I remember hearing about Godzilla as a kid. Then I remember the BBC doing a week of programme celebrating an anniversary of the character and managed to see a couple of the Japanese productions.
My others are the American versions, which include the guilty pleasure 1998 version and the enjoyable 2014 version.
Now with the addition of Kong: Skull Island, I feel this franchise is doing ok, but still brewing nicely.
I must say right off the bat, that for pure nostalgia, it was great to see so many iconic monster characters back on the big screen. The story setting them up was good and they were designed so well to look both beautiful and frightening at the same time.
Then when it came to the action it was pretty good. Much like the 2014 version, they saved the best use of each monsters powers to the action-packed finale.
But to make a great Godzilla film, the best of the past ones had a well structured human story moving parallel with the plot involving the monsters.
The human aspect I felt was a valiant attempt. They gave a lot of screen-time towards it. But the longer it went, the more it felt pretty ordinary, which was not helped by the uninspiring script.
Thankfully, the performances was not a reason for it not succeeding. I felt Kyle Chandler, Millie Bobby Brown, Ziyi Zhang and Charles Dance. That also includes another bad-ass showing by Ken Watanabe.
I couldn't say the same for Vera Farmiga, who couldn't really save a very messy story arch for her character and Sally Hawkins, who was totally a waste of casting for being given a very small contribution.
Despite not achieving that part of the story, this is still a pretty entertaining watch. The monster-on-monster action is great to watch and the execution of some old favourites returning to the big screen could not have been better. The look of them more than surpassed my expectations.
The story may not do enough to help the story move along to not detract my score for the film. But the visual effects are top notch and the score by Michael Giacchino was pretty good on the whole, but became great for the composition he gave to the original theme which was a feast for the ears.
It's interesting to hear the divided opinion of this film between the general audience and the critics. I would happily watch this again and I'm still up for more within this franchise.
Also, a bit of info before you check this out. There are some clues as to where the next film is heading in the first half of the credits, and there is also a post-credits scene which will certainly get the big Godzilla fans predicting the possible outcomes for the next installment. I certainly have mine.
Rating: 7/10
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