Is the big guy back with a roar or a whimper?

Rating: 7/10 (21 May 2014)

It was always going to be a task of kaiju-sized proportions. After Roland Emmerich's (perhaps unfairly) maligned shot at Godzilla in 1998 – his titular lizard reduced to the disparaging title of 'Godzilla-in-name-only' by many fans – it took almost twenty years before an American studio would again have its hands on one of the biggest stars of Eastern cinema. So do Gareth Edwards (Monsters) and his bang-up cast do the monster justice? The answer is a resoundingsort of.
Fifteen years after losing his wife in a freak accident in Japan, engineer Joe Brody (Bryan Cranston) enlists the help of his army lieutenant son Ford (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) to break into the site of the mishap – now designated as a quarantine zone – to learn how she really died. Finding the zone to be completely non-toxic, he stumbles upon a giant cocoon housing a MUTO (Massive Unidentified Terrestrial Organism). When the creature escapes and begins scouring the world to mate with more of its kind, it is up to Godzilla to awake from his ancient slumber and restore balance to the earth.
As far as holiday blockbusters go, this is about as unconventional as they come. Short of seeing giant monsters rumbling in the concrete jungle, forget every other plot point you might expect going in, because chances are things won't pan out that way. The film takes virtually every convention of the typical monster movie and tips it on its head. For instance, Godzilla is neither hero nor villain; his actions are totally selfish; and, in a refreshing change of pace, he has no beef with us humans, even though we give him every reason to squash us into oblivion. We're not bearing witness to an Oscar-winning screenplay in mid-May by any means, but Edwards earns top marks for trying his very best to deliver something truly original.
Speaking of original, this iteration of Godzilla stays infinitely more faithful to his Japanese ancestor than G.I.N.O's go-round. It's out with the lanky arms, lean legs and love of fine seafood, and back in with the humanoid physique, tail whip and atomic breath, the latter of which paves the way for the film's most gleeful fatality.
It's only fair that human characters should take a back seat in a mega movie like this, but even this top-notch cast can't lift the laziness of their characters. Both Cranston and Ken Watanabe's kaiju expert are criminally underused for entirely different reasons, leaving Taylor-Johnson with the impossible task of breathing life into the film's most boring character.
As for the beasties, some may approve of the slow-burn reveal – Godzilla himself chills out for almost two-thirds of the runtime before appearing in full form – harking back to classic cryptids like Jaws, Alien and Predator, but before you know it, the climactic fight is over and the big guy barely even feels like the star of his own movie. It's almost as if they're planning for him show up again sometime soon. Oh wait
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