Godzilla. One of Japan's most famous monsters. Godzilla has appeared in various forms of media throughout the years from film, TV, cartoons and video games in Japan. Then in the 1980's America finally acquired the rights to make films on him. However, said film went through production hell for years before one was released in 1998 and ended up being disastrous (even though I was one of the few that did like said film but more on that later). So for more than a decade, America was put off from trying to do any more Godzilla films.
That was until Warner Bros and Legendary Pictures acquired the rights from Sony back in 2010 for yet another reboot of the franchise. This time round though it produced slightly better results than the infamous 1998 disaster from Sony. Godzilla was then released in 2014 and so WB's Monsterverse was born.
The film starts off in 1999 (clearly a slight nod to the release time of the 1998 Godzilla film) in Japan when a nuclear plant was mysteriously destroyed and most of the workers were killed in the progress.
Fifteen years later, Ford Brody (Aaron Taylor-Johnson), now a US Navy ordnance disposal officer, learns that his father Joe- who had worked at the power plant- has been trespassing on the contaminated site to try and find out the truth about how his wife- who had also been one of the workers at the time- had died in the disaster. Ford releases his father from Japanese prison and together they go back to the destroyed grounds and find by accident the real cause of the disaster.
However, the real disaster also awakens something else; Godzilla himself. It isn't before long until humanity realises that they're not alone in this world.
The film was greeted with mixed response upon its release with some people comparing it to- bizarringly enough- 'Jaws'. Some said that they would rather be watching the 1998 version. Despite Godzilla's better design on this film and the much better special effects that it had to offer, I didn't like this film at all.
The biggest problem that I had with this version of Godzilla was that you could hardly make him out. What is the point in giving him a design like that if you are going to obscure him in fog all the time? Another issue I had a problem with was that whenever you could see him and it looked like Godzilla was about to do something interesting such as taking on a giant M.U.T.O., an annoying scene change would happen and move to...say Ford running around trying not to get squashed by Godzilla.
Can you imagine how 'Jurassic Park' would've been received if that happened all the time whenever the Rex showed itself and we got a glimpse of the control room? I think I'd be complaining! These were my biggest drawbacks from the 2014 Godzilla film and by the time I was half way through I was wanting to watch the 1998 version. At least you could see him and there were no annoying scene changes whenever Godzilla looked like he was about to do something interesting.
As I said before, the film does have some good points to it such as the better Godzilla design as well as better special effects but to me the only decent scene in the whole film was when Godzilla first makes his dramatic appearance at an airport. Luckily, the film had received enough positive feedback from audience members to spawn a much better sequel 'Godzilla: King of the Monsters'.
Whilst I have to give WB the thumbs-up for giving Godzilla a better looking design and special effects, it isn't hard to ignore the fact that the Monsterverse got off to a slightly rocky start on a plot that was basically nearly the same as the 1998 Godzilla film. Just with better effects and Godzilla design.
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