Godzilla

I have known about Godzilla my whole life. Even before 1998's Godzilla came out, I knew of this massive beast that went about causing destruction and chaos in Japan. I even have some of the Japanese films on DVD, so I understand the excitement and strange hero status surrounding the creature. Needless to say I was skeptical about a new American version of the character.

It wasn't until I saw some of the creature design pictures of how Godzilla would look in this movie that my confidence was restored. It was going to be the same as the old Japanese films I used to watch as a kid. In fact in watching the movie, it's amazing to see that they went one step further and somehow made the monster look like a guy in suit.

I was a bit disappointed however that as soon as the monster arrived on the scene, the human story that they had built up in the first thirty minutes of the movie, was thrown to the wayside. In the older films they still maintained the human character's, well, character.

And there are some truly talented actors in this film. Breaking Bad's Bryan Cranston is really good at playing a hysterical character and David Strathairn (The Bourne Ultimatum), one of my favourite actors, plays a badass US Navy Admiral. On the other hand I felt as though they underused Elizabeth Olsen, who is a really talented actress.

Verdict: A proper anglicised version of a fantastic franchise. At many times the audience was cheering for Godzilla.