Above: Godzilla
I’m
gonna be honest, I wasn’t terribly excited for this one. Don’t get me wrong, I
have a fondness for Godzilla. A staple of my adolescence was renting Godzilla
movies on VHS, suffering through the boring human drama, loving the goofy
monster fights, then rewinding the whole darn thing and watching it again.
However, the initial trailers for 2014’s American “Godzilla” were less than
enticing, selling a movie where Bryan Cranston is trying to prove that the King
of the Monsters is real. Don’t get me wrong, I love both of those elements; I
just didn’t think they’d make for a satisfying Godzilla movie.
Then I saw a later trailer that had
actual other monsters in it, and I was like, “Okay, I’m in.”
Gareth Edwards’ “Godzilla” follows
Aaron Taylor-Johnson as Lt. Ford Brody, a U.S. Navy bomb technician whose
reunion with his wife Elle (Elizabeth Olsen) and son Sam (Carson Bolde) is cut
short by the antics of his father, Joe (Bryan Cranston). Chiefly, those antics
involve Joe searching a quarantined zone in Japan, trying to discover the real
source of a nuclear meltdown that killed his wife fifteen years prior.
Soon, said source is revealed to be
a giant radiation-eating monster designated a MUTO (short for Massive
Unidentified Terrestrial Organism), whom I have nicknamed Cletus.
Coincidentally, Cletus reawakens in the present and cuts a new path of
destruction across the Pacific Rim, putting the Brody boys and the rest of the
planet in danger. However, monster expert Dr. Serizawa (Ken Watanabe) believes
there’s one thing that can stop Cletus: Godzilla, an even bigger monster who
seems to awaken for the sole purpose of killing MUTOs and restoring balance to
the world.
If there’s one thing Mr. Edwards
gets right, it’s composing evocative shots (with the help of cinematographer
Seamus McGarvey). The monsters are largely seen in synecdoche, with mere evidence
of their destructive rampages standing in for proper shots of them. It’s a
style that’s very effective in building tension and making you believe that
monsters like Cletus exist and are a threat to the world.
And then Godzilla shows up and
reminds us why he’s the King.
Make no mistake, everyone on this
production has nothing but the highest reverence for the Big G. His appearances
are framed as comparable to the Second Coming, and he looks like exactly what
you’d want a 160 million dollar Toho Monster to look like—his every detail is
brought to life lovingly by the effects, the cinematography, and Alexandre
Desplat’s score. He is an icon, and Mr. Edwards makes sure that the audience
knows it.
Unfortunately, in between
appearances from Godzilla, we have to spend time with the Brodys, who are
terribly dull. Ford in particular just feels like a blank-slate audience
surrogate. Which would be fine if he was surrounded by interesting characters,
but we’re meant to idolize and pin our affections on this all-American
soldier/family man played by a Brit, and the character just falls flat. What’s
more, Aaron Taylor-Johnson seems to be on auto-pilot through the whole thing.
At least Ms. Olsen looks like she showed up for work; Mr. Taylor-Johnson seems
to have left whatever energy or personality he had on the set of “Kick-Ass”.
Also, the Brodys’ position isn’t helped by an uninspired
screenplay (by Max Borenstein) that feels like it was borrowed from a million
other disaster movies. And though the movie could’ve still worked since the
monster fights are so spectacular, we spend over half the movie with the Brodys
and it’s just a letdown every time we cut from intense kaiju-vs.-kaiju action
to them.
These problems make it more painful that
there’s a good movie hanging around in the shadows of “Godzilla.” Dr. Serizawa
in particular turns out to be a much more interesting character than our
protagonist. That’s not a difficult feat, sure, but Mr. Watanabe breathes
character into every moment of screen time he has. He takes a character who
exists mostly for exposition and infuses him with simultaneous fear, awe, and
reverence for Godzilla, as if he really is looking upon the scaly face of God. He
could have made a compelling protagonist but no, instead we get a movie about
Lt. Boring trying to get back to his wife, Mrs. Boring.
And yet, I’d still give “Godzilla” a
recommendation, if for no other reason than for the wonder and amazement of seeing
the King of the Monsters come to life on the big screen. If you can suffer
through the boring human parts to get to the kaiju clashes, then I recommend
seeing this spectacle in cinemas. If plot and character are big deal breakers,
however, maybe save this one for your home theatre.
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