Cinematically great, decent storytelling

Rating: 8/10 (6 June 2014)

When going in to see this film, you need to realize one thing: Godzilla is just one character of several in this film and he has a supporting role. If you realize this -- and thus that it's not a monster movie -- you will enjoy this film much more.
The key strengths of this film are that the cinematography is great (the halo jump especially). From the opening credits to the end, my eyes -- and ears -- were never bored. This does help make up for the decent story. It's not magical and various characters come and go faster than you will like, making the continuity a little annoying by constantly shifting your focus. But it isn't blatantly horrible like typical big budget monster films.
Because of this I gave the film an 8 (willing to watch it again, but don't feel the need to own it).