Godzilla (May 2014)

Official Australian release date: 15/5/14. Viewed: 15/5/14.

Director: Gareth Edwards

Actors: Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Ken Watanabe, Elizabeth Olsen, David Strathairn, Bryan Cranston

Genre: Action / Sci-Fi

Rating: M

Did I like the new ‘Godzilla’ film, the first in 16 years? I really wanted to, but while there’s some good aspects, they’re counterbalanced by plenty of bad things. First, the “storyline” - two MUTO (“Massive Unidentified Terrestrial Organism”)’s are awakened (why now?) and converge on San Francisco (why there?). Godzilla shows up to fight them (why?).

It sounds like it could be a good version of ‘Pacific Rim’ - and while it’s cool to see the giant CGI monsters, you don’t actually get to see enough action/battle scenes. The major failing is the characters - you spend an hour with Taylor-Johnson & his Dad (Cranston) before you even see Godzilla! Despite that, there’s still very little character development and you just plain don’t care what happens to them or the other human characters. It definitely needed more of Watanabe. Also, there’s a ridiculous number of coincidences how Taylor-Johnson/Kick-Ass keeps showing up in the right/wrong place.

One of the major unexplained situations is where did Godzilla come from, and if they knew he existed, where has he been for 60 years? Hibernating on the ocean floor? And why does he want to battle the MUTO - for food? Apparently not! Therefore, what does he eat to sustain his giant bulk? The other major annoying thing for me was the stupidity of the humans - hey, these MUTO love nuclear energy, so let’s try to destroy them with a nuclear weapon! Or they can emit electromagnetic pulses - let’s keep flying planes & helicopters near them, surely they won’t crash! Anyway, on a positive note, you do see some of Godzilla for the final 30min (but not enough) and he does, thankfully, have flame-breath.

Overall: A decent reboot attempt, but not good enough to have me anticipating any potential sequels.

Gav's Rating: 3 stars.