We've been waiting years for this movie ever since it was announced. Does it live up to the hype and bring the King of Monsters stomping back to his rightful throne?
When I first heard of this movie, I couldn't contain my excitement as I would finally be able to witness the King himself on the big screen. The posters and the trailers were all magnificent and for lack of better wording, epic. Now that I've finally seen the movie itself, what did I think of it? I entered the cinema with relatively high expectations and by the time the credits started rolling, I must say, I was a tad disappointed.
This new reimagining of the King of Monsters tried to keep things simple by having lesser underlying themes and lesser secrets. Other than that, it's your basic Godzilla film where cities get attacked by giant monsters and the King comes, brawls with the monster, and saves the day. You might be disappointed if you expected this new incarnation's first outing to be similar to the original Godzilla, a force of nature that wreaked destruction everywhere it went. This new incarnation is portrayed as a malevolent force of nature that brings balance rather than mindless destruction.
The Gareth Edwards-directed film is both well-written and well-acted. Bryan Cranston and Ken Watanabe in particular give brief but strong performances. The others, such as Aaron Taylor-Johnson and Elizabeth Olsen, are good but never make enough of an impression to be truly memorable. The writing is good, it doesn't make enough questionable turns to make us scratch our heads and never left any plot thread hanging. It opted to focus on the human aspect of the story and the gigantic threats humanity is facing. This is where I have a problem with the movie.
You may have already heard that Godzilla isn't really in much of the film and it's the painful truth, Godzilla is in so little of the movie. We feel his presence but he's never really there. It takes about an hour before we get to see him fully appear before us in all his glory. While his appearances are limited, whenever he's onscreen it's just magnificent. This Godzilla is jaw-dropping and awe-inspiring, just a shame he doesn't get enough screen time, nor enough focus. As I said before, the focus is on the human aspect of the story and the gigantic threat it faces, particularly the MUTOs. The MUTOs get more focus and more screen time than the titular character himself. Heck, almost all of the destruction in the film are caused by them and not Godzilla, contrary to what some of us expect. But as I said, Godzilla is portrayed magnificently and his brawl with the MUTOs are just plain awesome. Everything in the movie led to their fateful astonishing fight. The last few minutes are truly splendid. It's just infuriating how their fight is abruptly cut off to bring us human scenes that ultimately add nothing. The movie's greatest fault is never giving us enough of what we wanted in a Godzilla flick.
My other minor complaints are Ford's ridiculously strong plot armor and the music that just doesn't do the movie and Godzilla justice.
VERDICT: This Godzilla is not a bad film, far from it. It's a good movie, just a good movie, and that's the problem. It never aspires to be anything more than good, never aiming higher, and never taking enough risks. But even with all its flaws, the movie is still a worthy entry to the Godzilla mythos and is not without its redeeming qualities. The movie is saved by the human drama, some impressive performances, and the astonishing battle in the finale that will leave your jaws dropping. Overall, I give the movie 7 out of 10.
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