Godzilla (2014)

RATING: B

Now here's something that some folks may have been hoping never to see again after the 1998 film featuring the famed Tokyo monster. I haven't seen that film myself, but apparently it was pretty bad. Not being horribly familiar with Godzilla, outside of the basic myths/legends/descriptions, I watched this film somewhat unsure of what to expect, besides watching a giant lizard monster destroy things. 

Well, let's start right off the bat by saying that the premise of this film doesn't heavily involve Godzilla--there's two other monsters involved in this film. Some giant radiation-eating creatures that look like sort of a cross between a spider, a bat, and a cyborg, as a matter of fact. They're actually the main subject early on, as they awaken after being kept in containment for fifteen years. And start wreaking chaos and havoc.

And *that's* when Godzilla emerges--about an hour into the film. Yup, it's true--for a Godzilla film, there's actually not much of Godzilla on screen. Basically, he's an alpha predator of these two creatures, and he's coming to restore balance to nature. 

A scientist in the film puts it this way: "The arrogance of man is thinking is that nature is in *our* control...and not the other way around. Let them fight." 

Basically, we get to watch some monsters duke it out in the style of Pacific Rim (only without the Transformers-like robots)--mostly in San Francisco, oddly enough. Tokyo receives some destruction, but San Francisco is laid almost completely to waste. 

In some regards, this isn't the best movie. The story isn't the best, and the characters are quite thin. We do receive an emotional moment early on, but it's not capitalized in the story very much, and the one important character you actually kind of care about gets forgotten. And we end up getting kind of a weird ending of sorts. 

What is there to like about this movie, though? There's still plenty. For the action junkies like myself, it's fun watching Godzilla and the other two monsters duke it out. There's quite a bit of destruction as well that's fun to watch. The production values are brilliant as well--the camera angles, visual effects, and the music are all spectacular. 

Godzilla is perhaps not a movie for everyone. If you were hoping to watch Godzilla destroy everything for almost the entire movie, you're out of luck. If you're hoping for a thoughtful action flick, it may just depend on your taste. Overall, though, it's definitely worth watching for its action sequences and production values.