GODZILLA (12A, 123 mins) *** Starring Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Ken Watanabe, Elizabeth Olsen, Sally Hawkins, Carson Bolde, David Strathairn, Bryan Cranston, Juliette Binoche. Director: Gareth Edwards

I n Steven Spielberg’s box-office behemoth Jurassic Park, geneticists arrogantly believe they can tame Mother Nature with cutting-edge science.

“Life finds a way,” warns Jeff Goldblum’s fatalistic chaos mathematician.

These wise words and Spielberg’s entire 1993 blockbuster provide the guiding light for this bombastic resurrection of cinema’s iconic reptile.

The 355ft tall creature boasts familiar dorsal fins, lumbering gait and fiery radioactive breath, and is securely tethered to timely concerns about the environmental consequences of nuclear power.

A mine in the Philippine jungle collapses, exposing the remains of two seemingly fossilised and highly radioactive creatures.

One of the monsters hatches and runs amok, and despite the best efforts of Dr Ishiro Serizawa (Watanabe) and his colleague Dr Vivienne Graham (Hawkins), its mate also escapes confinement.

US Navy Admiral William Stenz (Strathairn) co-ordinates the response and sends his men into battle including Lieutenant Ford Brody (Taylor-Johnson), whose parents (Cranston, Binoche) worked at the Janjira nuclear plant, where one creature began its rampage.

Meanwhile, in San Francisco, Ford’s wife Elle (Olsen) prepares to evacuate with their four-year-old son Sam (Bolde).

When military might fails to halt the devastation and hope dims, alpha predator Godzilla emerges from the deep...

The picture opens with a helicopter ride that could have been airlifted from Jurassic Park and continues with the Spielbergean nods, including theme park ride-style action sequences and children in peril.

Godzilla is a technically accomplished hunk of large-scale monster-mashing.

You can see every cent of the rumoured 160 million dollar budget and the director makes good use of the 3D format by reflecting carnage in mirrors and glass.

Chilling images of Cranston and Taylor-Johnson entering a Japanese quarantine zone and a tender moment between the two M.U.T.O.s (Massive Unidentified Terrestrial Organisms) explicitly reference director Edwards’s low-budget debut, Monsters.

The director manages to convey the titular reptile’s feelings in the midst of battle.

Human emotions are much harder to unearth.

Taylor-Johnson is a bland all-American hero and heavyweights Cranston and Binoche don’t have sufficient screen time to deliver the wallop we crave.

Watanabe is reduced to philosophising about our failings (“The arrogance of man is thinking nature is in our control, and not the other way round”) and sounding the bell on a final-round showdown between Godzilla and his adversaries.

“Let them fight!” he growls.

And fight they do, reducing the Pacific coast to rubble in a titanic tussle of computer-generated sound and fury that should take a large bite out of the UK box office, much like Spielberg’s T-Rex.