I’m fine if there’s a lot of fighting. I just don’t want to see Aaron Taylor Johnson try to be a wooden doll military wannabe. That was terrible acting.
To be fair I think that was more the fault of the script for writing a bland army character that doesn't show much emotion. ATJ does have acting chops and was great in a little film called Nocturnal Animals alongside Jake Gyllenhaal. But I agree he wasn't a good fit for the role.
The human element here is better than G14 but only this time there's a little too many characters, which means there's also more bad ones as well. When it's just focusing on a few of them - especially in the great third act - it's not all that bad. In future I want less human characters but better writing for them if possible. Serizawa is the best character in this for me at least, and I did like a few of them overall.
G14 was, thinking back, more of a big budget indie movie with Godzilla in it - which must have resonated with critics more for some reason - and I appreciate Gareth Edwards for giving a good sense of scale and size for the monsters - but his approach of build-up, build-up, then cut away multiple times doesn't belong in a Godzilla movie and that didn't sit well with general audiences.
Anyway, KOTM is a much better Kaiju film than G14 in my book. Tons of issues with script and dialogue and that, but delivers on the monster action IMO. Stay for the end credits because it sets up something potentially pretty crazy.