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This film stars Bryan Cranston as Joe Brody as a former engineer who is obsessed with uncovering the mystery to the destruction of the nuclear plant he was working at that claimed his wife's life, he is also reluctantly joined by his son Ford (Aaron Taylor - Johnson). However what they uncover is something the government has been keeping a secret for many years; two monsters that can lay waste to the entire human race and one more that is a force of nature on to itself.
Well this film certainly had a lot of surprises and twists that I wasn't expecting when I first watched it and that is most of the time a good thing and Godzilla 2014 did it right for the most part. Firstly I guess I should touch first on the topic that split audiences down the middle on this film; the actual lack of Godzilla in a film called Godzilla. This was a really gutsy move because I know a lot of people saw this film and expected to see some kind of epic monster rumble that would last throughout most of the film. I have also seen the original Japanese Godzilla film and I know that Godzilla doesn't appear in that much either; it is all about the people dealing with Godzilla and I guess that is what they are trying to recreate here. For the most part they succeeded because I was never bored with the human elements in this film because I found their storylines interesting enough and engaging which could also be because of the great cast.
A great and compelling story is one of the most important elements in a creative work and action isn't important to make a great film; for example two of my favourite films are Wuthering Heights (1939) and Rebecca (1940) both staring Laurence Oliver who was one of the greatest actors in the world. Despite that I do feel cheated that there isn't a lot more of Godzilla and monster rumbles and that is because of two reasons. Firstly since this is the 2000s and not 1954 you expect that they should have put a lot more fighting in this because they can, take Pacific Rim for example which had a great story (almost manga like in my opinion) and they still gave us some awesome mech vs. monster battles. The second reason is because they kept teasing us with showdowns between Godzilla and the MUTOs too much; like when Godzilla and the male MUTO met at the airport and we didn't see it. However the final fight does make up for a lot of it because it was just that damn epic.
They do give you some backstory on Godzilla, that there was a race of giant creatures that once feasted on the planet's radiation, but I think they wanted to create an air of mystery around this colossal force of nature so instead they focused on the two MUTOs. I do like the story they gave with the MUTOs that they feed off radiation to reproduce and that the male was reasonable for all the death at the beginning at that Japanese power plant, effectively making it the bad guy right off the bat lol. As for the MUTOs design it is really creative because unlike most of the monsters from the old Godzilla films (Motha or Rodan) they look really alien. Sure you can compare them to insects more than anything else but I will say again they are really unique in their looks and colouring etc. It was interesting how they gave us a male and female and that the male is smaller but has the ability to fly while the female is a lot more bigger.
However whether or not you are a fan of how they treated Godzilla in this or the MUTO creatures you can't deny that they visual effects for them where just epic. Godzilla truly looked like a force of nature more than ever before, I mean the sheer size of him when he appeared really makes you think he earned the "God" in Godzilla. Not to mentioned the CGI looked absolutely perfect because that is definitely how I expected Godzilla to look and him and the two MUTOs looked so realistic; honestly I can really picture this stuff happening in real life. Godzilla definitely looks more like it's Japanese counterpart along with the awesome roar that they gave him which sounds close to the original too. Then we have all of the destruction caused by Godzilla and the MUTOs and none of it looked fake at all which is again a nod to the great CGI and I am someone who prefers practical effects.
Lastly we have the human cast which most of the film revolves around and I could have been really annoyed it did, like with the Transformers films. However unlike Transformers the humans in this film don't fill the screen time with a lot of meaningless dry humour and irrelevant subplots that no one even cares about. Take Byran Cranston for example who was just such a terrific actor in this especially at the beginning when he lost his wife and his obsession with finding out the truth. I really wished he was the main character throughout the whole film instead of the first quarter; I think they where giving us a twist we didn't expect but they built up his character so much with excellent scenes and dialogue that it might have been a bad move. Then there is Aaron Taylor - Johnson and I have been a fan of his since Kickass so I liked seeing him in this despite being overshadowed slightly by Cranston. I do enjoy his story of trying to get home to his family because through his perspective we got to see the destruction of major cities and several missions with the military.
Overall do I wish that Godzilla and the two MUTOs could have fought each other more; yes. However I just enjoyed the special effects and the human element so much, everything from Byran Cranston trying to learn the truth, Aaron Taylor - Johnson trying to get home and Ken Watanabe with the military. As I mentioned above I was not bored watching any of it and since I have got the film on DVD I would gladly watch it over and over again.
As I said at the beginning this was just a mostly spoiler free review because I just wanted to get back into reviewing films. Besides I might just make all my future film reviews spoiler free because they are longer to talk about than TV series.
SCORE: 8/10
Highlights: Godzilla and MUTO
Truly epic special effects
Great human story and perfect casting
Let - Downs: They gave us a lot of expectation and teases of some epic clash of monsters but only the ending of the film delivered on that
Should have had a lot more Byran Cranston
The great screenshots of the episodes where provided by the great site Screencapped. You can look for yourself from the link below;
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