A good Godzilla film...but at the bottom of the good.

Rating: 6/10 (21 May 2014)

I am by far a very dedicated Godzilla fan. I own every film in the highest format available and have watched them all plenty of times.
I went into this movie excited, it looked RIGHT. The trailers were giving me a tone I could dig an I was interested to see what they did with it. Interestingly the trailer lured us all wrongfully on purpose which was fantastic! This interpretation of Godzilla goes back to an older way of looking at him, that of sort of an anti-hero. The concept is that instead of being created by the Atomic Bombs of Japan years ago, Godzilla is instead millions of years old and basically Earth's way of keeping the balance tipped away from other giant monsters (assumingly because back then, giant monsters ruined everything). In this sense, it's very reminiscent of the Showa Era of Godzilla. Which is where its weaknesses lie.
This film is just as slow, if not slower, than the Showa Era Godzilla films. There's a lot of (uninteresting) human character story, a lot of fight teasing, and just a very small amount of Godzilla until the final climax. Which would be fine except for two things. Firstly, the climax still doesn't give us enough giant monster fighting for my taste. Other Godzilla films, even if they have a heavy focus on the human element through the film, give us a climax of about a straight 10 minutes of nothing else happening except Godzilla kicking butt. This film STILL kept cutting back to the humans while everyone just wanted to see Godzilla vs. Muto.
Secondly, while it's VERY comparable to the Showa Era, that is my least favorite era of films.
Don't get me wrong though! It's still a GOOD Godzilla movie and all around a good movie. It's fun, funny, entertaining, at times jaw dropping and adrenaline pumping. It's well made and belongs right next to all of the Toho created films. As my title says, it's absolutely a good Godzilla movie. Without a doubt! I just would rank all of the other good Godzilla movies over it.
Definitely check it out and see if you may like it more than I do!