Godzilla
"The arrogance of men is thinking nature is in our control and not the other way around. Let them fight." - Dr. Serizawa
release year: 2014
genre: sci-fi/fantasy/action
viewing setting: hotel room 6/13/21 and home Bluray, 3/13/17
synopsis: Giant monsters appear and seek out radiation to feast on, but not all of them may be bad guys.
impressions: I have a confession to make: I bought this on Bluray a long time ago, put it in the player one night to watch it...and fell asleep due to the day's exhaustion. Then I forgot about actually watching it...for a long time. That all changed after I recently watched Kong: Skull Island - since that movie is going to be in the same universe as this one, I figured I'd better catch up. And so I did. This was more of a reboot than an origin story; Godzilla already exists, he's just been dormant. But he wakes up when other giant monsters show up, and there's fighting. Meanwhile, the humans act like they have any influence over the outcome, despite their weapons proving useless every single time. I mean, really...they're like little army men and plastic tanks and planes, you can just swat them aside. The movie did a good job of showing the humans' point of view, and ultimate insignificance when inserted into battles that destroy skyscrapers. One minor gripe: a lot of the giant monster fighting happened at night, so it was hard to tell what was going on.
acting: Aaron Taylor-Johnson is the young military protagonist. Elizabeth Olsen is his wife. Bryan Cranston is his father, who has some past history with (what would become) Godzilla and its antagonists, the other monsters. All of these people bring a human element to something that is ultimately much bigger than them (literally and figuratively.)
final word: Pretty good job of injecting Godzilla and friends into modern times.
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