Gareth Edwards shows us different sides to the infamous monster, but not without making us humans look dull, incapable, and unintelligent. If you’re willing to let go of all logic, however, you might enjoy this monster reboot.

‘Godzilla’ is a story about scientists and military personnel who try to prevent underground monsters—whose electromagnetic energy and huge physicality threaten human life—from destroying cities around the world.

The scientific concept concerning Godzilla and his enemy—as seen in the second trailer—is quite magnificent. What keeps these creatures animated is the same energy that gives us our technology. In the digital era, this is a very scary thought as there’s almost nothing that we use that doesn’t depend entirely on electromagnetic waves (i.e., no Netflix, no Internet, and no cell phones…scared yet?). Not only are these creatures huge and very capable of destroying whole cities, but they also take away our tools that make life a bit easier (when they’re working, of course).

Bryan Cranston, while giving us just a taste of the amount of melodrama in this film during the trailer, is the only character who has every right to be over-the-top as events that have transpired have made him a tad desperate, paranoid, and obsessed. Although the level of dramatization might just tip the scale of being hilarious, Cranston does a nice job with balancing between crazed scientist and a somewhat normal family man.

In ‘Godzilla’, most of our time, however, is spent with his son, Ford (Aaron Taylor-Johnson), his daughter-in-law, Ella (Elizabeth Olsen), Vivienne Graham (Sally Hawkins), and Dr. Ishiro Serizawa (Ken Watanabe). While each of them are fine actors—given how well they portray these characters relative to how they’re written—audiences will start to care more about the monsters rather than the humans and their individual stories. The humans remain flat characters even though there are plenty of opportunities throughout the film to explore their development amidst the catastrophe. As a result, the scenes in which our main characters display human emotion does not have any affect.

Furthermore, while it’s understood that a disaster film of this nature is designed to entertain people rather than draw intellectual insight, tightening the script, especially when involving the military might have made ‘Godzilla’ a little less ridiculous. At no time are the citizens in this world told to take measures—measures that would make sense in a place where giant beasts are crushing everything in their path. ‘Godzilla’ also makes a mockery, whether or not it is intentional, of the military as decision after decision drives them deeper into despair. In fairness, however, this may have been an attempt to make Dr. Serizawa’s quote about man’s efforts in controlling nature stick as there are several ways in which soldiers try to rid us of these creatures.

Although you’ll have to wait a while for them to start fighting, Godzilla and his enemies are the highlight of the film and the slight saving grace to the first hour and a half of boredom.

JIM’s Rating: 5.75/10