A beautiful film that challenges your expectations

Rating: 10/10 (17 May 2014)

"The arrogance of man is to believe that he controls nature, not the other way around." So speaks Ken Watanabe's character in this movie, Godzilla 2014. It is a fantastic film, and it flies in the face of the philosophy of Godzilla 1998 and, more recently, Pacific Rim. The attitude of Godzilla 2014 towards its titular character is respectful. The story is not about "how do we kill the giant monster, yay mankind wins", so prevalent in our media today. No, it's about respect for nature, and how to make up for our own mistakes, and let nature take care of itself.
The trailer for this movie is one of the best trailers I have seen for some time, and it completely leads you off course to what the movie's about. You think that Godzilla's gonna be the bad guy, that the movie's about how we can elevate our mankind ego even more and kill him. The movie couldn't have steered further away from that trap. Godzilla fulfills a role that he does in the Japanese movies; a colossal guardian, answering the call whenever colossal threats arise that require his colossal touch to qualm.
The movie presents the age old tropes; the military's gonna nuke the threat to smithereens. But the events change the game drastically and Godzilla's left to do his job while the military, among which is our human main character, seek to prevent the damage they sought to use to wipe out the Threat. The Threat, I say, not Godzilla.
Godzilla 2014 left the biggest smile on my face. It's a movie whose attitude towards nature and monsters is to be commended, and which I would love to see more of. It's my favourite live action film of the decade.