Hello, and welcome back, everyone! So, a couple weeks ago,
the summer movie season got off to a weak start with the release of The Amazing
Spider-Man 2, a weak opener that
many were hoping the upcoming release of Godzilla would rectify.
If you’re one of the few unfamiliar with the source material,
Godzilla is the iconic lizard monster popularized by the campy 1950’s and ‘60’s
kaiju films from movie studio Toho. American filmmakers had previously
attempted to bring ‘Zilla stateside, but unfortunately in the form of Roland
Emmerich’s horrendous interpretation. Directed by newcomer Gareth Edwards, and
starring a fantastic roster of actors, this new take on the legend was released
to magnificent hype, some may say to the levels of Ridley Scott’s Prometheus. With
all the word of mouth, I suddenly got hopeful that it would start the season
off right… but unfortunately, this really didn’t hit the mark. It’s just about
as weak as any other movie released this month so far, but the sadder fact is
it isn’t even the least bit enjoyable to watch.
After beginning with a disastrous incident at a power plant
in Janjira, Japan fifteen years earlier, the film follows a military
lieutenant, Ford Brody (Aaron Taylor-Johnson), who travels back there to find
his distraught father (Bryan Cranston) obsessing over that fateful event in the
past. After a disastrous series of events takes place, in which a strange
creature nicknamed MUTO is hatched, Brody is approached by two scientists (Ken
Watanabe and Sally Hawkins), who inform him of another creature named Gojira, a
dinosaur dating back to prehistoric times that the governments had been trying
to destroy since the era of the Cold War. When these two titans finally clash
with each other, it isn’t long before whole cities are leveled and devastated
by this conflict, all the while, the US army attempts to bring down a
potentially greater threat from the MUTO that I won’t dare spoil.
I genuinely wanted to like this movie much more than I did,
and I’m completely conflicted as I respect what this is. It’s not only a fond
tribute to Toho’s legendary film series, but also a love letter to classic
Steven Spielberg creature features like Jaws and Jurassic Park, the latter films
of which Gareth Edwards clearly has a great admiration and understanding of.
However, as sincere as his intentions may have been, the big difference between
Godzilla and Spielberg’s great features is that it offers very little in actual
substance, and is quite clumsily directed as well.
The editing of this movie is frantic, jumping from
location-to-location and various timeframes with little discipline and
consistent pace to them. This can be especially jarring after harrowing scenes
like the Janjira plant explosion, only to have them rush fifteen years ahead,
something that ruins any emotional connection we’d like to make. This movie
just doesn’t allow a moment to sink in, and let us absorb the full effects of a
situation, something which I will expand upon later in this review. The movie
is played to be incredibly joyless and stoic, and I can’t exactly blame the
studio for wanting to make a more serious version of the very campy series, but
the result just feels incredibly lethargic as a result. I wasn’t expecting this
to be Pacific Rim, nor should I have expected that, as this is its own thing,
but a little more liveliness would have gone a long way.
Perhaps the movie’s greatest failing is in characterization.
This is the main element that separates this movie from the Spielberg classics
it wants to emulate. Even though the monsters were the real stars of those
movies, and neither of those movies were acting showcases either, there was
still a genuine connection to be had with the human characters, there was a lot
of personality and likability to them, and they were so engaging that you
didn’t mind the waiting for the creatures to enter the movie, and the actors
still put their 100% percent into the material. Godzilla fails to have that
same benefit because of the fact that these characters simply have no identity.
They are one note figures who are thoroughly uninteresting, lack personality or
memorability (Seriously, I can’t remember a thing about them), and are a sad
waste of this movie’s cast. Most of the movie tends to focus on Brody, played
by Aaron Taylor-Johnson (who I’ve frankly never cared for as an actor), whose
performance is wooden to the point of bringing the movie to a halt. By focusing so
much on him, all of the other potentially interesting characters are swept
under the rug, leaving nothing but glorified cameos. Give Bryan Cranston and
Juliette Binoche some credit, at least they elevate their weak material, but
why is Ken Watanabe relegated to constant exposition dumps? Why is Sally
Hawkins always standing around directionless, especially with a character that
could have been erased from the film entirely? And let’s not forget about David
Strathairn, who I frankly tend to forget was even in the film at all.
Of course, like I said, this is meant to be a creature
feature. Great! I am totally okay with this, and at the very least, the action
that would come of it would provide some nicely needed energy to the
experience. What I am not okay with is this: If you’re going to make a movie
like this, have the guts to see it through all the way when those action beats
roll by. This is another reason the editing is so misused, because rather than
let these sequences play out naturally, it instead prefers to skip straight to
the aftermath, or cut straight back to the human characters. Most of the time
that we do get to see these monsters is always from a secondhand perspective,
and for all of a few seconds, a minute if they’re lucky. I can’t imagine who
would think “Yeah, I’d much rather cut to Elizabeth Olsen’s schtick than
witness a potentially awesome fight sequence in Honolulu.” That’s just a tease
that’s more frustrating than fun. Again, I realize they want to build suspense, and I wouldn’t be ripping this apart if
the human characters were interesting at all, but they’re not. Even the
disaster of the situation, which should hit hard, is muted because of the fact
that… I don’t care! I have made no connection with these people. This film has
given me no reason to, so what’s at stake here? Also adding to the “homage”
factor is how the filmmakers are trying hard to make Godzilla akin to the T-Rex
from Jurassic Park. The comparisons are so blatant that I kept expecting the “When
dinosaurs ruled the earth” banner to fall from the top of the screen anytime
Godzilla roars.
For me, this movie fails in so many areas. If you like it,
if you can get into it, great for you! You’re not alone, and I’m not going to
judge anyone for that. This is simply one of those instances where I have to
accept the fact that I’m going to be in a minority situation. I do hate the
fact that I hate this film, and it’s still not as bad as Emmerich’s
catastrophe, but these flaws are just too distracting for me to ignore.
Even my rating for this film is going to have a lot of complicated connotation to it. Personally, Godzilla feels like a one star movie to me, but
for all intents and purposes, I will generously bump it up to two stars, solely
thanks to the effects artists, sound designers, and various other technicians
who make it look and sound like a much better movie than it actually is. In the
movie’s defense, it’s HUGE! The effects supervised by Jim Rygiel (of The Lord
of the Rings fame) are absolute eye candy, the stellar sound work by Ethan Van
der Ryn and Erik Aadahl rival some of the duo’s career best efforts, all the
while, in one of the most inspired composer choices in years, Alexandre Desplat
provides the film with a wonderful score that serves as a throwback to classic disaster
flicks, and is a lot more interesting than any Zimmer clone knock-off would have
been.
Aside from that, though, I don’t have much to remember it
for. Here’s hoping that How to Train Your Dragon 2 will save the summer.
** / *****
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