Review of Godzilla (2014) by Ben B — 02 Jun 2016

Godzilla is a giant monster thriller-drama starring Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Ken Watanabe, Elizabeth Olsen, and Bryan Cranston. The focus of the film is on two new monsters that have emerged who wreak havoc wherever they go, and the human population does everything it can to stop them.

There are a lot of things that work with this movie. The visual effects of Godzilla and the other monsters are fantastic; the detail put into this movie is very apparent. Also, the score works very well for such an epic.

I really appreciated how the writers incorporated the two previous American-made Godzilla movies into this one - it's not a reboot, but a continuation of movies from 1955 and 1998. However, one doesn't need to have seen the two previous Godzilla films to follow what's going on in this 2014 version.

The story itself is as good as I expected a movie about giant monsters to be; there was nothing distractingly awful about it. Unfortunately, despite all of the things going for it, Godzilla suffers from a serious lack of acting talent.

Bryan Cranston is the only actor with any chops in the entire film. Aaron Taylor-Johnson's lifeless performance completely took me out of the movie, especially in scenes with his father (Cranston).

Ken Watanabe just stared off into the distance with a face of shock the entire time. Elizabeth Olsen was Elizabeth Olsen. The lack of quality acting destroyed any potential sympathetic feelings the audience should have towards the victims of the destruction.

On a side note, a lot of people complain about the lack of screen time for Godzilla. I will admit that Godzilla doesn't appear as often as one would like, but it was nice to not rely on its presence to make a good film.

I only wish we saw it a little sooner than 55 minutes into this 2-hour movie (I checked). That being said, the action sequences when Godzilla fought the monsters were really freaking cool. I'm not planning on watching this movie again, but if you enjoy the character of Godzilla and the lore surrounding it, it's probably worth your time.

Just prepare to endure some painful acting.