Godzilla (2014) Review

or -

The Wrath of Godzilla, Part 21:  The One True Godzilla


Godzilla is my superhero.

Captain America?  Fah!  Spider-Man?  What a rube.  The X-Men?  Puh-leeze.  While the other kids were wasting their time reading comic books and dreaming of fights between moustache-twirling supervillains and dudes in tights, I was wasting my time watching Godzilla beat the snot out of any nasty giant monster who dared to intrude upon his turf.  Godzilla movies from the sixties and seventies were my bread and butter back then, and during that era Godzilla was a superhero, the protector of Earth.  Since that time, Godzilla has continued to exist and evolve and change allegiances, and with 29 starring roles under his belt, nearly a dozen tie-in movies, two television shows, numerous appearances and tie-in products, videos games and, yes, comic books, it looks like his rampage won't be stopping anytime soon.

[Beware - Massive Spoilers Ahead]

Which brings us to the new megabudget Godzilla movie from Warner Bros. and Legendary Pictures.  I've seen this movie three times (so far), and now that the opening weekend has passed, I feel it's time to review this beast.

The #1 most important aspect of the movie is this:  Did they get the character right?  The answer is a resounding YES.  Unlike the crappy 1998 "Godzilla", this one is the real deal.  The visual effects that are used to bring him to life (courtesy of Weta Digital) are top notch, and the character's performance is both surprisingly subtle and gratifyingly bad ass.  His design, while largely similar to past designs, is altered in some interesting, though not unwelcome, ways.  His original name, Gojira, is a hybrid of the Japanese words for "whale" and "gorilla", and his designers have incorporated elements of both animals into his look.  His face, though, is far more bear-like than gorilla-like.  He's also quite old and battle-scarred.  In this movie's mythology, Godzilla's origin pre-dates the prehistoric era, so he's appropriately wizened and a bit of a belligerent old fart.  He's also been hit with a couple of atomic bombs, which, as we all know, does wonders for your complexion.

Plus he has atomic breath.  Hell.  Yeah.

Before I get into the story of the movie, I have to address something first -


Godzilla: Awakening Mini-Review

Every movie these days needs a comic book prequel, why should Godzilla be any different?

The American bombing of Hiroshima has let loose a couple of ancient beasts called Shinomura (flying stingray-type creatures) who proceed to terrorize the Pacific Islands.  A mixed Japanese-American military unit named Monarch is formed to study, contain, and keep these monsters a secret from the rest of the world.  The comic's main character is the grandfather of the Dr. Serizawa character from the new movie (played by Ken Watanabe).  A survivor of Hiroshima, elder Serizawa is recruited into Monarch early on and becomes obsessed with a third monster, a creature which the Islanders call Gojira, whom they worship as a monstrous god of the sea.  Gojira (Godzilla) appears to be hunting the Shinomura.

The mythology for the monsters is pretty cool in this iteration.  Millions of years before the dinosaurs existed, the world was a hotbed of radiation and was apparently populated by animals who thrived in radioactive environments.  These beasties, referred to as "kingdom problematica" or MUTOs (Massive Unidentified Terrestrial Organisms), mostly died off when the Earth's radioactivity subsided, but some adapted themselves to live deep underground or under the sea, where radioactivity from the Earth's core was more abundant.  Some, like the Shinomura, merely went into hibernation on the Earth's surface.  Now, with humanity entering the Atomic Age and bringing radiation back into style, it appears that the MUTO threat has returned.

Godzilla kills one of the Shinomura.  The American government, intimidated by Godzilla, decides to hit him with an atomic bomb in order to curb any threat he might pose.  Serizawa disagrees - he believes that Godzilla represents the "balance of nature" or something (I'm not so sure if that's the case, but okay) and believes that he should be left alone.  Naturally, Serizawa is ignored.  The government bombs both the G-Man and the Shinomura at Bikini Atoll.  Obviously, Godzilla survives.  He will not appear again until 60 years later - but until then Monarch will be keeping watch.

"Awakening" is a handsome, well-drawn prequel.  It nicely fills out the story of Monarch and Godzilla's first appearance, all of which is conveyed in the movie in a rather cursory, but clear, fashion, and helps to provide a little more weight to the big screen character of Dr. Serizawa.  It's well worth your time.

Now back to the movie -

Miners in the Philippines unleash a couple of MUTOs when they accidentally fall into a massive underground cavern.  After one of the MUTOs sucks up radiation from a nuclear power plant in Japan (and causing a massive disaster in the process), the Monarch organization is unceremoniously re-integrated into the U.S. military, who continues to track the two MUTOs as well as a third creature (Godzilla, of course), all of whom are converging on the city of San Francisco.  The MUTOs intend to spawn, threatening all life on Earth as we know it.  Godzilla arrives, kills them both in spectacular fashion, and swims into the sea, victorious.

Very simple.  Very satisfying.

There are also humans in this movie, as you may have heard.  The biggest criticisms of "Godzilla" tend to revolve around the human characters and their generous amount of screen time.  I, too, was initially taken aback by how much running time the human beings gobble up.  Heck, even the MUTO's get more screen time than Godzilla.  In the end, and especially after three viewings, it's really not a big deal.  The characters are kind of one-dimensional and a little bit bland, and they don't have very complex character arcs, but they're more than enough - for now.  I, too, wish the movie had succeeded in its ambition and become not just a great monster movie, but a great drama, something that transcends the genre.  That doesn't happen here, but after sitting through 40-plus Godzilla-verse movies and the many one-dimensional characters therein, the characters in this movie aren't bad at all.  Don't even mention the annoying caricatures that were passed off as characters in the '98 version.

