When I first heard they were going to make a new Godzilla, I thought here we go again. I mean, I don`t trust these remakes as far as I can throw them because most often than not, they screw it up. So let's break it down, shall we?
The movie begins with some 'historical' footage of people nuking things - am talking mushroom cloud kind of nuking. Fast forward years later to 1999 where Dr. Serizawa and his team are flown into the Philippines because a mine they were digging at caved in and they found some fossils and a weird looking cocoon thing hanging from the ceiling of the cave. Around that same time, Joe Brody (Bryan Cranston - Walter from Breaking Bad) his wife and son live in Japan--a place called Janjira. He has a job like Homer Simpson at a nuclear power plant in Japan - and incidentally he works there with his wife and he's been picking up some strange readings--sorta like aftershocks from earthquakes and they're getting bigger, more forceful--to make matters worse, they're picking up major EMP interference. All hell breaks lose when something cause the power plant to be destroyed, killing Joe's wife and most of the people working at the plant.
Now skip ahead fifteen years, Joe's son Ford is all grown up (played by Aaron Johnson - Kick-Ass from Kick-Ass), a high ranking soldier in the army with a wife, Elle (Elizabeth Olsen - yes she's sisters with the twins). He just gets home when he gets a call telling him his father was arrested for trespassing in the quarantined zone - Janjira. Now Ford has to go back to Japan to save his father and somehow gets talked into going back to the quarantined zone. Soon, the two are caught up in a game of cat and mouse with two large cockroaches looking monsters and a Godzilla on the hunt.
For the beginning of the new Godzilla was slow. While I understood why it was like that, I couldn't help sitting there thinking, wow--it needs to move on already. About forty five minutes in, things picks up. Though it leaves some confusion as to where they're going with the story. While there are some things, militarily that would never go over well with the real military and the soldiers never once saluted or stood at attention when their superiors entered a space - that I found a little problematic. Why? Whoever research military procedures really screwed up on that end. There were a few times when I thought someone didn't fact-check a few things and other times when I wondered what the point of a scene was for they carried the story to a certain point then merely let it go and you're left wondering. There were a few times I found I was laughing with my friend because of something that probably wasn't meant to be funny. A few times everyone one else in the theatre erupted in laughter as well.
The movie was great - if you look past the typical nit-picking that I'm doing with this movie. I mean what movie doesn't have some continuity/scripting issues? The graphics were stellar, the monsters, the crushed buildings--it was so real. The acting was amazing. I was very happy to see Bryan Cranston playing the role of Joe Brody. The new spin of the Godzilla monster was something I welcomed, even found myself cheering for the him. Aside from a few Godzilla fat jokes but that as it. Sitting there, watching the newly designed model tear ass from Japan to San Francisco, I was positively giddy.
All in all I had a great time with this movie aside from the typical. If you want a good, kinda scary, plenty of eye-candy movie with monsters galore, then check this movie out. If you're obsessive compulsive about military procedures then you may want to skip it but everyone else - you will enjoy GODZILLA!
Hugs,
Kato
