By Alexander Cheves
Image from Cliplip.com
**SPOILER ALERT** This review may contain spoilers for “Godzilla” (2014).
You’ve heard the hype, the bass-heavy roar, for a few months now. The first trailer appeared at the 2013 Comic-Con. Then, last December, a viral video was released on a website called M.U.T.O. Research. We’ve felt the early rumblings, and now it’s here: Legendary Pictures and Warner Bros.’ “Godzilla.”
A film of this size is a change for director Gareth Edwards, who made his directional debut with the indie darling “Monsters” (2010), which got him widespread attention. In “Godzilla,” Edwards uses the same tactic that worked so well for him in “Monsters”: don’t show the monster. At least not too soon. Build up tension in the quivering, excited audience – “When do we see him, mom? When?” – then, slowly, show us some reptilian spikes (taller than a boat, taller than a building), then, wait, is that a tail? A foot? Jeez, the thing is huge.
Godzilla’s backstory (covert agencies, government cover-ups, you know the deal) is told through the relationship between Ford ( Aaron Taylor-Johnson from “Kick-Ass,” who gets beefier with every movie), a bomb specialist returned from active duty, and his father, “Breaking Bad’s” Bryan Cranston. We learn that the monster has been around for a while. Millions of years, actually. It lives deep in the sea and only comes up for emergencies, like when another monster, the apparently villainous M.U.T.O. (Massive Unidentified Terrestrial Organism) hatches from the belly of the earth.
Although the tagline throughout the film is that Godzilla is just an indifferent “force of nature” come to “restore balance,” let’s be clear on what he is: a hero. The movie is a classic origin story, ringing all-too-sweetly of the first of a franchise.
Even though the M.U.T.O.s are just big animals that finally want to reproduce (come on, they’ve been dormant for years, I think they’ve earned a little action), we’re meant to understand that they’re just plain bad, while Godzilla, the “alpha-predator,” who honestly appears more sluggish and lumbering than the winged, throaty M.U.T.O.s, is evidently the hero.
But just in case we’re not clear on this, the television screens by the end of the film ask, “Godzilla: Savior of the City?” Never mind that he destroyed San Francisco with that tail of his. It’s not clearly stated why, exactly, he wants the M.U.T.O.s out of the picture. Maybe he wants to remain the biggest fish in the pond (no problem there, dude). Maybe he just wants a good tussle before another forty years chilling underwater. Who knows?
Ford is a great lead, even if he says all-too-heroic things like, “I’ll do whatever it takes, sir,” when called in for a suicide mission (never mind the wife and kid at home). Elizabeth Olsen, playing his wife, is a powerful actress who first wowed audiences in 2011’s “Martha Marcy May Marlene.”
In movies like this, we always wonder why these particular characters are focused on while millions more die. When one building topples, how many lives is that? A lot of buildings topple in this movie. But by the end, we have an explanation for the focus on Ford. He becomes significant. Sure, this seems a little set up – this reviewer wishes someone more pivotal had died (I had my eye on you, Olsen) – but still, this intentionality is appreciated.
“Breaking Bad” fans will rejoice that Cranston is in it, as they should. He can look believably heartbroken and deliver a not-corny rant within ten minutes. However, the characters closest to the battle line — Admiral William Stenz (David Strathairn) and Dr. Ichiro Serizawa (Ken Watanabe) — fall flat, without an ounce of incredulity on their faces: “Of course there’s a giant monster. Let’s kill it!”
All these little problems aside, Godzilla is still tons of fun. Watch it for the beautifully-shot final battle, the opening of which you’ve already seen in the trailers: the military skydivers, trails of red smoke in the dusk. After the 1998 disaster, fans will be happy to see Godzilla remade with a bit more reverence, a bit more seriousness and, finally, with a character design much closer to Toho’s 1954 original, with the size amped up. Way up.
