Gadzooks, it's GOOD Godzilla!

Rating: 6/10 (28 May 2014)

Well, I hoped this would be a better movie than the 3D POMPEII, and my wish was granted - but only just. As with recent superhero movies - this, I guess, is a super-villain movie! - the writer and director have gone for a re-vamp. And they give us GOODzilla, helping humanity fight the giant bat-like dinosaurs who energise themselves by destroying nuclear power plants and digesting missiles. A lower-case wow.
Leading man Aaron Taylor-Johnson), not unlike the hero of the new/ancient POMPEII, is a low-rent version of Channing Tatum, and the script doesn't manage to layer any charisma on him or his wife (Elizabeth Olsen). The performances here are not even up to TV-movie standards.
Roland Emmerich's 1998 version of GODZILLA came in for a lot of flak from fans of the original clunky Japanese monster mash-ups of the 1950s, but the Emmerich film had more characters and a much busier storyline than this one. Today's GODZILLA, despite 3D and acres of CGI, is too obviously pitched, like the TRANSFORMERS series, at the toy-shop franchise. More thrilling than POMPEII, yes, but not much that's new here. A special-effects-laden package that turns out not to be very special at all.