Inspired by the original ...

Rating: 7/10 (29 August 2014)

Overall I would say it's a solid movie - not epic or as good as it could be, but enjoyable if you don't dislike disaster movies on principle. The part I liked most was that it leans quite a bit on the early movies by giving Godzilla a character and depicting him as something with purpose. This allowed them also to play a bit with the question of who is in charge, man or nature and use it as a subtle theme that is driven to the obvious conclusion. What I didn't like about it was the overall pacing and the special effects. The first half is really good and had a good mixture of story, Godzilla and top-notch acting. But the 2nd half contains too many elements of the usual disaster movies with a dragged out climax that failed to deliver because of rather poor CGI work. It could be that I'm spoiled from other productions but too much of the scenes were put during night time and you had a hard time to see what's going on, also the CGI during daylight lacked depth in texture and integration into the environment. With a bit more story and utilizing the actors more in the second half, it would have distracted me from the shortcomings and made them less obvious - that's why I think it could have been better but it is still an entertaining movie.