Godzilla is alive and terrorizing the world once again!
In Gareth Edwards' newest addition to the 60-year-old monster movie franchise, Godzilla co-stars Bryan Cranston, Elizabeth Olsen, Aaron Taylor-Johnson and Ken Watanabe fight for their lives against the terrifying mega-lizard. Meanwhile, the giant monster has some malevolent creatures to battle himself.
So how does Edwards' new Godzilla flick compare to the dozens that have come before it? Read on to find out what critics are saying about Godzilla in our movie review roundup.
• Entertainment Weekly gives the flick a B- along with a pretty favorable review. However, writer Chris Nashawaty says the film felt "like two movies Scotch-taped together." One half was about the many characters and their stories of tragedy. "In the other, mammoth CG beasts knock the snot out of one another. Only one of these movies is any good. Thankfully, it's the monster one."
• Variety agrees that the character plots are the weakest parts of the latest Godzilla. "Someone should tell Warner Bros. that when they've got a presence as big as Godzilla, they don't need movie stars, because frankly, who remembers the characters in a rampaging-kaiju movie anyway?" writes the trade. "Still, just to be safe, the studio has stuffed Gareth Edwards' deafening, effects-driven reboot with an Oscar winner (Juliette Binoche), three Oscar nominees (Ken Watanabe, Sally Hawkins and David Strathairn), an Emmy winner (Bryan Cranston) and an Olsen sister, leaving scarcely enough screen time for the monster itself."
• In a review headlined "Godzilla Lives Up To B-Movie Legacy, But Just Barely," Forbes' Mark Hughes echoes, "The primary problems are simple: the story chose the wrong human protagonist to follow, and chose the wrong monsters to focus on. The first mistake is frankly the biggest and the one that strips the film of its heart." However, Hughes praises the CGI effects, writing, "I do feel compelled to say the director, Gareth Edwards, made a lot of smart choices with the visuals."
• "The latest iteration of the 60-year-old franchise is in capable hands," boasts Huffington Post. "Edwards' Godzilla is a pleasingly paced 3-D spectacle that pays chilling homage to the artful legacy of the original 1954 film—Ishiro Honda's Gojira—while emerging as its own prodigious monster movie."
• "The soul of Godzilla, to the extent that it has one, dwells with the monsters," writes the New York Times' A. O. Scott, who loved the film's skyscraper-destroying monstrosities. "Not only with the great, angry lizard, but also with the pair of insectlike Mosura (evocative of Mothra, Godzilla's historic nemesis) that are causing most of the trouble. These sleek and scary creatures eat ICBMs like Tic Tacs and are preparing to meet up in San Francisco to spawn. Godzilla's job is to spoil the romance."