Having never seen any other Godzilla movies or TV shows, I had no idea what to expect with this newest installment. Based on the trailer, I got the feeling that it could almost be an unofficial prequel to Pacific Rim, which I suppose it still could be. The film begins with images of nuclear bomb “testing” and a huge…something with spikes on its back coming out of the water. Jump forward to the Philippines in 1999 when scientists find a massive skeleton with two egg shaped pods, one of which has hatched. Whatever was inside this egg made its way to the sea and to the Janjira nuclear power plant near Tokyo, Japan. This is where we meet Joe and Sandra Brody, along with their son, Ford. Joe and Sandra both work at Janjira and are at the plant when they start experiencing seismic activity which eventually leads to an explosion that collapses the plant. The destruction id blamed on an earthquake and the area is evacuated and quarantined. Jump forward again fifteen years when Joe is arrested for trespassing into the quarantine zone, forcing Ford to help him out. After some convincing, the father and son go back to Janjira only to find that something much bigger is going on. The plant has basically been incubating a monster, and it’s ready to hatch. Upon hatching, it reeks havoc on the plant, kills plenty of people, and flies away. On his way back to the US, Ford learns that this thing is labeled a MUTO (Massive Unidentified Terrestrial Organism) and it feeds off of radiation. Ford reveals that his father had been doing research and discovered that the MUTO had been using echolocation, meaning it was communicating with something else. That something else happens to be another MUTO, but the female. It escapes its temporary home and goes to meet its mate near San Francisco to breed. While the US Military ultimately fails to properly handle the situation, Godzilla finally makes his grand appearance and a huge battle ensues.
Throughout the film, as much as I liked it, I could easily predict each twist. They were terribly veiled, but luckily for me, that didn’t detract from my overall enjoyment. I felt the beginning was way too dragged out. I understand the importance of all the background information, but it took up a third of the movie and, in my opinion, that’s just too much. It didn’t help that I didn’t comprehend half of what was being said because of the scientific jargon. The average population isn’t going to understand fast-paced conversation about seismic patterns, echolocation, or radiation-eating creatures. I had to rely on context clues because I honestly had no idea what what going on. One thing I did understand was that these MUTOs fed on nuclear power. The US came up with a plan to destroy them with…you guessed it…a nuclear bomb. How that makes any sense in the world, I may never know. Their reasoning for this is that supposedly the blast is what should kill them, which makes a little bit of sense, but what if that doesn’t work? You just pumped three colossal beasts full of power and now you have nothing to fight them with. They already tried to kill Godzilla with nuclear weapons and it failed miserably. Godzilla himself was a sight to see. The CGI was absolutely gorgeous for him, and his spine-chilling roar is something that will haunt my dreams is a terrifyingly good way. The MUTO, however, I was a little disappointed with. They looked and sounded amazing too, but I couldn’t help but feel like they looked like a weird combination of a centaur and an Acklay of the Star Wars universe. I expected them to be more original. As I mentioned before, this could be an unofficial prequel to Pacific Rim. Godzilla and the MUTOs could easily be painted as some of the first Kaijus to come through, seeing as their exact origin in never touched on. If I’m going to be honest, this was really just a glorified alien-dinosaur battle, but an amazing one at that. Even though the trailer had my expectations set higher that what was met, I still loved it. I think more could have been done with the battle scenes, but what I saw was excellent. What draws me to movies like this is that it’s not your typical action/sci-fi movie. When you see an action film you expect humans doing all the fighting, and the “good” humans being the victors. In Godzilla, humans really did more harm than good, and it was Godzilla that came out relatively on top in an incredible fashion. I loved Elizabeth Olsen and Aaron Taylor-Johnson in this and their chemistry makes me even more excited to see them as brother and sister in next year’s Avengers: Age of Ultron. This is definitely one that needs to be seen on the big screen to get the full effect. Overall, I greatly enjoyed Godzilla and would give it a 7/10.
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