Review: Godzilla

Review: Godzilla (2014)

Director: Gareth Edwards

Principal Cast Members: Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Bryan Cranston, Elizabeth Olsen and Godzilla (duh!!)

Reboots are one of the most prominent features of recent blockbuster cinema, one which often faces stern (and perhaps warranted) criticism but Godzilla is a rare beast, a reboot that is not only better then the previous film but one that eclipses all those painful memories. It's true that it wouldn't of taken much to have bettered Roland Emmerich's monstrosity but thankfully Gareth Edwards manages to both successfully reboot the franchise but also manages to make a great monster movie while he's at it. It's fair to say that the monster movie has been pretty much dead in recent years but Edwards continues the revival he started with Monsters, only this time he has a considerably bigger budget to play with and boy does he play. While we have got used to cities been leveled, Edwards manages to make it feel refreshing as well as keeping the action spectacular and personal at the same time. While he has an impressive cast to work with you can't help thinking that money could have been saved by hiring less known actors to do a similar job. That's not saying that the cast do anything wrong, it's just they don't really have much to work with. Elizabeth Olsen, Ken Watanabe and Sally Hawkins are all wasted in effectively exposition roles. Thankfully the main attraction of the film makes up for that. While Edwards revels in the reveal, you don't get to properly see Godzilla until late on in the film, when we do finally see him he looks glorious and becomes a character all in himself. I also must congratulate the marketing team for actually keeping a lot of the films secrets secret (thus making my job harder) so there's little more I can say about some of the most impressive aspects of the film. We can now truly say that the monster movie is truly back in the spotlight and hopefully can bring the monster movie back to the blockbuster.