Sixty years after his debut
screen appearance, Godzilla is back on our screens in his second American
guise. For anyone who remembers the 1998 Roland Emmerich version, this news may
legitimately cause trepidation. My interest in the picture came about when I
heard that the new film was to be directed by second time director Gareth
Edwards. For nearly half a decade since Edwards’ first film, I’ve been telling
anyone I can get my hands on to watch his film Monsters. That movie was outstanding; an ultra low budget
monster-thinker which Edwards wrote, directed, shot and edited himself besides
doing all of the FX work in his bedroom. In comparison to that movie, Godzilla is a let down.
Things start well with an
interesting and attractive titles sequence which gives a slight spin on the
traditional Godzilla back story. The film postulates that the atomic tests of
the 1950s were in fact not tests at all but an elaborate attempt to destroy the
gigantic titular beast. Fast forward several decades and we find Joe Brody
(Bryan Cranston) hard at work as the supervisor of a Japanese Nuclear Power
Plant. Brody is concerned by strange seismic patterns which are unlike any
earthquake he’s seen before. In fact he’s convinced there are no earthquakes at
all.
