Godzilla (6.5/10)

Having one of the best trailers for the summer flicks, I was quite let down by the movie.

I don't know how much people who have not watched this movie know as the trailers didn't show too much, so be warned, I'm going to make this a spoiler-filled review.

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I'll start with the positives. The CGI was great. The battle of the monsters were as expected; thrilling, exciting and awesome. The cinematography had its moments, especially when the soldiers jumped off the plane on parachutes. That image was etched into my mind's eye.

Godzilla looked fantastic. Bigger and badder than ever. When he roared, I felt a shiver down my spine. Equally impressive was the acting of Elizabeth Olsen. She was the best actor out of the bunch as she always drew me in to her performance.

But other than her, only Bryan Cranston's character was interesting. Nobody else made me feel anything. And so I didn't care for any of the other characters. So many big names and it was a pity. Ken Watanabe's character I didn't understand. David Strathairn's character had little use. Sally Hawkins had even less to do. Even Aaron Taylor-Johnson was not as good as I had hoped he would be - sometimes a little bit expressionless.

Godzilla being director Gareth Edwards' first big budget film as he's been more of a visual effects guy; his storytelling could be improved. The two writers, Max Borenstein and Dave Callaham, with limited experience, also didn't help Edwards' cause.

First warning came when Juliette Binoche and a few other scientists were running for their lives, the camera panned between front and back. And ridiculously, from the back, Binoche was the last one; and from the front, she was in the lead. And this was so obvious that I couldn't believe it was edited this way. It took me out of the movie immediately.

And the way the team pushed forward with storytelling was a way that I couldn't agree with. For example, onboard the USS Saratoga, one officer said the second monster didn't have wings. Immediately Hawkins said that its of a different sex. And immediately Watanabe realised it's a mating call that lured the second one out. Same thing as how Watanabe just pulled the theory out of thin air that Godzilla was there to restore balance.

This kind of writing really showed the limitations of the writers, as if they couldn't come up with something more intelligent to tell the story.

I also didn't agree with the eyes of the MUTOs which looked more like robotic laser eyes. So what if they feed on radiation? The eyes should still look more like monsters than robots.

As for Godzilla's blue-fire breath, so he couldn't use that move before? More importantly, for a movie titled Godzilla, we only had what, 20 minutes worth of onscreen presence? Furthermore, I was more interested in the monsters fighting one another, and that was the least of what were given to us. I didn't care too much for the human relationships at all. I just wanted some awesome bashing.

There were a lot of great entertainment value, but also a lot of negative points as above which took me out of the movie. I had great expectations for this so I was quite let down. I couldn't give this a 7 but it's better than a 6, so...