Review of Godzilla (2014) by Greg L — 27 Apr 2015

Disappointing. The movie had no center, which was odd given the significant number of well-known actors who appeared in it. There was an awful lot of "standing around and looking very serious" with significant portions of the story happening for no apparent reason (the entire segment with Bryan Cranston and Juliet Binoche was ultimately a waste of time and hardly necessary for the meager "origin story" behind Aaron Taylor-Thomas' character, Ford Brody.

Were we supposed to care about Brody, his journey and his family? I found the character and (the performance) to be a black-hole in terms of carrying the plot forward; perfunctory at best. This all would have been forgivable if the action of the film (i.e. the monsters) had not been so frequently sidelined by (a) the aforementioned boring characters (b) night sequences that left the critters lurching around in the darkness.

Perhaps most frustrating was that there was clearly the makings of a much better film in here. I love Sally Hemings, David Strathairn, Ken Watanabe, Binoche and Cranston, but one wonders if less had been spent on an over-qualified cast, there would have been more opportunity to give screen time to the film's real star.