Godzilla

The World Ends. Godzilla Begins.

Like most '90s kids, one of the movies I saw growing up was Sony Pictures' Godzilla with Matthew Broderick. And like most kids my age, I really liked it. Never knowing that Godzilla really wasn't a giant mutated iguana, and a Godzillasaurus instead. Then, I got educated in the world of Toho (for those who don't know, Toho is the Japanese company who originally created the Big G back in the 50s).

I found out that Sony's version of Godzilla (now known to be called Zilla) was all wrong. Certain traits that Godzilla should have had, Zilla didn't. But, I was young and naive, and didn't really care much. Of course, this was all before Legendary Pictures stepped onto the scene and started their take on the classic kaiju film.

Granted, Godzilla wasn't technically their first kaiju movie (Pacific Rim anyone?), but it was the first one where Godzilla was involved. And it was pretty well done too. The story was a decent re-origin story, and it showed that American film companies can actually make a Godzilla movie and not mess it up.

The human characters were decent. Most of the time, they just seemed kind of one dimensional though. A shame really, considering the title character was only in 10 minutes of the movie. But man, were those 10 minutes glorious. He just has this gravitas that makes it all worth it.

I especially liked the way that Big G looks and moves more like a guy in a suit as opposed to just another CGI monster. This is especially apparent towards the end of the movie in how Godzilla kills one of the MUTOs (Massive Unidentified Terrestrial Organisms, the main baddies of the film). Not only does it make the film fit much better into the Toho lineage, it also makes for a more interesting story and (in my opinion) more realistic movement for such a large creature.

The film also has a decent amount of rewatchability as well. There are little easter eggs here and there that give some foreshadowing for future Godzilla movies. Personally, I couldn't be more excited to see what happens next for the G Man in the Legendary Era.

7/10 stars. Not too shabby

All in all, the first movie of the Legendary Era was pretty good. Yes, there wasn't as much of the monster on monster battling as I was expecting, but I can definitely understand why they did that. They didn't want to overwhelm newcomers to the series right away. And I'm OK with that, because I know that in the sequel, Godzilla will have 3 new (to Legendary anyway) monsters to fight with. My recommendation is to definitely see this one.

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