Godzilla has been in thirty films or more with remakes, sequels and prequels, he’s done them all. In 1998 American filmmakers misfired with “Godzilla” but this 2014 version isn’t much better despite definitely being closer to the Japanese “Godzilla” films.

In “Godzilla”, a dumb science experiment unleashes a horrific monster, named MUTO, and it starts tearing up the entire world. Guns, planes, tanks and bombs can’t stop him; only the mighty Godzilla is capable of beating this enemy and restoring order to the world. Sounds great but it’s too bad that the focus seems to be on the people and not the monsters.

The main character is a soldier played appallingly by Aaron Taylor-Johnson (“Kick-Ass”) and his scenes are totally distracting from the monster carnage. Godzilla looks okay but I prefer the good old days when it was a man in a rubber suit. Does anybody remember the time he fought King Kong?. The new monster isn’t as ridiculous as some of the ones in earlier films. He is good but he is just not as interesting to look at as some of the more bizarre creatures such as Mothra and Gigan. It’s fun to see it when Godzilla and MUTO fight (unfortunately that only really happens at the end).

The best “Godzilla” film might still be “Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure” when he had that little cameo but his own movies can be hit or miss. If you like the Japanese “Godzilla” pictures, you’ll be delighted to see this American version at least has Godzilla looking more like he should (it’s a significant improvement over the 1998 version) but for anybody else this is an underwhelming monster movie. So much of the action takes place at night making it hard to see what’s going on and they constantly cut away from the fighting to show the humans. Hopefully, the next one will bring back Ghidorah, the three-headed dragon that shoots lightning from its mouths.