Just watched Godzilla 2014 and here is a sort of a review

I’m not much of a cinema goer. But when I got to know of Festa del Cinema, Cart and I decided to go for it as it happened to be the final day. The festa del cinema was an event where you pay 3 euro to watch any movie in participating cinemas. On normal days it would cost about 10 euro.

There is a small cinema which is just a few minutes walking distance away from where we live and we decided to go there as it was convenient.

There were a lot groups of teenagers and young adults conglomerating around when we reached there. We bought our tickets and entered the theatrette when it was time.

I don’t know if it’s the same for all areas in Italy, but watching a movie in a small cinema in Rome can be an interesting experience. The atmosphere felt as if I was in a stadium – the group of people I was with were boisterous. But it was not in an unkind way. It was more an unconstrained excitement.

After all, we were watching the much anticipated Godzilla.

Godzilla is giant monster that looks like a dinosaur. Created in the 50’s in Japan, it was initially conceived as a metaphor about nuclear bombs after the second world war. It eventually became a pop culture icon with numerous TV shows, films and other medium.

For some, it might be a little over the top with the monster being able to shoot fire out of it’s mouth. And to be honest, I wasn’t too keen on watching it as I’ve never been a fan. Nevertheless, after watching it, I thought that it was worth watching.

During the screening, I couldn’t help but be extremely amused when the projectionist accidentally put in the 3D version of the movie when we paid for the regular version. Practically everyone in the room were complaining and shouting at the blurry scenes and then cheered when the right film started.  It was as if I was part of a modern version of Cinema Paradiso.

I don’t want to give too much spoilers away, but I thought that the movie and the filmography was a good homage to the original Godzilla series.

There were a number of support casts ranging from Bryan Cranston from ‘Breaking Bad’ playing the role of a nuclear technician as well as Ken Watanabe who I recognize from ‘Letters from Iwo Jima’, playing the role of a Japanese scientist.

The sceneries in the movie looked beautiful and lush and I especially loved the scene of the boy looking out of the window in his school, his classmates running out in the lush garden with cherry blossoms an irony when overlooking the collapsing nuclear generator.

Of course the biggest (literally) protagonist would have to be the king of the monsters itself. Looking as close as possible to the original series, almost everyone cheered during the scenes when Godzilla appeared. There were many action and touching moments to grip even a non fan like me. I gasped at many of the scenes.

While the movie was dubbed in Italian, it wasn’t too tough to follow the storyline. It was a good show and thanks to the very excited company I was surrounded with, I was enthralled and had a doubly memorable experience in the end.