Director Gareth Edwards expertly creates the most enjoyable big budget film experience in quite some time and in the process makes big budget monster movies relevant again. Welcome back, Godzilla!
The story spans across a few times periods, but it does it so quickly and smoothly that you don’t notice you are being fed a chunk of exposition before getting into the main action. The plot revolves around a corporation that knows of the existence of Kaiju and has been tracking its whereabouts for years. They know these creatures feed off radiation and that there is an apex monster that they call Godzilla…
The actors are all fine, with Bryan Cranston doing the best work, albeit without much to work with, whilst Aaron Taylor-Johnson plays the ‘hero’ of the film and fills the role nicely. However, the human characters are merely sideshows to the main event. Edwards teases the reveal of Godzilla to almost hilarious levels, but when the big guy is revealed and lets out a huge roar, I literally had goosebumps. It was a great moment.
This Godzilla definitely had the old school feel to it. From the amazing credits to the fantastic score, drawing on the previous films and adding original elements. Edwards has more than a few loving nods to Jaws and indeed the film has a few flourishes of early Spielberg works. Godzilla is really great fun, despite being light on the script in terms of the human interaction and development, but who cares? This is about giant monsters doing giant monster business. If you a
re after some epic fight scenes between huge Kaiju, then this is your Woodstock.
Godzilla is painted as a force of nature, almost as a wrath of nature as was stated by one of the characters. He isn’t bad, he isn’t good, he just is. He is big, really big, and looks suitably impressive as the ‘God’ of the monsters should. The humans are but a mere annoyance for the monsters, with our weapons barely making a dent in them. With plenty of old school Godzilla powers being used, it really makes you excited to see more in the future.
A great return for an iconic movie monster, Godzilla goes a long way to erasing any thoughts of the horrible 1998 film. With a bit better character development, Godzilla could have become an instant classic. However, it is still a whole heap of fun and worth seeing on the biggest screen you can find.
Check Out Our Other Review For Godzilla:
Iain McNally’s Review
