'Godzilla' is a disappointing monster movie
'Godzilla': It turns out all the best parts of the film were in the trailers. 'Godzilla' stars Bryan Cranston and Aaron Taylor-Johnson.
'Godzilla': It turns out all the best parts of the film were in the trailers. 'Godzilla' stars Bryan Cranston and Aaron Taylor-Johnson.
I must say that, despite my better instincts, I was looking forward to聽鈥淕odzilla鈥� because it had such a bang-up trailer. But beware falling into聽the Trailer Trap. Sometimes, oftentimes, trailers showcase only the good聽stuff. The actual movie is a pale substitute.聽
Such is the case here. It鈥檚 a tad better than the 1998 鈥淕odzilla,鈥� perhaps,聽but that鈥檚 not saying much. A lot of name actors, including Juliette聽Binoche, Bryan Cranston, Ken Watanabe, Sally Hawkins, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Elizabeth Olsen, and a particularly uncomfortable-looking聽David Strathairn, turn up.聽Who, if any, will end up as dino-fodder?
Director Gareth Edwards and his screenwriter Max Borenstein have聽made the humorless, boneheaded decision to make Godzilla a good guy.聽The bad guys, actually a guy and a girl, are a pair of MUTOs 鈥� 鈥淢assive聽Unidentified Terrestrial Organisms鈥� 鈥� that have been roused from their聽slumber, or whatever, by Filipino miners. San Francisco and Honolulu are聽among the places that get stomped. Godzilla faces off against the MUTOs,聽who resemble gigantic Jaguar hood ornaments, and is proclaimed by the聽grateful public as the 鈥淜ing of the Monsters.鈥� You didn鈥檛 think Warner聽Bros. was going to kill off its new franchise right away, did you? Grade:聽C+ (Rated PG-13 for intense sequences of destruction, mayhem and creature violence.)