During the 1950s, creatures are awaken from the deepest depths. Dr. Ishiro Serizawa (Ken Watanabe) believes that ancient creatures exist that lives in radiation. As the radiation faded from the earth's surface, these creatures retreated to the lower depths. In 1999, miners uncover a vast cavern with a giant skeleton in the Philippines. They also find one of the spores broken open. In Japan at the Janjira Nuclear Power Plant, manager Joe Brody (Bryan Cranston) loses his wife in a freak incident. Fifteen years later, Joe is still investigating the incident with the city around the plant quarantined. He is arrested once again for trying to breach the quarantine. His son Ford (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) has to leave behind his wife Elle (Elizabeth Olsen) in San Francisco to go pick him up from jail in Japan. Joe convinces Ford who is now a US Navy ordnance disposal officer to join him to go to the plant. They discover that there is no radiation leak. Instead the spore from the Philippines named MUTO (Massive Unidentified Terrestrial Organism) has settled in the plant sucking up all the radiation.
This is always going to be a great monster movie. The CGI is terrific and Godzilla has a great time smashing things up. That part seems like a no-brainer. I still give director Gareth Edwards credit for doing a great job. He doesn't disappoint. The problem is once again the human story. The beginning is just too long before it gets to a monster. The Joe Brody story doesn't have the bite. In another movie, his story would be a fun mystery. The problem is that the audience knows it's a monster even if it's not Godzilla. So there is no tension from the mystery since it's not really a mystery. The other problem is that Ford just happens to be at the right place in all of those situations. It's a situation that a lesser movie would rely on. I hoped for better. The final problem I have is that the movie cuts away from the monster action time and time again. It's funny the first time but it gets annoying quickly. Despite all the problems, there is still a fun monster movie and lots of stuff get smashed.
