Well it has finally came to this, the final day of "Godzilla Week 2014". On this day I'll be taking a look at the new Godzilla film. It ain't just a new Godzilla film oh no, no, no. What I am reviewing is the beginning of the new era of Godzilla films in which I like to dub "Rebirth Era". So ladies and guys dressed up as ladies, we are going out in a bang... Or will it be a flop?

Godzilla opens up with a flashback to the 1950's to where we see a bunch of soldiers trying to take out Godzilla with a bomb in an reference to "Godzilla (1954)". We then cut to the year 1999 where we see a group of scientist inspecting a giant skeleton of a monster only to find that it is full of eggs. One of eggs in that skeleton looks to have hatched and that has them all worried. Shortly after we cut to Japan to where we are introduced to Joe Brody (played by Bryan Cranston of "Malcolm in the Middle (2000 - 2006)" and "Breaking Bad (2008 - 2013)" fame) who is on his way to work at a Japanese nuclear power plant (D'oh) with his wife (not named Marge). Everything is going fine until something big and mysterious attacks the plant and gets a lot of people killed (including his wife). Fifteen years have passed to where we cut to Joe's dude-bro(dy) son named Ford (played by Aaron Taylor-Johnson of "Kick-Ass (2010) fame).  Ford is an army soldier who has just returned to his wife and kid only to get a call from Japan saying that his father has been put in prison... Sadly this is all the preview space that I am allowed to have before I get an angry E-mail from "You Know Who". (Click "Read More" to read the full review).





Ford heads off to Japan to bail out his father only to hear that he has an obsession with trying to figure out what took out the plant and killed his wife.  Joe and Ford both head off to the ruins of the nuclear power plant to find that a group of scientist conducting secret experiments on an giant egg. During the experiment the egg hatches to reveal a monster named MUTO (that looks like a modern day version of Battra) that causes havoc and flies off to Hawaii.  Ford is sent off to Hawaii with his dude-bro call of duty team to hunt down MUTO but from deep in the ocean Godzilla appears to join the party in the only way he knows how... Naked, trimmed, wet, and ready to kick some ass.

The story in this one tries to keep the original spirit of the original "Godzilla (1954)" and it does it quite decently but that's up until the second act of the film begins to where it mutates into something else. The story on the second act onwards turns into something inspired by "Godzilla Vs. Mothra: Battle for Earth (1992)", "Godzilla (1998)", and "Predator (1987)". I know, I know, just mentioning the 1998 Godzilla film is enough to turn people off in an instant. This film does copy some things that was done in that film but they did it much better in this film. This film also has a rougher edge to it just like how somebody gets into playing guitar years after they stopped playing and their skills are a little rusty.  This problem should be fixed by the next Godzilla film.

Characters in this film were half and half. I did really enjoy some of them but there are a whole bunch of human characters in this film that were generic with no personality much like the dude-bro soldiers. A problem I did have with this film is that they focused way too much on the human characters to where I was like "Come on and get to the monsters already". The acting in this film was alright but it did get a little stale during some scenes but it's really not all that different from the acting in all the other Godzilla films.

The monsters in this film looked alright and were very big and menacing but I did find the 3D models to look a little dated and could've been a bit better. The fight scenes were pretty good with some nice exciting action. They weren't perfect though as there were some spots that were a bit flat. A thing I didn't like about the filming is that they only shot the monsters through the point of view of the people watching them so throughout the movie you'll only see them like you were looking straight up at them. The humans also got in the way during the fight scenes as to when you see them going for a huge attack the film cuts to the dude-bro soldiers and it got a little annoying.

Special effects (outside of the monsters) looked alright although I haven't really got anything much to say about them as they weren't good or bad enough to warrant saying anything interesting. The sets in this film were a bit dark with every day time scene being on a cloudy day and all the night time scenes being... Well I think I don't need to explain how night time works. I didn't have a problem with the day scenes but the night scenes are a bit tricky to watch when there is light in the room but nothing on the scale of darkness that made "Alien Vs. Predator 2 (2007)" and "Highlander: The Source (2007)" near impossible to make out what's going on (damn 2007 was a year for dark films).

Overall while this film was problematic it is also very watchable and is a huge improvement over the 1998 film. This film isn't the best we have seen out of the Godzilla series but it also isn't the worst and if I had to rank it along with the other Godzilla films then I'd have to put it in the dead center. I do recommend seeing this film on a night where movie tickets are cheaper than normal (like how we have cheap Tuesdays here in Australia) but if you don't see this in cinemas then this one would make a decent movie rental. Good but not great.

Well that's it, Godzilla Week is officially over for another year. To repeat a question that I asked last year: Will Godzilla Week be back next year? I bloody sure hope so. In all seriousness I really enjoyed writing this lot and I found this year to be more enjoyable than the last. But that's enough of the generic talk and now I'm off to the liquor store and drink the mental stress of writing articles away. Peace... And sorry for the lack of screens in this review as I am having technical difficulties.

Title: Godzilla
Directed by: Gareth Edwards
Starring: Godzilla, MUTO, Son of MUTO
Genre:  Action, Science Fiction, Drama
Running Time: 123 minutes
Studio: Legendary Pictures, Warner Bros. Pictures
Rating: M15+ (Mature themes, mild sex scene, violence, coarse language)
Recommended: Yes