This is another movie I took in at the drive-in this summer, and here’s the thing about drive-in movies: it’s never about the movie. You go for the experience. You go because it’s a beautiful night that you don’t want to waste indoors. You go because you can pig out in secret in your car. You go because you can make out with your hunny in the back seat. And you go because it’s a double feature, or a triple feature, so even if the movies are bad (and they often are), at least it’s two bad movies for the price one!

I won’t pretend to have loved this movie. In fact, I was mostly confused by it. From what I understood, 15 years ago, these two pods were found and suddenly they crack open and out come these monsters. At the time, I didn’t fully comprehend there were two, then I failed to adequately distinguish between them, and ultimately I failed to realize that these were NOT Godzilla. Turns out, Godzilla is this whole separate entity that the government has known about and kept secret for years – he lays mostly dormant, but when the world’s really in trouble, like it’s being terrorized by these two MUTOs. Godzilla’s the good guy in this monster movie, and he doesn’t appear until like half way through, which led to my confusion. I weirdly assumed that a movie called Godzilla would be about Godzilla, but it’s kinda  not.

I actually felt like I was watching a mash-up of two other drive-in movies, Pacific Rim, and Transformers: Age of Extinction, but when Godzilla finally did appear, I admit I thought, damn, now that’s a beautiful monster. Really nicely rendered. Different, but not alienating to classic Godzilla. And thank goodness he’s purty, because the humans in the movie weren’t nearly as compelling (Aaron Taylor-Johnson of Kick-Ass fame, and Elizabeth Olsen). If this is a reboot, then I say, sure keep the king of the monsters, but replace the humans, or at least let them get eaten.