Better than Ferris Bueller's version

Rating: 7/10 (29 October 2014)

Godzilla is a remake of the 1998 Godzilla film starring Matthew Broderick, which is a remake of the 1956 Godzilla: King of the monsters which itself is a reworking of the 1954 classic Godzilla directed by Ishiro Honda.
Out of the above mentioned films the new Godzilla is definitely better than the 1998 version which was a disappointment upon its release. The new Godzilla goes back to the roots of the iconic monster, taking inspiration from the 1954 film in both its depiction of Godzilla where instead of keeping the story on Godzilla himself it instead brings the focus of the film to the people and how they are affected by the emergence of a giant radioactive lizard, the other throwback being the social commentary about the use of nuclear bomb, which I felt was cleverly updated to feel relevant today.
In the film Brian Cranston plays a scientist who believes that something bad is going to happen as a result of nuclear testing done in Japan, but his theories are dismissed by the scientific world and he is called a 'crackpot' by others. It is only after monsters start appearing that his son (a bomb defuser for the navy seals) played by Aaron Taylor-Johnson and others start to believe him, but by this point it is too late and the world has a couple of radio-active monsters to worry about.
The film has a much more grounded take on Godzilla than the past films which is why the story is told through the perspective of the humans and how they plan to overcome the current disaster, which leads to interesting choices in terms of the direction of the film. Speaking of the direction I believe that Gareth Edwards direction is the highlight of the film and saves it from turning into something like Pacific Rim, the scenes in the film are very well constructed and I was particularly impressed by the introduction of Godzilla in a draw dropping shot.
My main issue with the film would be the way Gareth Edwards teased Godzilla in two scenes where the audience believes they were going to see some monster fighting but the scenes just cut away to something less exciting, which I understand goes with the decision to make the film human based, but it does leave the climax underwhelming as it cannot live up to the hype that is previously established.
I do believe that this is probably Godzilla's best American outing but it doesn't live up to the original Ishiro Honda version. This is definitely worth watching as long as you don't go in expecting to see only Godzilla destroying cities.