Extra Cinema: Godzilla (12A)

Undated Film Still Handout from Godzilla. See PA Feature FILM FILM Reviews. Picture credit should read: PA Photo/Warner Brothers. WARNING: This picture must only be used to accompany PA Feature FILM FILM Reviews.

Starring: Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Ken Watanabe, Elizabeth Olsen

Spielberg’s 1993 Jurassic Park provides the guiding light for Gareth Edwards’s bombastic resurrection of cinema’s iconic reptile.

A mine in the Philippine jungle collapses, exposing the remains of two seemingly fossilised and highly radioactive creatures.

One of the monsters hatches and runs amok, and despite scientists’ best efforts, its mate also escapes confinement.

US Navy Admiral William Stenz (David Strathairn) co-ordinates the response and sends his men into battle including Lieutenant Ford Brody (Aaron Taylor-Johnson), whose parents (Bryan Cranston, Juliette Binoche) worked at the Janjira nuclear plant, where one creature began its rampage.

Meanwhile in San Francisco, Ford’s wife Elle (Elizabeth Olsen) prepares to evacuate with their four-year-old son Sam (Carson Bolde).

When military might fails to halt the devastation and hope dims, alpha predator Godzilla emerges from the deep...

Taylor-Johnson is a bland all-American hero and heavyweights Cranston and Binoche don’t have sufficient screen time to deliver the wallop we crave.

Ken Watanabe is reduced to philosophising about our failings.

“Let them fight!” he growls.

And fight they do, reducing the Pacific coast to rubble, much like Spielberg’s T-Rex.

Rating: 6/10