By Renee’ Collins
Rating: 3.5 (Out of 5 Reels)
The visual effects in the trailer are what brought me to the screening of this film. The world’s most famous monster is pitted against malevolent creatures who, bolstered by humanity’s scientific arrogance, threaten our very existence (IMBD).
There are several familiar faces in this film who give convincing performances. I thought Aaron Taylor-Johnson as Ford Brody and Ken Watanabe as Dr. Ichiro Serizawa stood out because their characters are written well and each performed in a convincing way even though monsters were fighting each other for world dominance. Bryan Cranston of Walking Dead fame has a smaller role in the film as well which is fantastic also.
I would be severely remiss if I didn’t mention the phenomenal special effects in this film because for me they are what made this film watchable. One scene in particular which blew me away is when the military parachute out of a plane through the middle of a Godzilla and bad monster fight scene. It is great because we literally see the action through the eyes of the persons parachuting to the ground. It is a breathtaking scene that is worth the price of admission in my opinion but there is more visually to entice the audience. The manner in which we are exposed to the aliens and see the interactions between the humans and the monsters is visually genius.
Keep in mind that this film is for the younger crowd and there are monsters fighting each other in downtown San Francisco and Tokyo. Plus there are huge and I mean cavernous gaps in the scientific realness of certain plot developments. I am fully capable of suspending belief and the visual aspects of this film allowed me to do just that because it is in a way beautiful to watch the special effects. This film is way too long because for some reason there is an enormous amount of setup before the action finally kicks into motion. However the manner in which the monsters are slowly introduced works well for the overall effect of this film.