After the success of last years ‘Pacific Rim’ the world has opened its arms to the welcome return of everyone’s favourite monster. When the news that Godzilla was going to return to our screens, there were two thoughts. 1) This has got to be awesome. 2) Please keep Matthew Broderick away from this. And when news was released that ‘Monsters’ director Gareth Edwards would be taking the helm, fans across the globe rejoiced.

 

Interestingly, Edwards love for the origins of the species are stamped all over this remake and rather than reinventing the monster, he’s gone back to its roots and worked out exactly what makes Godzilla tick.

 

Balancing the action between Japan and San Francisco, the events that destroyed a nuclear power plant in Japan in 1999 begin to repeat themselves and Dr Serizawa (Ken Watanabe) is determined to find what lies beneath. When the shocking reveal that the seismic earthquakes are in fact caused by the mating calls of a M.U.T.O (Massive Unidentified Terrestrial Organism) that share more than a resemblance to another monster from ‘Cloverfield’. When the M.U.T.O. awakens, it causes its destruction and flees for its mate, all the way to the Nevada desert.

 

With the army in pursuit, the M.U.T.O. cause more damage and Godzilla awakens, he’s not too happy about all the kerfuffle that has disturbed his sleep and sees an explosion of monster smashing fun that leaves its human characters left at the side-line as Godzilla brings down the M.U.T.Os to save mankind.

 

So far, so er…. Yes, you read right. Godzilla is a hero of supersized proportions and to be quite honest, I’m not sure if I like this new monster. Visually, he is an impressive beast and when pitted against Mr and Mrs Cloverfield, the screen is alight with fire breathing, head ripping, tail wagging goodness. At least when he is involved, for this is not a film about Godzilla, this is a film about two M.U.T.Os with a cameo from the great beast himself. For everything else there’s enough content that could have made it to an extended cut that we could have done without, especially Godzilla’s pitiful relationship with humankind. Aaron Taylor Johnson and Elizabeth Olsen attempt to bring some drama into the mix but it’s all over shadowed (literally) by the monsters at the front of the action. While the monsters are fighting, the humans are kept busy trying to save San Francisco from a nuclear bomb, never mind the fact that three monsters have just flattened the city. Besides, all human interaction ceases to exist after Bryan Cranston’s short lived appearance as his performance, while only in existence for about 30 minutes of the film, is more emotional than anything else Olsen, Taylor-Johnson or the rest of the cast can give.

 

Godzilla, or Gojira in his native tongue, is not without its hype and from this is a victim of its own success. Yet the last good Godzilla movie was in 1954 and has spawned a fair few monster smashing sequels, reboots and spin offs ever since. 60 years later we finally have a worthy film to reinvigorate the franchise and take a firm second place in the series planting the seed for something special as this may not be the best monster film around, but sure goes about starting it.

 

Already confirmed for a sequel, and so many opportunities to truly awaken the beast but 'Godzilla' does exactly what it says on the tin; Monster smashing fun, let’s just leave the humans out of it and perhaps next time, give us a little more Godzilla.