Smashes Emmerich's lizard. Hooray?

Rating: 6/10 (12 August 2014)

There is a fantastic moment in this film, already spoiled in trailers and posters, with parachutists launching over a ravaged metropolis, their red flares streaking the dark sky, monsters glimpsed through clouds and smoke. It's marvellous stuff, the only truly electrifying scene in the picture.
Gareth Edwards follows his debut Monsters, a fine-looking movie with a mediocre script, with his new version of Godzilla, a great-looking movie with an average script.
See, humongous CGI beasts trashing up a city can be visually striking, but need a strong human element to underpin them. Godzilla appears to provide it in the form of Bryan Cranston's obsessed scientist Brody (Jaws reference duly noted), a fairly interesting lead who gets dispatched one-third into the picture to be replaced with his stoic G.I. Joe son (Aaron Taylor-Johnson), as generic as blockbuster protagonists get, the son's pretty nurse wife (Elizabeth Olsen) and their inevitable little kid. It's tedious stuff, and no amount of visual spectacle can turn a boilerplate script into some popcorn masterpiece.
The great Ken Watanabe gets to spout exposition and look awed a lot, while Juliette Binoche gets to die within a minute of screen time.
Well, at least it's no Roland Emmerich's Godzilla, I'll give it that.
6,5/10