Yes, I believe this film could breath life back into the franchise and genre. I think you can attribute the lack of enthusiasm for Kaiju films to the poor quality of late. Though it did well, the Heisei era retreaded a lot of old ground, and the Millennium series suffered dramatically from constant reboots. I started watching Pacific Rim last night and I can see where it didn't succeed. Godzilla and other monster movies make the monster and enjoyable character you want to see, but Pacific Rim seems to treat them almost as throw away characters. It's not enough just to have giant monsters, you have to develop them. Before watching the movie, I saw images of Knifehead and thought it was a really cool design, but then it's screen time came and went with no real impact. Now, while I expect the insect monsters to be similar, just there but not really established, I do think with Godzilla captured as the monster we've all come to love seeing, an the story and humans around him will also be really engaging and interesting and get people to like the entire film. I really think WB AMD legendary assembled the right team to create a monster movie of a caliber to be Gojira for a new generation.
