Movie Time: Godzilla Review

Godzilla is movie that's good, but not great. Exciting, but only just. Entertaining, but not engaging. That might not be the best way this review could have started, but Godzilla really just deliver like I hoped it would. First of all, let me get this SPOILER out of the way. Highlight if you want to see beyond this point. DO NOT GO SEE THIS MOVIE FOR BRYAN CRANSTON! He dies about thirty minutes into it, and makes no more appearances. Not even as a flashback. If he was your big draw to go see the movie, then don't waste your time. You'll only be disappointed.

Now that that's out of the way lets get into the nitty gritty of this review shall we. The Story overall was ok. It's primary focus is to get you from monster encounter to monster encounter, and it does that well enough. The human characters are lackluster at best, falling into mostly stereotyped characters. You have Japanese man who knows exactly how to handle Godzilla and the other monsters in the movie, but bull headed American Army guy won't listen to him until the end. Meanwhile main character who is seperated from his family goes through hell to get back to them. Again, the story is serviceable at best to serve as transition point from one monster battle to the next, which is what this movie is all about right?

Thankfully the monster battles are AMAZING! Godzilla realized with 21st century computer graphics and effects really is something to behold. He looks as good as the monsters from Pacific Rim, and really feels like classic Godzilla, rather than the T-Rex Style that they went with for the 1998 movie. He also got to use his blue atomic breath unlike the previous movie. On top of that the M.U.T.O's (Massive Unidentified Terrestrial Organisms) are done really well too. They are essentially two versions of Mothra from older movies, but they have their own unique personalities, strengths, and weaknesses as well. They are also pretty flushed out as characters surprisingly. The scientist's know a lot about them because they have been studying them for years, and are able to explain behavior patterns and actions that the monsters take. 

Even though this is a monster movie it is hard to find it believable. There are quite a few scenes that break the flow of the movie, and just make you go "ya that would never happen". For example, there is a scene where Godzilla is swimming along escorting the US Navy. There's another where he doesn't respond to having missiles and tank shells fired at him, and honestly if you know anything about modern military hardware you'd know that there is no way their skin is so think that they can survive a SABOT round fired out of an Abrams tank. Overall there is probably to much involvement from the military, and not enough monster fighting. 

The world suffers massive destruction from these monster battles too. Japan, Hawaii, Las Vegas, and especially Los Angeles take massive damage, with most of LA being leveled. I get that the monsters need to break some stuff, but they went way over the top with the destruction of the world. Maybe that is more realistic, but a lot of time that they spend showing buildings topple is wasted time that we could be watching more wide angle monster battles. 

So overall, Godzilla is a fun movie with some great monster fights. It's just let down by its lackluster story, and the fact that it spends to much time away from the monsters. If you are chasing the high that Pacific Rim gave you last year, then this movie will hold you over for awhile. If you are a die hard Godzilla fan, then you may be a bit dissapointed. I think if you like action movies, you'll probably enjoy it. If not, you may want to wait till its at Red Box.