Godzilla, the 60-year-old Toho icon and King of the Monsters is back on the big screen in this much heralded American reboot. Fans have kept their hopes sky high ever since the first tense teaser trailer was released online last December and seemed to promise that this version would be as far removed as you can get from the last time the big atomic lizard was re-imagined for American audiences in the campy mess that was the 1998 version directed by big screen mayhem king Roland Emmerich and starred Matthew Broderick.
But is this version’s impressive state-of-the-art CGI and reverence for the legendary character’s legacy enough to make it a satisfying summer tent pole crowd pleaser? Well that depends on what kind of Godzilla movie you’re hoping for. If you’re biggest wish is for the title monster getting a substantial amount of actual screen time and destroy city after city in a worldwide monster worthy Sherman’s March, you may be disappointed.
In director Gareth Edwards’ Godzilla, the story decisively takes the slow burn approach in pacing and subtext heavy storytelling, while also delving deep into the human element. By taking heavy cues from Spielberg’s Jaws, Jurassic Park and Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Edwards chooses to withhold the money shots and doesn’t allow a full reveal of Godzilla until nearly an hour into the film. He’s mostly kept hidden until the tail end of the final act, which don’t get me wrong, definitely does not disappoint. Obviously character development and a lack of pointless FX driven sequences are by no means cinematic red flags. But if two hours of shameless shock and awe CGI are what you want, this is not what you’re looking for.
We open with archival footage from circa World War 2 that hint at the atomic means utilized to try and destroy a monstrous threat of Jurassic proportions. We then flash forward to 1999 Japan and follow nuclear physicist Joe Brody (Bryan Cranston) and his wife Sandra (Juliette Binoche) to the facility they work in when an unexpected seismic pulse causes the plant’s terrifying meltdown. Juliette perishes on site and Joe becomes obsessed with the inevitable cover up. He knows it wasn’t the result of a natural disaster, but something more based on the readings he measured before it all went to hell. Even worse, it’s Joe’s birthday.
It’s off to present day, and Joe’s son Ford (Aaron Taylor-Johnson), a military bomb diffuser, is no sooner back home with his wife (Elizabeth Olsen) and son in San Francisco after his tour of duty when he’s back in Japan to bail out his father for trespassing in a forbidden zone while trying to crack the government cover up. There is a far greater threat to uncover and it involves ancient monsters that thrive on nuclear energy, some out to reclaim the planet, some to maintain the ecosystem as it eventually developed. The assembled human cast does the job as intended, and provide parallel reactionary stories of how the world deals with this threat (plus add in Ken Watanabe as a scientific investigator and David Strathairn as the American military strong arm).
It’s at this point where other monsters that are not Godzilla take charge as the main threat to the planet. These creatures are nearly unstoppable by modern means and take to destroying anything standing in their way. It becomes clear that the enormous lizard called Godzilla, who has resurfaced from the sea after decades of hiding, should not be feared because he is actually the only force that stands between us and them for maintaining the present state of how our planet has evolved.
By the middle of the film, those who are getting antsy may get the feeling that the 60-year-old monster movie icon agreed to only work on set for two weeks of the shoot, insisting on using body doubles for the various close-ups of his feet, thighs, fins and tail. Director Edwards chooses his reveals of Godzilla sparingly, perhaps to a fault. But when we get to that first hero POV shot accompanied by the iconic roar, there is no mistaking that he’s built like a friggin’ tank. Stocky in his lower half, this updated version exudes pure powerhouse (he’s already been the victim of fat shaming by some fans). He’s also larger than any version we’ve seen, towering over skyscrapers in both San Francisco and Japan. But as far as less is more goes, we definitely never get enough of Godzilla.
The classic throwbacks to actors in rubber suits lumbering through film sets of miniature model cities and leaving a path of destruction are mainly left to the new unbeatable monster threats, and not so much to Godzilla. Moviegoers expecting lots of monster versus monster action may find themselves anxious, perhaps bored, with the primary focus on the human element. Way before the third act finally provides the expected no-holds barred tent pole worthy action sequences you’ve been longing for, you will seriously wonder why Godzilla has been used so sparingly.
The film, with its focus on the human reactionary retaliation to the “evil” monsters rather than the potential go-for-broke monster versus monster element, is what separates this from about every other film of its kind, and could yet be a polarizing factor for moviegoers expecting something a lot less cerebral and reserved. It’s not to say that it can’t work when you have it all thrown at you right off the bat. Guillermo del Toro’s Pacific Rim hit you hard right from the beginning with a CGI orgy of giant robots versus monsters and kept going till the end credits rolled. That film pretty much played straight into the joys of its core fan base. What we have here is an interesting calculated approach that could not be any more a slap in the face and 180 degree turn to the 1998 version.
The let it all hang out approach worked for Pacific Rim but was pretty much a fanboy targeted film. Here Godzilla is a different animal all together. Where withholding revealing the main monster works in the case of Cloverfield, where you have no idea what terrifying form the beast is coming in, at the end of the day we all know what Godzilla looks like. While it’s great to maintain tension, ultimately the reveal, no matter how big, falls short because Godzilla is always Godzilla (and yes,while he sports a new thicker look, he’s unmistakably Godzilla).
Cranston gets to be on the whole time and has a field day here, plying it mostly manic in his obsession over getting to the bottom of what caused the nuclear meltdown at the plant that claimed the life of his wife. The rest of the cast maintain their own story arcs, and actually have minimal on screen interaction with each other.
Hands down, fan boys will want to see far more of Godzilla than what is delivered. The fantastic trailers do the final product justice in setting the dead serious tone that is maintained throughout the film, but without question, the big guy gets the least amount of play. The slow burn to the eventual awesome third act blow out battle isn’t the approach I was hoping for with this movie. Not saying this is by any means a bad movie, it just chose selective sequences to amp it up as a summer film should. Reviews are subjective, (and mostly) should not work on a fool proof Pass / Fail science, and I know I fall into a distinct minority among the reviews that are already online.
Like many reboots you need to get beyond the origin story to finally get to the meat of things in the sequel, and I feel that is the case here. Now that Godzilla is back on the radar, yes this is a worthy comeback for him, but let’s give him the necessary screen time and adversary befitting the iconic King of the Monsters.
Godzilla opens in theaters and IMAX 3D on May 16th.
REVIEW RATING: ★★½ ★★★
Director: Gareth Edwards
Starring: Bryan Cranston, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Ken Watanabe, Elizabeth Olsen, David Strathairn
Screenwriters: Max Borenstein
Studio: Warner Bros.
Rated: PG-13
Running Time: 123 minutes
Leave a Reply