crap like a child Godzilla, tiny telepathic fairies/Japanese girls, and other stuff that made no sense and served no purpose whatsoever. Between the pretentious monster movie that tries to have some kind of thematic meaning and the monster movie that understands it's just here for explosions and awesomeness, I'll take the latter every time.

Unfortunately, it sounds like this newest Godzilla meanders between the two and doesn't achieve anything at all, so thanks for the review. I know not to go see it (not that I would probably have anyway, since it is rare for me to go to the movies lately). Of course, I had surmised about as much from the trailers, which were all over the place and showed so many characters and cliches that it was clear nothing good could come of this.

Cloverfield remains just about the best monster movie of this type in my opinion. It focused on a small group of characters and humanized them, its monster was actually pretty scary, unknown and unknowable (unlike Godzilla, who at this point inspires about as much fear as a movie about a 50-foot tall Pikachu would), and it had the story culminate in the inevitable. No movie that I've seen since then has come close.