Godzilla

In the 60th year of the movie franchise, director Gareth Edwards (Monsters) restores Godzilla to his rightful place as King of the Monsters with a blockbuster that makes up for in mood and spectacle what it lacks in dramatic bite. The story begins in devastating style with a nuclear accident in Japan that tears power-plant manager Bryan Cranston's family apart. Flash forward to the present, and his grown-up son Ford (Aaron Taylor-Johnson), a naval officer, is returning to his own young family in San Francisco after a tour of duty. But he's soon answering the call back east, where his father remains convinced that the past tragedy was caused by no mere earthquake. After this slow-burn opening, the real star of the show is introduced - along with some new supersized playmates. Edwards injects proceedings with a sense of menace that's been lacking in the series since Ishiro Honda's 1954 original, with the Indian Ocean tsunami, the meltdown at Fukushima and the events of 9/11 all eerily evoked. The set pieces are suitably awesome, including Kaiju clashes in Hawaii and San Francisco, plus a breathtaking navy skydive directly into the monster arena. But while Edwards's Godzilla creation will go down well with fans, the human characters are less well rendered: in an accomplished cast that includes Elizabeth Olsen, Ken Watanabe, Sally Hawkins and David Strathairn, it's only Cranston who makes an impression. Nevertheless, there's enough here to suggest this could be a promising new chapter in the monster series.