Surprisingly good

Rating: 8/10 (16 May 2014)

I don't like this genre, and had low expectations for this movie, but by God(zilla) this movie was good. The disaster and monster scenes were spectacular.
The pacing and plot were OK. The movie held my interest. Some of it was surprising. There were a few breathtaking scenes. My one true groan was when Brody told his wife he would come to rescue them. Yeah, right.
The cinematography in the non-CGI scenes was noticeably good.
I liked the Japanese theme of much of the movie.
I thought the writers and directors (and especially Bryan Cranston, who's brilliant) did a good job in injecting the story with a human element To me, the movie had an appealingly earnest feel to it, although at times I felt the pull on the heart strings was a little too obvious.
Much of the movie consists of scenes involving the American military, including an awesome halo jump. The military is presented here as heroic and competent. There were remarkably few groans about this.
Aaron Taylor-Jones surprised me. He was cast against type, in my view. (Was that on purpose?) For one thing, he's just too young for this role. Yet he did a fairly good job playing the stalwart hero. And he's certainly easy on the eyes. I'd say that he carries this movie successfully. I particularly liked the scene in the nest, but I won't spoil it.
This movie has led me to think that I might enjoy movies in the future with Taylor-Jones in it, something I didn't think before. In this movie, he's sort of like the beautiful guy you can't help falling in love with even though you know he's an arrogant narcissist who's just going to be a lot of work.
I'd give it around 8. I can't say I was moved at any point. This movie is better than the other "giant destroyer" movies out there. (But really I wish movie makers would just give up on these city-destroying movies. 9/11 was 14 years ago. We've processed it already.) Oh yes, one final thing: I wish they had called this movie Gojira rather than Godzilla.