‘Godzilla’ gets a state-of-the-art update while staying true to its low budget roots

What do you want in a creature feature? No, really. I’m asking. What do you want to see in a creature feature? Bad ass monsters, right? Behemoth creatures fighting the military and/or each other, preferably to the death, right?

If that’s what you want, then this 2014 version of “Godzilla” delivers … eventually.

There have been 30 Godzilla movies since the first one in 1954 and I think it’s pretty safe to say this has the best-looking and most realistic Godzilla of them all. CGI is a great thing for most monster movies, and it’s put to good effect here in this 3-D IMAX version of the giant, amphibious reptile/dinosaur thing we call Godzilla. And as a bonus, we get to see it fight two other realistically detailed giant creatures that look like a crosses between a flying pterodactyl and a praying mantis (creatures that eat nuclear warheads for breakfast, by the by.) These Godzilla enemies are addled with a ridiculous moniker (MUTOs, short for massive unidentified terrestrial organisms), but they’re pretty cool-looking in a “1950’s scary monster” kind of way – dark, lumbering, and relentless.

With all this good stuff lined up: Terrifying Godzilla? Check! Terrifying monster combatants? Check! massive city destruction all around? Check!

So why does it take two thirds of the movie before Godzilla finally gets to strut his stuff?

It’s because the human story built around the appearance of the King of Monsters is so compelling that the actual Godzilla is really just the cherry on top of an already great sundae of a movie? I wish. That may have been the original intent of the filmmakers. After all, this Godzilla has a cast that could rival any Academy-Award-winning movie – Bryan Cranston, Juliet Binoche, David Strathairn, Sally Hawkins, Ken Watanabe, and Elizabeth Olsen.

I, personally, would love to see a movie that took full advantage of the power of that cast. Unfortunately, Godzilla is not that movie. It’s really little more than a string of cameos.

Sometimes great actors can rise above the script they’re trapped in but “Godzilla” has them all in its death grip. Long stretches of tedium accompany most all of the film’s human interactions. Thankfully they are interrupted every so often with glimpses of the monsters. But it still seems like a long slog before we get the full-on battle between Godzilla and the MUTOs.

When that climactic fight finally happens, it just about justifies the wait. The movie deserves a lot of credit for finding a way to present a 30-minute monster mash that can be technologically up-to-date but also stay true to its low budget roots. State-of-the-art and old-fashioned. Exactly what we want in a creature feature, right?