Godzilla

Godzilla (2014)

Predicted Rating: 4 Stars

Directed by: Gareth Edwards. Starring: Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Ken Wantanabe, Elizabeth Olsen

I would normally write something here about the plot, however whatever I write will not do the movie justice so I will just say Godzilla turns up and fucks some shit up.

I remember back in 1998 how excited I was to see the Roland Emmerich Godzilla film. At the time I was only 9 so what is more exciting that a giant lizard destroying everything? I watched it in the cinema with my grandad and at the time I thought this was the greatest thing since sliced bread. It have everything I wanted, which at the time was essentially just a giant lizard destroying thing. I even though the old Asian man say godzirra was amazing. However, after expanding my cinema knowledge and learning more about the Godzilla universe I realised this movie was a huge steaming pile of shit. This made me a bit cagey about the excitement I gathered for this version.

In hindsight, this reluctance was futile because this movie is next level bonkers! The special effects were amazing and the sound was ear splitting. However, the thing I loved the most about this film was the lack of origin story. In the realm of many Hollywood reboots, it frustrates me to no end that 95% of the first movie is spent retelling the origin story. Then even in the sequel there is way too much time spent introducing the villain. In this film it was essentially here is Godzilla, you all know who the fuck he is so we aren't going to tell the story again, here is more screaming and knocking buildings down.

My only criticism of this film is that it needed one or two more characters to tie the whole thing together. In these disaster style films, often my favourite characters are the unselfish friend and the disgruntled scientist. The unselfish friend is the best friend of the main character who helps out in sticky situations and always does the unselfish thing to help out the main character. I know this film plays on the loneliness factor but I felt like Aaron Taylor Johnson or Elizabeth Olsen needed just someone to talk to in order to engage the audience. The other character is the disgruntled genius who is passionate about science and has the solution to the problem but no one will believe them. This is the Jeff Goldblum character in Independence Day or Charlie Day in Pacific Rim. Brian Cranston tries to fill this void, but contrary to the trailers, does not feature much in the film.

Overall: Next level bonkers 4.5 stars