Now I’m not the biggest Godzilla fan but I was thoroughly entertained throughout this reboot directed by Gareth Edwards.
The beginning of Godzilla was gripping and pretty emotional being driven by one half of one of the most popular shows ever, Breaking Bad’s, Walter White (Bryan Cranston) whose character Joe Brody did a great job of portraying real depth and human nature to his scenes.
Joe Brody and his wife Sandra (Juliette Binoche- Three Colors: Blue) are nuclear physicists investigating suspicious events at a Japanese nuclear facility with some deadly consequences. Cut to fifteen years later and Joe is a conspiracy theorist on the search for truth when he is arrested for trespassing in a quarantined zone. Joe believes that it was not a natural disaster but some kind of creature that the government is trying to cover up and now, believing that history is repeating itself, he embarks on a search for his old data, dragging his son Ford along with him.
The film then bases itself around Ford Brody played by Aaron Taylor-Johnson (Kick Ass) and his own family, wife Elle (Elizabeth Olsen- Oldboy) and son Sam (Carson Bolde) as soldier Ford is called to duty when the beasts starts trashing cities. Aaron also did a good job of his role, if at times slightly static, but Dr. Ishiro Serizawa played by Ken Watanabe (Inception) was unfortunately pretty wooden throughout.
Visually, the movie is exceptionally well done and the creature designs are otherworldly and brilliantly frightening. There are a lot of very smoothly handled transitions which use drastic perspective changes to shift scenes, simultaneously handling the larger scope of Godzilla and the Muto’s against the smaller scope of the individual characters.
The pacing of the movie is excellent, slowly building tension and teasing the audience with brief monster appearances before releasing all of the built-up energy in an explosive climax.
I’d recommend this as a cool theater experience, but if you wait until it’s available to view at home you’ll still enjoy the effective CGI Godzilla delivers.
WICKED RATING: 7.5/10
Title: Godzilla
Director(s): Gareth Edwards
Writer(s): Max Borenstein, Dave Callaham
Stars: Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Elizabeth Olsen, Bryan Cranston
Year: 2014
Studio/ Production Co: Warner Bros., Legendary Pictures, Disruption Entertainment
Budget: $160,000,000 (estimated)
Language: English
Length: 123mins
Sub-Genre: Action, Adventure, Sci-fi
