Return of the King

Rating: 9/10 (9 December 2018)

Ive long been a Godzilla fan, Ive seen almost every movie and the original one from 1954 still hails as a classic in my opinion and while there was some things that could have been done better in this movie, I still feel like this movie was/is one of the best movies of 2014 and marked a successful return for the King to America. Yeah, some could say that holding Godzilla back until roughly an hour in was sort of a letdown as well as killing off Brian Cranston(the only actor who seemed to give a **** the entire film) but this film mostly suffered from what I felt like was under-developed characters and over-all a somewhat too "human centered" movie. Taylor-Johnson is passable and Olsen is also enjoyable but other than Cranston, Hawkins, Strathairn and Watanabe the movie could have benefited from a better lead actor who could take command of the screen while not feeling like such an emotionless rock someone like Chris Pratt, Matt Damon (doubt he would do it) or even a Tom Hardy would have been much better suited for the role than Aaron Johnson. Yes, showing the human side of Godzilla's path of destruction is a much needed quality to these movies but not to the extent of giving your title character around 24 minutes of TOTAL screen time(+small appearances in the beginning) which is why I didn't have an issue with it. But on the flip side, most of the movie showed the humans being stupid and trying to nuke Godzilla(who feeds off nuclear fallout) and the MUTOs, the entire human aspect of the film could have been done alot better then the simple "lets nuke em" approach. The fight scene towards the end really made the movie for me as a whole and the final appearance by Godzilla was glorious as well. All in all, I feel like this movie was very well done. Say what you want about Godzilla's screen time but you can definitely feel his presence being felt as they cleverly took a page out of classic movies like "Jaws," and "Jurassic Park" at holding their biggest and baddest monster back, allowing you to feel his presence off screen before unleashing him onscreen.