2014.
Formats
IMAX 3D.
Premise
In the Gareth Edwards version, humans unexpectedly awaken a flying monster, and brace themselves as it begins to destroy American West coast cities, with Godzilla chasing after it.
Loved
Full use of IMAX 3D scale.
Liked
Decent human characters, slow burn pace of revealing Godzilla.
Disliked
Tsunami scene.
Thoughts
Just on the verge of must-see status in IMAX 3D.
Director Gareth Edwards did a great job of using the Jaws approach to show off the main attraction; cleverly framing the monsters in a way that their immensity could not be contained by puny 3D IMAX large screens. The well-paced movie was filled with jaw-dropping CGI kaiju scenes. Edwards also found cool ways of keeping them hidden in rubble, dust, or plain sight. By never giving us a chance to see Godzilla in his entirety until the very end, when we finally see him in his gargantuan form, the sense of scale is truly realized.
The film makers honored the franchise's legacy in the reboot, by keeping the themes of Japan's painful history of nuclear devastation. In keeping with the 1954 original, the tone was serious without being pretentious, preachy, or hokey. It found a really good balance of disaster-porn and escapist summer fun. Also, kudos for destroying Hawaii, Las Vegas, and San Francisco, instead of the usual suspects.
Another way it honored the past was through Alexandre Desplat's excellent score; a modern take while shouting out to (Godzilla's first composer) Akira Ifukube's use of horns and drums.
Besides the bad-ass/charming CGI'd King of the Monsters, the cast was strong and characters were not lazy cardboard cutouts. Bryan Cranston and Elizabeth Olsen led the way by chewing up the scenery, including two "earn your paycheck" moments. Aaron Taylor-Johnson was solid as kind of the main character.
Sadly, Ken Watanabe's English remained distractingly broken. Also, it was a bummer that the female actresses, Olsen and Juliette Binoche got minimal screen time.
As mentioned earlier, there was some clever shots of hidden monsters, although it did lead to some wonky movie physics. The fact that the monsters can pick and choose when their footsteps are silent or earth-shattering was implausible at times.
But my biggest issue was the tsunami scene, which borderlined on bad taste. Godzilla embodied nuclear allegories. A tsunami in Hawaii only conjured real-life imagery of Fukushima, Japan, and South Asia disasters, losing the escapist quality the rest of the movie possessed.
I had a blast watching Godzilla thanks to the deft use of IMAX 3D screens and embracing the franchise's baggage into this reboot.
