There's a monster that is making seismic shifts in the ocean... and coming up to land. No, wait, there are TWO monsters! But then there is a third... only this one is different, and is less interested in messing up humanity's s*** (maybe some other time, though it's hinted at for sure). This time it's about a fight... As for the humans...
Gareth Edwards' Godzilla is average blockbuster stuff, with a boring mid section, mildly engaging but still drab climax with a few - it must be said very and gigantic - impressive special effects, and a strong first act highlighted by a very entertaining Bryan Cranston performance, who almost feels like part of another, better Godzilla movie we won't get to see. Aside from his enjoyable over the top acting, his character was the most interesting as far as exploring the mystery and even mythology behind these Radioactive beasts.
And then he just leaves the movie, for reasons that should be obvious, and we are stuck with... Ken Watnabe as the lamest scientist I've seen in a while (he is there in the role, but he's one-note), David Strathairn relegated to being a military stiff, a usually decent Aaron Taylor Johnson doing passable work as the stone cold hero (he even saves a would-be short round!), and is mostly like everyone else left to spew out clichés, and Elizabeth Olson is good and believable, for the few minutes she's allowed screen time to hit the same concerned mother-wife notes.
I mention all the actors because it's clear that Gareth Edwards, who previously made the low-fi fifteen grand movie Monsters that did a lot with so little, has assembled a top shelf cast and has a massive budget to work with. But the script he is working with is just too rote, what we've seen in other, sillier, dare I say better Godzilla movies of yore. Lets see: monsters of some radioactive hidden origin come up, as does the big bad green one himself, and they duke it out in a city. Only this time why have any fun with your cast when such dreadful things like radioactive creatures and such? Why not make it look drab and gray and ugly as possible?
There are little things to like about the movie, aside from the aforementioned Cranston acting, such as a small set piece right before the third act gets into the swing of things where soldiers fall out from a plane seen from afar in red streaks and the scene is scored to the same space-flight music by Ligeti in 2001: A Space Odyssey. And, to be sure, sure the special effects, when they aren't obscured inside of TV frames or in darkness, are impressive. Hell, when Godzilla does take up space and becomes large and in charge, for a few minutes here and there, it's engaging. Yet I can't look over how the results are just too same old same old, and on the flip side I don't think Edwards and company get us invested enough in the humans. It's a given that it's a step-up from the last time, in 1998 with Roland Emmerich, Hollywood tackled Japan's Big One. I just wish it had more... something to it, like characters.
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