Why don't giant monster movies due that well in America anymore.

[AndyC]

Even though it didn't level any cities, The Host was a GREAT  movie.

I really enjoyed The Host. Nice mix of action, scares, suspense and humour, with the most original monster I've seen in a long time.

[CheezeFlixz]

Some minor spoilers ... beware.
Cloverfield

I like giant monster movies and I wanted to see Cloverfield and be amazed ... I wasn't. To much of the film was wasted on useless dialog as in the 20+ min party scene was just a huge waste of time for such a short movie. The weak explaining of how it happened in the last minute was to vague and easily missed. It could have been a great film but the character were over developed and the story was under developed. The premises of "I must go save this girl at all cost." was weak and cliche. It was predictable that the friends well tag along and some well die. (... excuse me waiter, could I get an original thought please?)

As for King Kong (Peter Jackson) I liked, the story was developed as were the characters and you could identify with the the monsters actions and reactions and the movie as a whole didn't drag. On the other hand, Cloverfield was just a monster destroying the city and dropping parasites everywhere, why? I had no reason to feel pity, empathy or anger at the monster, it was just on a rampage. Somebody what to say why? (Yes, I watched the extras and I know why, but you have to say that in the movie.) I think if you are going to make a monster movie you need to be able to identify in some way with why it is doing what it is doing. Some sort of background story and development, why is it mad, who pee'd on it's parade? I didn't completely dislike Cloverfield I was just disappointed, and yes the shaky camera work was over done and got on my nerves. Some is ok, to much is annoying. Nearly a entire movie is just to much.

If you are going to for the raw beast approach as in Jurassic Park, which I consider a monster movie, then ok. I get it, I know what dinosaurs are and there hungry. Their eating machines, not much to explain. Nothing to relate to, it's just a big ass hungry lizard with a ill temper. Don't give me an alien and not tell me how or why it got here and why it's so ill tempered. I also found the fact that the Cloverfield monster was bullet and bomb proof a little unbelievable, this thing can pick up blood sucking space parasites, but somehow a air strikes and carpet bombing does nothing to it ... right.
 
A side note, the audiences today are more sophisticated and not easily fooled. Back in the days of earlier film making people would faint and run screaming from the theater at the image of a train steaming towards the camera, people thought early dinosaur movies where films of REAL dinosaurs, it was new they'd never seen it and it was magic.
Movies today have a big order to fill to capture that magic, and sadly more fail to do so than do. Actually it rarely happens that a movie is so good it draws you in and you forget it's just a movie.

But in the end there are monster movies that are just bad, you're pretty sure they'll be bad before you watch them as in most the the Sci Fi Originals ... no one should be shocked when it sucks. But when it a movie is hyped, and hyped for a long time, it had better deliver, Cloverfield was highly hyped and it failed to deliver on the hype. If they'd just said 'here's a monster movie hope you like it' I don't think it would have taken as many knocks.

[Classic Camp]

Let's see if I can add anything to this thread. Giant monsters are definitely a favorite of mine as well, but for the lack of success of the current films, I blame CGI. With CGI you have computer glips moving around on the screen, like pieces of paper, as if they carry little to no weight. In the old movies, like the Godzillas and the Harryhousens, the monsters destroyed real live models, things people can feel and touch, they carried real weight, and had real volume. CGI does have a place in modern films, certainly, but I don't think anyone has yet figured out a way to use it effectively in a giant monster flick, particularly in the most important scenes, which I think we'll all agree is when the monster is destroying something. Maybe some day they'll get it right, and of course, that's just my take, but I think it works well alongside a lot of the other opinions here.

[KYGOTC]

See, i have a short atention span and didn't read the entire topic post, but i got the gist of it. Monsters RULE! we need MORE!

[DistantJ]

CG can be given 'weight' and 'presence' if it's done right, I reckon. It's just not done right quite so often. I mean, in Transformers you could feel every attack and the environment reacted to the robots just the way it would if they were real. I had a similiar feeling with the Dragon in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, even though some other CG creatures in that series can look really naff, and, hell, it's old, but Jurassic Park still has some of the best CG creatures ever.

I'd love to see a movie about a giant monster which actually looks really cool, but that doesn't tend to happen so much today. Scientific plausibility often takes priority over, well, coolness. The Cloverfield monster was cool, sure, but nothing you'd see in a Godzilla movie.



I'd love to see some really badass monsters with today's production qualities. One of the reasons I thought Alone in the Dark was massively underrated were the really awesome monsters of all shapes and sizes. The critics panned the movie because it didn't seem natural but, damn, I don't go to popcorn flicks for "natural".

[peter johnson]

Yeah, I thought the dragons in Harry Potter were very good as well -- One reason was the interaction with the background, re. when you had the dragon crunching tiles along the roof of the school when it's going after Potter.
I think a well-done sea monster movie would do well if done correctly -- I think a remake of "The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms" could work today -- It seems as if all the giant crocodile direct to DVD films make money, so it seems there's a market for it somewhere . . .
peter johnson/denny crane

[Andrew]

I think a well-done sea monster movie would do well if done correctly -- I think a remake of "The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms" could work today

They did that, in 1998, but got the name wrong.  They also made it too darn long and copies ideas from "Jurassic Park."

[Flangepart]

Right. Godzilla runs from no-one. Deanzilla, on the other hand...
Huge, powerfull, and this is a key part...alive.
Earthquakes and Tsunamis are...well, remember the big disaster of 04?
They are abstracts. Things move and kill...but its all impersonal. A release of energy.
But a Kaiju is alive...and that makes it personal.