Sympathy for the Lizard: Godzilla
I saw Godzilla earlier this week and have thought about it on my own precisely zero times since then. Gareth Edwards' take on the classic is as great-looking as it is dumb. It conveys enormity extremely well, as well should a movie that stars monsters who dwarf skyscrapers. For all of his twitching, nostril-flaring, and saliva-string-producing, Godzilla has never looked more life-like (or zaftig—check out that thick neck, bro). His nemeses, a pair of giant cockroaches called MUTOs, looked real enough to mildly nauseate me.
Though it comes in at 2 hours—relatively lean for a bombastic blockbuster—this movie spends too much time dancing around half-baked human drama. Aaron Taylor-Johnson (as protagonist Ford Brody) is almost as beefy as Godzilla and one of several pretty things to look at in this movie. Ken Watanabe is atrocious, spitting out dazed one-liner after one-liner ("It's done feeding!" "Something responded!" "He's hunting!" "A female!") about as convincingly as an actor in the vintage Godzilla films.
There's not enough to emotionally invest in to make this a classic, but it's decent summer popcorn fare. For a more in-depth analysis, I defer to someone who's much better at sci-fi than I, i09's Annalee Newitz. Read her review below.