[rating:4/5]
What can I say the King of all Monsters is back in this epic movie. It was all that one could hope for in a big budge monster movie . There was Godzilla himself , buildings smashing , a rumble in San Francisco between heavy weights and people running. And there was even a decent story they led somewhere. The Americans for the most part got it right this time. It was good balance of plot suspense and fantasy. They even got the nuclear fire right . Kind of gave me goose bumps similar to that geeky feeling I got when I saw the Transformers for the first time and Optimus transformed. Yea I know sound nerdy but it was awesome.
There was some minor nit picking I could do. And now I will. The characters were some what lack lustered. Flat if you will. They could do with some little quick one liners or site gags to living things up as long as they kept it in the script and not just throw it in there like the 1998 version did. And the big guy himself could of been a little more in the film then he was. Not to much more. I think it was smart to make the story play out and not have it all about monster smash around. Some Godzilla films it gets to much of the big guy and they strive to keep the plot going. They end up fragmenting and going into this spiral of what you can tell is on the spot directors add ons. This one pretty much did not. It kept my attention and was really well done. It was a feast for the eyes .
Now for the big question. Are there sequel rumors? Yes there will always be a rumor of a sequel. Will there be. Hopefully. Right now its complicated. Edwards stated that he wanted Godzilla to work as a standalone film with a definitive ending. Thats why I guess there was no teaser at then. And there was some groans to that in the theater I attended.
He also stated that he was not opposed to a sequel. Now that a tease. Or more likely they played it cautious and gave ti a see what happens look since 1998 was a dud in box office. Thankfully this one is not. And Legendary is considering seriously pursuing a sequel. Now here is where the soap opera that is Hollywood may factor in. According to what I read in Wiki WB and Warner Brothers parted way and I quote from it.
It is possible the sequel could be from Legendary and Universal, as Thomas Tull and Legendary parted ways with WB; however, there could be a contract between Legendary and Warner Bros. regarding potential Godzilla sequels
So now you see why I say yes and no. Lets go with a strong maybe instead for now.
So all this said I give this film 4 out 5 stars. I leave one off for the uninspiring acting in some of the film. But who cares it was the big guy the was star anyway.
[rating:4/5]
Plot from Wikipedia.
Warning this has massive spoilers .
The beginning credits sequence shows the preparation and detonation of a nuclear bomb at Bikini Atoll. A huge figure with jagged spikes rises from the water when the bomb is detonated.
In 1999, scientists Ishiro Serizawa (Ken Watanabe) and Vivienne Graham (Sally Hawkins) are called to a quarry in the Philippines where a colossal skeleton and two egg-shaped pods have been discovered, one having hatched, and something has escaped to the sea. Near Tokyo, Japan, the Janjira nuclear plant starts experiencing seismic activity. Plant supervisor Joe Brody (Bryan Cranston) sends his wife Sandra (Juliette Binoche) and a team into the core to look for damage. As the team makes its inspection, an explosion occurs, threatening to release radiation to the outside. Sandra and her team are not able to escape, and the plant collapses into ruin. The disaster, attributed to an earthquake, results in the evacuation and quarantine of the Janjira area.
Fifteen years later, Joe’s son Ford (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) is an explosive ordinance disposal officer in the United States Navy, living in San Francisco with wife Elle (Elizabeth Olsen) and son Sam (Carson Bolde). When Joe is arrested for trespassing in the quarantined area, Ford travels to Japan to assist him. Intent on discovering the true cause of the catastrophe, Joe convinces his son to accompany him to Janjira for Sandra’s sake, where they discover no signs of radiation. They also visit their old house, which is situated in the quarantined area to retrieve disks that would assist Joe’s quest to expose a cover-up. While there, father and son are both alerted to the noise of a helicopter. When they go outdoors to investigate, they are surprised to see activity on the power plant. They are arrested by local security and taken to a secret facility built within the power plant’s ruins. The facility is built around a massive chrysalis that contains the monster that destroyed the plant, and is being studied by Serizawa and Graham. The chrysalis hatches and unleashes a colossal winged creature, which devastates the facility and flies off. Joe is critically wounded in the chaos, which eventually leads to his death. Serizawa, Graham, and Ford joins a US Navy team to track the monster, using the aircraft carrier USS Saratoga (CVN-88) as a base of operations.
Aboard the Saratoga, Ford is informed by Serizawa and his team that the creature he saw at Janjira was a MUTO (Massive Unidentified Terrestrial Organism), an ancient creature from a much earlier time which feeds off radiation and radioactive material. As the earth’s radiation subsided it moved underground and put itself in a cryptobiotic state. It in turn is being hunted by a much larger animal that was awoken during a deep sea expedition in 1954. Its existence has been continually covered up following numerous failures to kill it with nuclear weapons. Ford reveals that his father had tracked a form of echolocation from the Janjira area, which leads the team to believe the MUTO was communicating with something else.
A U.S. Army Special Forces team in Hawaii finds the wreck of a Russian nuclear submarine that has reported an attack and finds the MUTO feeding on its reactor. The military attacks the MUTO and a battle ensues at Honolulu International Airport. The larger creature, named “Godzilla”, arrives and fights the MUTO, which flees by air. The second MUTO pod, which was brought from the Philippines to the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository, hatches and a larger, female MUTO devastates Las Vegas before heading west. Serizawa believes the two creatures will meet to breed.
The military plans to kill all three monsters with a powerful nuclear weapon. A train is loaded with two warheads to take to San Francisco, but it is intercepted and destroyed by the female MUTO which eats one of the warheads. The other warhead is taken by helicopter to San Francisco, where it is put on a boat and armed. The MUTOs, however, steal the warhead and the female MUTO constructs a nest around it in the middle of downtown San Francisco, threatening the lives of millions. Godzilla eventually arrives in San Francisco to confront the monsters.
While the MUTOs are distracted with Godzilla, Ford and a team of soldiers enter the nest and try to disarm the warhead. They discover it is badly damaged and cannot be disarmed, so they plan to take it out to sea and let it detonate. While Godzilla is fighting the MUTOs, their combined force begins to overwhelm him. The nest is filled with eggs and Ford uses a fuel truck to incinerate the nest, distracting the female MUTO from the fight and leaving just the male to fight Godzilla. Godzilla then kills the male MUTO by slamming it into a skyscraper with his tail, impaling it. Godzilla and Ford share a stare, before Godzilla is engulfed by the falling skyscraper. Ford runs to the docks, where the enraged mother MUTO slaughters the soldiers, but Ford manages to get to the boat with the female MUTO in pursuit. Just when she is about to destroy the boat, Godzilla surprise attacks the female MUTO and holds her jaws open, firing his atomic breath down her throat and tearing her head off in the process. Ford then gets the boat out to sea and is saved by a rescue team just before the warhead detonates, while Godzilla collapses on the shoreline and is still.
In the aftermath, Ford is reunited with his wife and son. Godzilla, thought dead, awakens, lets out a roar of triumph and returns to the ocean, hailed as the “King of the Monsters” and “City’s Saviour?” by the media.