Godzilla (2014)

Remember 1998? Remember some dude named Matthew Broderick? Yup, me neither....

As a child of the 90ies, Godzilla meant a giant dinosaur from Jurassic Park destroying the town they destroyed in Independence Day... A normal action-flick with stereotypical french people, hot sidekick chicks and geeky but super cool main protagonists, who save the day against all odds...

Well say good bye to those memories, from now on, Godzilla stands for awesome!!! Even before the new movie came out I read a bit about the origins of Godzilla, watched some scenes from the older movies from Japan and read some blogs critizising the 1998 abomination by Roland Emmerich.

When I finally watched the movie, I was surprised. The tone is super dark, with a lot of dust and rain in the air. The monsters are seldomly visible and a lot of the special effects are so subtle that they actually look real. You rarely have full body view of the monsters, so a lot is kept to your imagination and the movie is set in not only one city but in 3 (Honolulu, Vegas, San Francisco).
The characters have quite a lot of depth and even the Americans who don't save the day, turn out to be quite the accurate portrayal, not the glammed up versions we see in other Hollywood blockbusters.

However, it is Godzilla, so the story isn't tooooooo exciting. There are a few twists and turns here and there, but it is mainly the action, visuals and the suspense that are keeping you interested in the movie, not the intricate relationships of the characters and heart-stopping revelations in the story - but if that's what you've bargained for you're on the wrong ship anyways.

It is what it is, a well-done, visually stunning, refreshingly realistic, monster/destruction movie. I liked Pacific Rim better, but I didn't feel like I wasted my time after watching it, so go ahead and lets collectively forget the mess that was Roland Emmerich's version...