Friday, 30 May 2014
New Movie Review: Godzilla (2014)
That’s our monster…
Godzilla (2014) ★★★½
Directed by Gareth Edwards
I must confess that I am a Godzilla movie fan. For some reason I can’t explain, I am just drawn to his movies even though the hugely-vast majority of them are utter, utter crap. Nonetheless, much like the entire James Bond oeuvre, I really enjoy them. Started by the original Gojira, a very serious and scary film, the series devolved over the decades into cheesy, B-movie, Saturday-morning kiddie affairs (I mean, Jet Jaguar—come on). The series tried to right this starting with Godzilla 1985 and going through a couple of iterations in the 90s and the 00s, but with the quirkiness of Japanese pop-culture of the times, these movies were bright, colorful, cartoony spectacles.
That is one of the main reasons why I really enjoyed Gareth Edwards’ new Godzilla movie. This is by far the most realistic Godzilla movie to date. And though there are a couple of fun nods to previous Godzilla and Kaiju movies, this one really treats its source material with great respect and much-due gravitas. This isn’t a tongue-in-cheek, ironic “re-imagining” of Godzilla. This is a distillation of what makes Godzilla the King of the Monsters. Gareth Edwards brings Godzilla back to his roots.
Categories: Movie Reviews.
