HERE IT COMES TO SAVE THE DAY: The monster Godzilla rises from the depths of the Pacific Ocean to help San Francisco defend itself against the Massive Unidentified Terrestrial Organisms (MUTOs) who are attacking the city.

Godzilla made its debut in 1954 when the mythical man eating monster, accidentally created by an atomic blast, emerged from the Pacific Ocean to carve a path of death and destruction across Japan, which the country’s overmatched military was unable to stop. A couple of years later, Raymond Burr narrated a documentary-style, English language remake which was a dubbed version of the original with his lines spliced in.

Despite relying for decades on stilted scripts and a guy in a rubber suit towering over a scale model of a toy-sized Tokyo, the B-movie series has remained popular enough to spawn at least 30 sequels. This remake of the series, however, abandons campy dialogue and cheesy trick photography in favor of an emotionally engaging plot as well as state-of-the-art special effects.

In the 2014 edition, Godzilla still looks like a fire-breathing mutant iguana, however, it behaves more like an anthropomorphic ally of humanity instead of its evil adversary. The villains, here, are nuclear waste ingesting MUTOs (Massive Unidentified Terrestrial Organisms) that are not only threatening to level San Francisco but are poised to unleash a litter of their hostile offspring.

In case you’re wondering, there’s plenty of precedents for Godzilla’s squaring off against fellow behemoths. Consider such classic showdowns as King Kong vs. Godzilla (1962), Mothra vs. Godzilla (1964), and Godzilla vs. Megalon (1973), to name a few.

This film’s finale is well worth the wait, even though it takes some time getting around to the spectacular battle royale. In fact, we don’t even see Godzilla during the film’s first hour, which is devoted to developing characters and filling in the back story.

The picture was directed by Gareth Edwards (Monsters) who assembled a sophisticated cast for an action packed summer blockbuster. The cast includes Breaking Bad’s Bryan Cranston, Academy Award winner Juliette Binoche (The English Patient), and nominees David Strathairn (Good Night, and Good Luck), Sally Hawkins (Blue Jasmine) and Ken Watanabe (The Last Samurai).

The adventure is about the Brody family. The widowed patriarch Joe (Cranston) is trying to learn the truth behind the catastrophe at a Japanese nuclear power plant that claimed his wife’s (Binoche) life 15 years earlier. Their son Ford (Aaron Taylor-Johnson), a Navy explosives disposal expert, leaves his wife (Elizabeth Olsen) and son (Carson Bolde) behind in San Francisco, in order to accompany his father to the Orient.

Of course, all hell eventually breaks loose back home when Godzilla selflessly rises to the occasion to defend San Francisco. Will the MUTOs meet their match? Will the separated Brodys manage to survive the apocalyptic mayhem for a tearful reunion?

The picture is surprisingly haunting and panoramic, and explores universal themes like loss and yearning, but has all the fixings for first-rate action entertainment.

Excellent (****). Rated PG-13 for intense violence and scenes of destruction. Running time: 123 minutes. Distributor: Warner Brothers.