An Excellent Return to the Godzilla's Roots

Rating: 8/10 (20 May 2014)

This is the Godzilla movie I was hoping I would see back in 1998, when Roland Emmerich's entry into the franchise was released. This time around, director Gareth Edwards took all the best aspects of his 2010 indie Monsters and a healthy respect for the original Godzilla films to create what is easily this generation's Jurassic Park. In fact, the first quarter of the film was incredibly reminiscent of the opening of Michael Crichton's book, which focused heavily on several characters trying to figure out where these strange, unidentifiable creatures were coming from.
Unlike Emmerich's ode to Michael Bay-stylized vapidness, Edwards managed to pack a surprising amount of soul into a movie about prehistoric monsters using skyscrapers to beat the crap out of each other. While Emmerich's version had a cast full of talented actors, the writing was so god-awful that there wasn't much for the cast to do but stand there and look surprised as New York was leveled. This time around, Bryan Cranston, Aaron Johnson, Ken Watanabe, David Strathairn, and Elizabeth Olsen have a well-crafted script to work off of, which makes the film all that much stronger because the audience has the chance to actually care about the people whose world is literally being rocked.
With an actual plot, fully-realized characters, and a never-ending sense of tension throughout, Godzilla is the best in its genre since 2008's excellent (but polarizing) Cloverfield.