Maybe it's the potential.  There's so much potential here, especially with the characters, and this film is a great baseline establishing point.  The actors are certainly talented enough, so why not?  Juliette Binoche and Bryan Cranston don't last very long in the movie, but it's great to see them.  Cranston at least gets a couple of great scenes early on (one of which includes a nice Mothra reference).  Aaron Taylor-Johnson plays the white bread, stoic soldier main character.  He's getting a lot of flak from critics for being too flat, but I totally believe him as a professional, no-nonsense military man, even if he's not very dynamic.  On subsequent viewings, I've grown to quite enjoy his relationship with Godzilla - there seems to be a strange Zen attachment between him and the monster which I find to be a fascinating story detail.  He lost both of his parents to the MUTOs, and it's suggested that Godzilla may have lost someone to them too - in the cave in the Philippines, there are the remains of a Godzilla-like creature with the MUTO eggs, suggesting (to me, at least) that it may possibly have been a relative/mate/old College buddy.  While Brody (Taylor-Johnson) fights to save his family from the MUTOs, Godzilla may be, too.  Kindred souls, noble warriors.  Samurai brothers from another mother.

Elizabeth Olsen, who is a fantastic actress (she's great at playing crazy, can't wait to see her in "Avengers 2"), is wasted here as the concerned-wife-in-danger.  She's the motivation for Taylor-Johnson's character, nothing more.  Ken Watanabe is the new Dr. Serizawa (a character from the original 1954 "Gojira"), and he's the requisite foreboding scientist character.  It's too bad he disappears during the climax, but at least he gets to utter the movie's most memorable one-liner ("Let them fight.").  Finally, there's David Strathairn as the "head military guy".  He's alright.

Like I said earlier, there's so much potential here.  At the end of the movie, the world knows that ancient, giant monsters exist and that Godzilla is the King of the Monsters and a protector of sorts (even though he kills lots of people along the way).  It would be great to see Monarch get reinstated and awarded generous government backing.  Put Strathairn in charge, make Serizawa (and his assistant played by Sally Hawkins) the brains of the operation, and recruit Olsen's character, give her something meaningful to do (they'll need medical personnel).  Then make Brody the point man.  Continue to explore his Zen connection with Godzilla.  Heck, have them build a new Mechagodzilla and have Brody pilot it, then he can fight side-by-side with Godzilla.  That would be sweet! 

Okay, I'm getting too overexcited now.

Gareth Edwards, overall, did a fantastic job directing this film.  There are some sequences in particular, usually involving the monsters, where he knocks it completely out of the park.  He does go a little overboard with "the teasing of the monsters and then not paying it off right away" aspects of the movie, but I prefer this to the 20 minute-long repetitive CG bore-fest action sequences that are staples of "Transformers" movies or in "Man of Steel".  The action scenes that Edwards devises are short but hit the sweet spot perfectly.  They leave you wanting more.  They don't drain your energy (or patience).

The MUTOs themselves are completely original to this movie.  Actually, "original" may not be the right word.  They're very reminiscent of other multi-limbed modern American monsters like the ones in "Cloverfield" or "Super 8".  There are a couple of differences - one of the MUTOs can fly, and both of them can emit technology-killing EMP pulses.  Perhaps when Godzilla is destroying them, he's really destroying the image of the American Movie Monster.  Now that this new movie is a box-office success, it's highly likely that Toho will grant the filmmakers the rights to one or more of the other classic monsters.  I vote for Gigan.  Or King Ghidorah.

Plus, it's a shame that the new monsters are merely referred to as MUTOs.  The ones in the comic at least had a name - Shinomura.

Edwards also shoots much of the movie from the perspective of us lowly humans.  I first noticed this style of monster movie filmmaking in Shusuke Kaneko's mid-'90s "Gamera" trilogy.  Some feel that it detracts from the monster action, but I quite like it - as long as it isn't overused.  Edwards sometimes comes close.  After Godzilla makes his first full-on appearance in the movie, it cuts away to a television screen, where his subsequent (brief) battle with a MUTO is shown.  When I first saw this, it disappointed me.  When I saw it again, I realized that it was meant to be funny - and it is!  It's actually one of the few laughs in the movie.  My own expectations tripped me up.

The visual effects are awesome (Andy Serkis was a performance consultant for Godzilla).  The sound effects are fantastic (I love Godzilla's tweaked signature roar).  The characters (and the overall story) show a lot of potential.  The tone of the movie is excellent - it's not as bleak or scary as the trailers make it out to be.  They kept the fantasy aspect of Godzilla, and I love that - I hate when they try to ground fantasy to the point where it becomes uninteresting.  I've been listening to the score by Alexandre Desplat non-stop, and it's both surprisingly subtle and rousingly heroic at the same time.  I love the Japanese instruments in the score, and the fact that Godzilla's atomic breath has its own musical accompaniment.

This is one of those movies where the flaws in the film wash away more each time I see it, unlike the '98 remake, where the flaws get glaringly more aggravating with each and every viewing.  That's because the new movie's high points are truly fantastic and pitch perfect - the '98 movie no longer exists in this dojo.  There are more "perfect moments" here than in any other film I've seen so far this year, despite its shortcomings.  It's lucky if a film has even one "perfect moment", and this has multiple.  It will doubtlessly end up as one of my favorites of the year.

Welcome back, Godzilla!