He’s a mean, green, Earth-saving machine! The newest Godzilla remake had stunning special effects,  but forgettable characters and a confusing plot. I give Godzilla three out of five stars.

The movie opens with footage from the 50’s showing nuclear bomb tests designed to kill Godzilla. The very last video shows a nuclear bomb hit and supposedly kill Godzilla. Why were they trying to kill a monster they knew nothing about?

The movie then transitions to a family that works in a Japanese nuclear power plant. After a series of “earthquakes,” the main character’s mother dies in a cloud of radiation. The area is then quarantined due to radiation. However, 15 years later, the quarantined zone is proved to have no radiation, revealing the existence of a giant radiation-eating monster, the Muto.

Apparently, Godzilla is an “alpha predator” fighting to kill the Muto and restore balance. So why does the US military constantly try to destroy and kill Godzilla and the radiation-eating Mutos with a nuclear bomb?

The movie, while visually stunning, was very confusing and made half-hearted attempts at humor. Godzilla magically had some sort of fire/electric breath at the end when he could have used it earlier. The Mutos were only targeting people and happened to have their one and only predator still living millions of years after the dinosaur’s extinction.

This was one movie that I can wait for on DVD. Spectacular visual effects were wasted on a slow, confusing plot that never went in-depth. With easy-to-forget characters, just wait for the DVD instead of wasting your money.