With the advent of CGI (Computer Generated Effects), and its constant use in modern filmmaking, we have seen a resurgence or reimagining of certain genres and series, that can now be seen as they were originally intended.  Science fiction and fantasy movies, like the Lord of the Rings series and the new Star Trek films, are allowed to show all of the grand landscapes and interesting creatures that the creators intended to create.  Recently, we have seen the resurgence of another genre of film, the giant creature film, spawned by the extreme popularity of the new Transformers films.  This film has a sub-genre known as the Kaiju movie, meaning any film regarding giant monsters destroying things, which has been re-invigorated by the release of the widely popular Guillermo del Toro film Pacific Rim.  No Kaiju film, however, can match up to the extreme following held by the Godzilla films, of which there have been 29 since the original one was released in Japan in 1954.  When CGI was first becoming popular America attempted to create its own Godzilla film (1998), which was a disastrous flop.  The new film attempts to revitalize the American Godzilla franchise and barely achieves the excitement that one should expect.

There was only one thing I wanted with this movie, and I think it really is what everybody else wanted.  I wanted to see Godzilla fighting other monsters.  Did I think the story would be inept and the characters disinteresting?  Absolutely, I had assumed as much.  However, I couldn’t have guessed the direction the movie would take, and that is what makes most of it pretty hard to watch.  Of this 120 minute film, the monsters fighting, what I would call the focal point of the film, take a backseat to the plot and the characters.  Which would be fine, I would love a monster movie with a great plot and deep, interesting characters, if the plot and characters weren’t terrible.

Well, calling the plot terrible is a bit of an overstatement.  It is really just the generic fodder I was expecting, with a really stupid idea from the military at the end that, of course, doesn’t work and forces our hero to save the day.  But, it is the lack of effort that put into the hastily and poorly written characters that makes the first 100 minutes of the movie (everything before the monsters fight) difficult to endure.

These characters are lifeless, and it is pretty obvious that the bulk of the effort for the film didn’t go to them.  Each character is the archetype of the character they are assigned to:  the young military guy desperate to get back home, his fearful wife and young child (who is always a son), the scientist who no one believes until he is proven correct (this film has two of those), et cetera.  The characters are disinteresting, which makes me feel as though they were not meant to be the focus of the film.  And yet they are.

Once the action finally comes around, when Godzilla and a couple of other monsters from the prehistoric Earth throw down in San Francisco, it feels like you just got a lollipop after having a root canal.  The CGI work is great, allowing fans of the Godzilla series to see the beast fight other large creatures as it has never done before.  Godzilla’s enemies, who are of the same species and attempting to mate, look quite similar to the monster from Cloverfield, with their long legs and odd looking faces.  Fortunate, unlike in Cloverfield, you can get a good look at them and their interesting design as they go toe-to-toe with Godzilla, who has a similarly interesting design.  But, in my opinion, this all comes a little too late to make the film worth watching.  If the plot and characters were of at least a decent quality, or the monsters took more of a precedence, I could give it a recommendation, but I think it would be a better idea to rend this one when it is cheap, and simply skip to the end.  It will be a far more fulfilling experience than watching the whole thing.