This reboot of the Godzilla franchise is not outstanding, but it's solid enough. The Cold War fears of nuclear proliferation are played out by the Americans and Soviets both advocating the use of nuclear weapons to destroy Godzilla and promising that it would be "contained to a small area," while the Japanese prime minister expresses grave concerns about that, and his forces focus on more controlled, scientific methods. Privately, they express worry that the superpowers are only offering to do it because they want to test and practice with their nuclear arsenal, and wonder if they would use them on their own soil, which were nice bits of cynicism. Both sides also have nuclear space weapons, the control of which becomes as big a threat as Godzilla itself. The only thing I rolled my eyes over was how poor the actor who played the American envoy was, though mercifully it's a small part.
As for Godzilla's foot-stomping, tail-swinging, atomic energy-breathing mayhem, the special effects are hit and miss even accounting for the film being 40 years old, but there are some cool moments, like when he lifts up a train and looks inside. Otherwise it's as if he's walking through Tokyo like a drunken sailor, wreaking havoc. I always think he should be tilted forward, like modern representations of theropods, but this is of course the original kaiju. The film has him representing nuclear weaponry, forever loose in the world after Hiroshima and Nagasaki, immortal and always a threat to destroy blindly, which certainly resonates, as does the view one character expresses that the monsters are an indication of imbalance in the world and a sign of the "end times for humanity."
