Godzilla

No one pays to see a Godzilla movie without wanting to see mindless destruction on a monumental scale, preferably with some monster-on-monster action mixed in. Some obligatory commentary connecting humanity, nature and technology is also part of the mix. If the movie also features good acting, good directing, good special effects or even much of a story — that’s icing on the Godzilla cake. On that level, Gareth Edwards’ new Godzilla movie is a success.

Swinging Roland Emmerich and Dean Devlin’s dumb 1999 version of Godzilla out to sea, Edwards’ interpretation pays homage to the original 1954 Ishiro Honda-directed Japanese film while updating the franchise for a modern audience. It uses the tactic of Kurt Busiek and Alex Ross’ groundbreaking miniseries, Marvels, and tells the story of warring God-like creatures from the viewpoint of the civilians and military personnel on the ground who mostly witness the spectacular events without being able to effect or control them.

The first act of Godzilla is its strongest in terms of acting and writing; Bryan Cranston plays a nuclear engineer who, in 1999, loses his wife (played by Juliette Binoche) in the inexplicable destruction of a Japanese nuclear plant. Cranston’s on full throttle here; his acting is of Breaking Bad caliber, as if no one told him this is a Godzilla movie. I’m not complaining. Every movie can use good acting, but Cranston’s role is the emotional height of the entire film, and he’s soon out of the picture (despite the impression one gets from watching the Godzilla trailers). The movie then falls to his Naval officer son, Ford Brody (played by Aaron Taylor-Johnson), who’s unwillingly corralled into witnessing and helping to fight a new monster menace.

Edwards’ Godzilla has the serious-minded tone of George Pal’s 1953 War of the Worlds with its nuclear weapons, giant foreign menaces causing destruction and fleeing populace. Like that film and Steven Spielberg’s 2005 remake, Godzilla isn’t big on characterization. Ford Brody, the film’s protagonist, is nondescript and boring – so are his wife, played by Elizabeth Olsen, and son. They’re in the movie to look worried or be heroic, but they haven’t been written well enough that we care about them. Likewise, great actors like Sally Hawkins, David Strathairn, Ken Watanabe (and Juliette Binoche) are not given much to do but say their lines and collect a paycheck. The screenplay could have and should have been better.

Where Godzilla delivers is in presenting sheer spectacle. The monster fight scenes, Godzilla fighting a pair of threats to civilization called MUTOs, are an orgy of expensive, meticulously crafted destruction. They have the brown, painterly look of Goya’s work or J.M.W. Turner’s darker landscapes. The money that could have been spent on the script was well-deployed here; the action ping pongs between the Philippines, Japan, Hawaii, San Francisco, Las Vegas and Nevada, with every local, collapsing structure and creature swat looking real.

Edwards allows Godzilla to be revealed slowly, in glimpses, like Spielberg’s Jaws. When the King of the Monsters finally stomps, rages and breathes fire in all his glory, he’s both a terror and a savior; a monster like a dinosaur that kids revere and fear at the same time. I do hope Warner Bros. is considering a sequel.

—Michael R. Neno, 2014 Oct 27