Very Disappointing

Rating: 6/10 (17 May 2014)

*Mild Plot Spoilers* What an utter disappointment this film was. Been looking forward to it forever and the final result is a movie where the Main Character (Godzilla) is handed something that feels like an extended cameo role.
Aaron Taylor John-son is a weak lead character here and the amount of time the film spends on him means this film gets boring fast. Bryan Cranston would of been a much stronger lead but he is wasted in this film. Elizabeth Olsen who plays Aaron Taylor-Johnson's wife literally has no reason to be in this film, nothing she says or does is memorable.
The story itself is competent, Bryan Cranston works at Nuclear Plant in Japan, an apparent Earthquake destroys the plant and leads to the death of his wife. Cut to 15 years later and Aaron Taylor John-son(Bryan Cranston's son) is a Nuclear Warhead Disposal expert who has just returned from a tour of duty somewhere. Bryan Cranston is obsessed with finding out the truth of what caused the destruction of the Plant which results to him being arrested. From here the movie tries to build as much anticipation as possible and it succeeds...for a while but after nearly an hour of trying to get us to care for bland, clichéd characters it becomes boring.
Ken Watanabe plays a scientist who is seemingly on the trail of Godzilla and after a certain event involving MUTO he explains to Aaron Taylor-Johnson about Godzilla. As you've probably seen in trailers the Nuclear tests of the 1950'S were an attempt to kill him but those failed...the movie then fails to explain why they seemingly stopped trying to kill Godzilla and let him swim the oceans unhindered and without any attempts at tracking him. When the MUTO threat becomes very real Ken Watanabe's character somehow knows that Godzilla will come to stop it despite the fact that the movie leads you to believe that Godzilla hasn't been seen since the 1950's.
The biggest flaws of this film is its insistence on focusing on the Human drama and only showing you the aftermath rather than the action. The first time Godzilla is shown in full he is about to confront MUTO but instead of seeing a great monster battle the film then cuts to Elizabeth Olsen and her son who is watching a news report of the battle the next day. We get to see maybe 5 seconds of Godzilla and MUTO engaged in Battle in this news report and that's it. Then MUTO is about to wreck havoc on Las Vegas and ...cut to to the aftermath. The final battle also focuses more on the Soldiers, who have their own mission to complete whilst Godzilla and MUTO fight it out in the background.
When the end credits rolled I was more than a little underwhelmed by what I had just watched.