PRESENTS

The last 15 minutes or so of director, Gareth Edwards, 2014 attempt at jolting new life into the old franchise is juicy and original. Full of beautifully stylized and cinematic imagery complemented by a deep and droning horror score, the climactic action sequence of the reboot puts a new perspective on the king that does justice to his truly epic nature. Unfortunately, these fleeting successful moments snuck in at the end of the flick are buried under an hour plus of cookie-cutter blockbuster slop, an imbalance that leaves the audience better off just watching the teaser and skipping the rest. The stacked cast of heavy hitting A-listers including Bryan Cranston, Elizabeth Olsen and Aaron Taylor-Johnson do the best they can to eke believable relationships out of the shallow ensemble of characters, but the writing - from story arch to dialogue - is just too flat and formulaic to be salvaged. Godzilla's reimagined design, while a little Disneyified with a snubbed nose and watery eyes that border 'built-for-plushy', is fun to watch and reads exceptionally well in the horror treatment of the last 15 minutes. In the end it's all a rough introduction to the rebooted series. Not the best of the bunch and unfortunately not the worst.