A long time ago, H.P Lovecraft wrote about terrifying space creatures kept from the realm of human knowledge for cause of mental health. Japanese people apparently liked the concept but not the atmosphere of dread and fractured reality that came with the monsters, so they fiddled with the concept of a feral and chaotic cosmic elite and came up with Godzilla, a concept that became far more popular than the original. After the mainstream success of PACIFIC RIM last year, a Hollywood executive dusted off Godzilla in order to satisfy the masses thirst for giant things duking it out and hopefully make a lot of money. The end product is a little tame and uninspired, but it ultimately delivers a satisfying dose of nuclear mutant interspecies violence.
Why else would you watch, right?
Joe (Bryan Cranston) and Sandra Brody (Juliette Binoche) are American scientists working in a Japanese nuclear power plant in the early 90s when an unexplainable disaster strikes and Sandra dies a horrible death. Twenty-something years later, the area where the meltdown happened became a forbidden zone and Joe became a conspiracy nut, convinced that the Japanese government is protecting something unspeakable. Meanwhile, Joe's son Ford Brody (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) is now an adult, working as a explosive ordnance disposal officer for the U.S Army and he's trying to life a normal life with his wife (Elizabeth Olsen) and child (who cares?). Torn between the mysterious death of his mother and his quiet American life, Joe will seek closure at the risk of facing giant space monsters.
There has been 33 Godzilla movies made, at least that I know of. It's a lot, and the challenge of shooting a movie in this franchise is to tell an interesting, original and dramatic story with mass appeal and deliver the wide-scale chaos that people want and I'll be honest, GODZILLA struggles to accomplish the task. The story of the Brody family is predictable and is used as a prologue to some monsters action, yet it seems to drag on forever.
I understand needing to go through the motions to a certain extent, to set things up, but the domestic drama of Joe Brody seems to be going on forever. Godzilla is supposed to be about terrifying nuclear mutants, not about a grief stricken family, even if the family is grief stricken because of terrifying nuclear mutants. For those who are looking forward to seeing the magnificent Bryan Cranston in action here, understand that his role is a belittling of his talent in itself. I almost threw in the towel on the movie after seeing Cranston do the Tom Cruise dash.
''Director, what's my line again?''
''DEEEEEERRRPPP.''
But I'm glad I didn't.
You know what? Once Godzilla FINALLY showed his majestic self on screen, sporting an early-Mike Tyson ready-to-throw-down stare, it was all OK. I kind of got what it was all about. GODZILLA is dramatically constructed like a boxing night. It's at first deliberately frustrating, but it feeds on your anticipation. You paid to see the main event, but the movie is going to put you through the undercard first and tase you with glimpses at the featured attraction. It's kind of manipulative, but it worked for me. I was getting restless in my plane seat, and then I let out a heartfelt : ''AAAAAAAAW YEAAAAAAAAH'' as Godzilla and the MUTOs were about to throw down in the Bay area. I don't really hold freakin' GODZILLA to any standards of narrative integrity. Give me angry monsters fighting and I'll be fine.
Overall, I really liked GODZILLA. It gave me what I was hoping for. I did not watch PACIFIC RIM in 2013 and I like to believe that I've outgrown my love for giant things fighting one another, but there's something about this Japanese nuclear fella that's hard not to love. He's got an aura and a mythology that you can't replicate through other projects. GODZILLA is a mainstream movie, which means that it's meant to please as many people as possible AND that it's probably going to piss off the purists. I'm no purist of the franchise, so I liked it a lot. There is not as much Godzilla as I wished there was, but it matters when he's on screen. It's entertainment before it is art, but it's clever and dynamic and it's a lot of fun.
