Ten years after its release, one of the most divisive Godzilla movies in the kaiju’s history has hit Netflix’s top 10 chart.
Last year, Toho’s iconic, sea-faring monster stomped into cinemas in Godzilla Minus One, a near-unanimously acclaimed, bona fide Japanese blockbuster that broke a smattering of records.
Unlike Legendary’s MonsterVerse, which will return this year with the considerably sillier Godzilla x Kong, it was a somber, chaotic drama about the aftermath of WWII – its catalyst just happened to be a giant, atomic-breath-powered lizard hellbent on reducing Tokyo to rubble once more.
However, the mid-2010s saw the relaunch of Godzilla on the big screen in a similarly stark, frightening fashion. It split audiences, but it paved the way for the kaiju’s current success.
Godzilla 2014 hits Netflix chart
Godzilla, the 2014 reboot directed by Gareth Edwards, is currently number nine on Netflix’s top 10 movies in the US. You can check out the full chart below:
- Code 8 Part II
- Spaceman
- Mea Culpa
- Code 8
- The Legend of Hercules
- Ruby Gillman, Teenage Kraken
- The Super Mario Bros. Movie
- A Madea Family Funeral
- Godzilla
- Minions
The film stars Bryan Cranston and Aaron Taylor-Johnson as father-and-son duo Joe and Ford, a family torn apart by a nuclear disaster in the late ’90s. Fifteen years later, Joe believes the government is “hiding something out there… and it’s gonna send us back to the Stone Age.”
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He’s right: giant parasitic monsters (known as MUTOs) are terrorizing the planet, and there’s only one creature who can stop them… Godzilla. “Let them fight.”
Let’s be clear: the movie was a hit, earning a 76% score on Rotten Tomatoes and making $529 million at the box office. However, there were a few things people took issue with: some felt there wasn’t enough Godzilla in it (Edwards treated him like the shark in Jaws, heightening and foregrounding the threat of the monster rather than Godzilla himself – until the end), and the handling of Cranston’s character was widely criticized.
On Reddit, one user wrote: “When 2014 came out, it aggravated me how little Godzilla we got. But KotM and GvK made me appreciate it more for its more grounded story and the weight of the monsters.”
“If Bryan Cranston was the main character it would’ve elevated the film for me. I liked it but I could’ve loved it. Even tho we didn’t see Godzilla THAT much we still saw a lot of MUTO stuff and they were really cool so,” another wrote.
Godzilla is on Netflix now, and you can also check out all of the new movies coming to streaming in March.
