Plot: (from imdb.com) The world's most famous monster
is pitted against malevolent creatures who, bolstered by humanity's scientific
arrogance, threaten our very existence.
Review: Godzilla has been done and redone so many
times, it’s hard for anyone to keep count. And after the disastrous 1998
version it was a bold task for anyone to try again. Warner Brothers tried again
in 2014. What they made was a movie that kept most of the important elements of
the old films but also added some needed updates.
The
story focuses on a soldier who had his life messed up by a baby monster 15
years earlier in Japan. Now, that monster has hatched into an adult and is
destroying everything in its path. For some reason, this awakens Godzilla who
just wants to kill it. I guess he doesn’t like other monsters on his turf.
The
movie has a slow pace, it takes forever for anything to really happen. I
understand that the idea is to build up to when the monsters are revealed.
Thankfully, it was still relatively interesting, but if I had seen this in
theaters I might have gotten impatient waiting for the fighting to start. Once
Godzilla and the MUTO (that’s the bad monster) meet, it gets really exciting
and then they cut away from the fight. Again, this could have been frustrating
for some, but for me it wasn’t a problem. It helped build the anticipation. If
there were too many fights early on, we would have been drained by the time the
finale came through.
Most
of the movie is spent with the human characters and it’s both a hit and a miss.
Aaron Taylor-Johnson’s character is kind of bland but given that he is a
soldier you can chalk that up to him just setting his emotions aside to get the
job done. His wife, Elizabeth Olson, spends the first half trying to call
Johnson and the second half running away from the monsters. She doesn’t have
much to do here, but her presence in the second half gives us an idea of the
scale of how big this monster fight really is.
The
real reason we all came to watch this was the fights, let’s be honest. It takes
a long time to see one from beginning to end, but it is worth it. These things
tear the hell out of each other and the last death is really good. I just wish
the fight had been in the daytime, it was difficult to get a good look at what
was actually happening. I won’t spoil it for anyone who hasn’t seen the movie
yet, but there’s a really cool old school element that was in the fight that I
did not expect in a recent rendition. Finally I thought that Godzilla being
treated as a savior rather than the destroyer was a nice touch and Ken
Watanabe, you’re awesome.
Score: 6.5/10
