Godzilla (2014)

Godzilla (PG-13) - Review

"You have a right to know!"

When Giant Radioactive Monsters devastate the East and West Pacific Rim, where does humanity turn to rescue it from the threat?  Why none other than the King of Monsters, Godzilla, a prehistoric mutant of enormous proportions whose only rhyme or reason is wrestling with other nuclear fueled tyrants.

Finally washing away the stink of Emmerich's unwise 1998 version, Godzilla 2014 stays almost too true to the Japanese Kaiju mythos as it combines an authentic Godzilla movie elevated above the man-in-rubber-suit constraints of the Toho regime thanks to Hollywood blockbuster status.  While it doesn't all add up to perfection and may not please everyone, long term Godzilla fans can breath a collective radioactive sigh of relief at this solidly entertaining outing.

The beginning of the film is almost a retcon of 1999s version, finding a scientific team headed by Ken Watanabe in the Philippines discovering ancient enormous fossils (the bones of a Godzilla relative and a pair of it's parasites).  A short time later, the family of Bryan Cranston (Breaking Bad) faces tragedy when the Japanese Nuclear Power Plant he works for melts down under mysterious circumstances.  15 years later and his son (Aaron Taylor Johnson from Kick Ass) must plunge back into the monstrous mystery as he plays a crucial role in the epic events unfolding, this time on US soil.  His family and country try to survive the epic clash as Monsters once again roam the Earth.

The film is at its heart an epic-level human disaster movie and derives its terror from references to both the 2011 Fukushima reactor explosion and the 2004 Indonesian Tsunami tragedy.  Human life is a frail thing compared to these ancient primordial life forms who can swat us aside like gnats, feed off our worst radioactive bi-products and wrestle 50 stories above us.  When the final confrontation occurs (and be patient it does occur), a San Francisco leveling brawl takes place with us tiny humans scrambling to save as many of ourselves as possible.  Director Gareth Edwards excels, previously made the full-of-potential low budget indie film "Monsters", and here he is liberated from his penny pinching but not from the groundings of simple entertainment desires.

The American touches are mostly complementary.  The film's audio design is outstanding and yet referential to the originals, the score is perfectly dark and smokey (so happy to have a touch of Requiem from 2001 ASO in there), the monsters look and feel very traditional to the old Toho design and yet without its cartoonishness or lack of mass.  There is a moment in the film where pudgy CGI Godzilla looks into the camera and lets out one long continuous roar that goes on for much longer than is comfortable, announcing his intentions to finally kick monster ass.  It is a delightfully self aware touch to a movie that for most people just needs to be about giant rubber monsters flailing about, and that is perhaps where it falls shortest.  There are many instances of teasing the audience ala Cloverfield, cutting away from Monster action in an effort to prolong tension (something the Japanese could never be accused of).  It delays and delays until it can't delay any further and must allow the beasts full screen mayhem.  While moderately successful at creating anticipation, the technique may leave some audiences feeling slighted leaving as it does most of the action in the hands of its human actors.  However, the humans having a larger role than anticipated is a staple of most Japanese Godzilla films and can be forgiven, and if only the filmmakers had found some wonderful middle ground between featuring humans/monsters then this could have been the perfect Godzilla.  In fact the entire film reads like a Godzilla fans almost wet dream, with all the military "toys" and their dumb as a rock military plans, all the small children in peril, without the need to get gory or talk down to its audience.  It all adds up to a Godzilla that we have never seen before, with an Indy sensibility behind the camera and an efficient intelligence behind its script, leaving us with an experience that is an uninterrupted echo of monsters through a darkened theater, reverberating off the ruined skyscrapers and felt curtains as they grind civilization to dust in their lumbering awake.

8 Godjira's out of 10 (GREAT)