Film Review: Godzilla

Director: Gareth Edwards

The recently released blockbuster is another re-booting of the famous monster franchise, this time it was British director Gareth Edwards who scored with his debut movie Monsters. An impressive cast was also pulled together with Ken Watanabe, Aaron Johnson and Bryan Cranston hot off the success of Breaking Bad. The film was produced on a budget of $160 million in the hope of turning a good profit and possibly setting up a a sequel.

In 1999, Project Monarch scientists Ishiro Serizawa (Ken Watanabe) and Vivienne Graham (Sally Hawkins) investigate a strip mine in the Philippines where a colossal skeleton and two egg-shaped pods are discovered. One hatched and escaped to the sea. In Japan, plant supervisor Joe Brody (Bryan Cranston) sends his wife Sandra and a team into the core to check the sensors after seismic activity. When the team is inside, an explosion occurs, threatening to release radiation to the outside. Sandra and her team are unable to escape, and the plant collapses into ruin. Fifteen years later and Joe is still trying to find answer as to what caused his wife's death.

The destruction caused in Hawaii

This was like a Hollywood blockbuster version of the cheap Syfy disaster movies that are often released, Mega Python V Gatoroid being just one example. But the redeeming feature of those movies is that they don't take themselves seriously which is more than can be said about this incarnation of Godzilla. The premise descends into farcical proportions by the end and with a script ridden with the usual corny cliché lines from these movies its hard to take it seriously at all.

Bryan Cranston does his best with what he has here and is helped able by an impressive cast who don't really do much wrong. But if you have a poor plot and script it doesn't matter who you get to star in your movie. The special effects do help to save this film with some impressive shots especially the scene where the troopers parachute into the city with the red flares. But beyond this the early promise drawn on by Joe Brody uncovering the mystery is washed away with a shockingly poor second half.

1/4 Reasonable opening act completely falls away into a farcical finale