The Poster Doesn't Lie!

Rating: 4/10 (15 December 2018)

I have to preface this review by fessing up that I've never really been a Godzilla fan, though I don't mind occasionally watching out of curiosity some of the 50's Japanese incarnations of the big guy.
What I really don't get about this movie though is that it had a $160 million budget and yet we don't really get to see much of the big set action pieces, because they're all set at night and happen in near darkness. Have a look at the Godzilla poster. That'll give you an idea of what to expect. If your idea of fun is peering into a dark screen and imagining you can make out what is happening with the monster mash occurring, then you'll probably love it. I couldn't help myself from glancing at my watch.
BTW there are some human characters. It's almost fraud to say the movie features Juliette Binoche. She is criminally underused and only has a brief few scenes and in most of those she wears a radiation protection suit. Aaron-Taylor Johnson and Elizabeth Olsen play the perfunctory happily married couple with a cute kid, who are separated by the unfolding narrative and spend much of the remainder of the movie trying to reunite, in between dodging crashing skyscrapers. In truth they had far better back stories and stronger chemistry playing the sibling super heroes in Avengers: Age of Ultron. Ken Watanabe is on hand as a token Japanese character who has a perpetual worried look on his face.
In case anyone was wondering, for the umpteenth time in an SF film the Golden Gate Bridge cops a flogging again. And the odd tsunami (which has become THE go-to disaster vehicle of the 2010's) pops up to add extra havoc to the general goings on.
It's pretty obvious I was unimpressed with Godzilla. But I have to admit the big guy still has his rabid following around the world, especially in the Asian markets, which helped the film make a marginal profit.All I can say, is that these audiences are very easily satisfied by a very ordinary film.