I am Gojira, hear me snore

Rating: Null/10 (12 February 2015)

A dull film by Gareth Edwards, "Godzilla" opens in 1954, with the United States dropping an atomic bomb on a mysterious sea-creature. We then leap ahead fifty years. Here nuclear engineer Joe Brody (Bryan Cranston) witnesses the death of his wife (Juliette Binoche). This phony dramatic moment is hastily brushed aside in favour of yet another flash-forward. Here, fifteen years later, scientists, geologists and engineers attempt to ascertain the cause of various seismic anomalies. As Edwards' film is called "Godzilla", this is all tedious. We're ten steps ahead of you, Edwards. Get to the point.
But "Godzilla" has no point. An exercise in clichés – which Edwards pretentiously attempts to approach from what he thinks are "fresh" angles – the film's second half mostly watches as hazily rendered CGI monsters interact with collapsing buildings and lazily written soldiers. Holding this thin plot together is Ford Brody (Aaron Taylor), Joe's son, who is arbitrarily inserted into each of the film's major situations. Throw in offensively underwritten roles (Ken Watanabe, Elizabeth Olsen etc), Spielbergian father/son subplots, a tale which sidesteps all politics surrounding nuclear energy/usage, and several dull action sequences (why use bullets when atomic bombs did nothing 60 years prior?), and you have a truly rare beast: a film which makes Roland Emmerich look good.
3/10 – Worth no viewings. For better "giant monster" movies, see: "Pacific Rim", "Them!" (1954), "War of the Worlds" (2005), "Starship Troopers", "The Mist" and "The Host" (2006).