Godzilla
Directed by: Gareth Edwards
Written by: Max Borenstein; Story by Dave Callaham
Starring: Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Bryan Cranston, Ken Watanabe, Elizabeth Olsen, Sally Hawkins, David Strathairn, CJ Adams, Carson Bolde, Juliette Binoche, Richard T. Jones, Victor Rasuk, Patrick Sabongui
Action/Adventure/Sci-Fi - 123 min
Written by: Max Borenstein; Story by Dave Callaham
Starring: Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Bryan Cranston, Ken Watanabe, Elizabeth Olsen, Sally Hawkins, David Strathairn, CJ Adams, Carson Bolde, Juliette Binoche, Richard T. Jones, Victor Rasuk, Patrick Sabongui
Action/Adventure/Sci-Fi - 123 min
Launching his career in 1954 with his first film, Godzilla ensured his place in global pop culture ever since. He even has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Japan’s Toho Co. produced 28 films of The King of the Monsters and America has trotted out two. Tri-Star Pictures attempted their not well received version in 1998 and now a co-production between Legendary Pictures and Warner Bros. brings Godzilla back to theaters to showcase how 2014 technology can show off the city-destroying behemoth.
There is little original content a Godzilla story can offer audiences. Godzilla has been tormenting maritime residents for decades now through movies, comic books, video games, and TV. He arises from the deep, sometimes portrayed as villain or hero, and is usually a metaphor for the dangers and unintended consequences of nuclear power. The tactics and weapons various military departments and scientists employ to confront the monster vary, but we are not here for the humans, we want to see the big guy.
Godzilla does not disappoint in the visual department. The lizard king is enormous and is the best seen to date representation of just how strong and imposing the idea of Godzilla is supposed to look in your imagination. You feel the force of his angry scream not only in your eardrums but in your chest cavity as well. There are other monsters in the film too that do not necessarily look cheap in comparison, but they bring forth a more mechanical, robotic feeling than Godzilla.
As for the humans, they lack any sort of development beyond what is required of them to move the plot forward and most of the time strain credibility. I realize credibility already flew out the window since this is a monster movie, but it is incumbent upon screenwriter Max Borenstein to attempt believability in the few creatures the audience can actually relate to on screen. Godzilla follows multiple generations of the same family, the Brodys. Just as the sharks in the Jaws franchise stalked and ate various members of a family called Brody, the monsters in Godzilla do their best to wipe out a specific genetic line. Oh, and their name is also Brody.
In 1999, the elder Brodys, Joe and Sandra (Bryan Cranston and Juliette Binoche) are nuclear engineers who have the first run in with a monster. Flash forward to the next generation 15 years later, their son Ford and his wife Elle (Aaron Taylor-Johnson and Elizabeth Olsen) get the most run-ins with the monsters in just about every setting they show up in starting in Japan, moving east to Hawaii, and finally in downtown San Francisco which takes quite a beating in the film’s climax. Ford Brody is a Navy Lieutenant just home from deployment as an explosive ordnance disposal officer. What this means is that he defused IEDs. This niche is supposed to make us believe he can also para-jump out of an aircraft at 30,000ft, defuse a nuclear bomb, and somehow survive every calamity his dumb luck puts him in while hundreds around him perish. His wife and kid also keep stumbling into monster encounters escaping just by the skin of their teeth.
What we all want to see here are the monsters and not the humans scurrying around with strained looks of awe on their faces. Director Gareth Edwards made impressive choices with the creatures yet is unfortunately saddled with mostly one-dimensional characters we do not care too much about. The exception is Bryan Cranston (Argo, 2012) whose character receives the most melodramatic elements but carries them quite well. Aaron Taylor-Johnson (Anna Karenina, 2012) is an emotionless robot while the rest of the cast only receives perfunctory screen time.
Assigning Edwards to helm a $160 million picture was a brave choice from the producers. Edwards's one previous feature length film was 2010’s Monsters, a thriller/romance where the monsters with unknown motives were barely glimpsed until a wonderful scene in the end. Edwards made the film with almost no financing and his reward is a gargantuan budget to resurrect one of the most infamous monsters of all time, and he pulls it off.
Whenever Godzilla is on screen, the movie soars. Watching him move, walk, scream, and fight are the best moments of the film. Everything else in between is merely filler; just a necessary vehicle to get us to the next lizard encounter. Aaron Taylor-Johnson did not make the case that he is the next blockbuster action star but Gareth Edwards without a doubt proves his director bona fides and I look forward to see where he goes from here.
There is little original content a Godzilla story can offer audiences. Godzilla has been tormenting maritime residents for decades now through movies, comic books, video games, and TV. He arises from the deep, sometimes portrayed as villain or hero, and is usually a metaphor for the dangers and unintended consequences of nuclear power. The tactics and weapons various military departments and scientists employ to confront the monster vary, but we are not here for the humans, we want to see the big guy.
Godzilla does not disappoint in the visual department. The lizard king is enormous and is the best seen to date representation of just how strong and imposing the idea of Godzilla is supposed to look in your imagination. You feel the force of his angry scream not only in your eardrums but in your chest cavity as well. There are other monsters in the film too that do not necessarily look cheap in comparison, but they bring forth a more mechanical, robotic feeling than Godzilla.
As for the humans, they lack any sort of development beyond what is required of them to move the plot forward and most of the time strain credibility. I realize credibility already flew out the window since this is a monster movie, but it is incumbent upon screenwriter Max Borenstein to attempt believability in the few creatures the audience can actually relate to on screen. Godzilla follows multiple generations of the same family, the Brodys. Just as the sharks in the Jaws franchise stalked and ate various members of a family called Brody, the monsters in Godzilla do their best to wipe out a specific genetic line. Oh, and their name is also Brody.
In 1999, the elder Brodys, Joe and Sandra (Bryan Cranston and Juliette Binoche) are nuclear engineers who have the first run in with a monster. Flash forward to the next generation 15 years later, their son Ford and his wife Elle (Aaron Taylor-Johnson and Elizabeth Olsen) get the most run-ins with the monsters in just about every setting they show up in starting in Japan, moving east to Hawaii, and finally in downtown San Francisco which takes quite a beating in the film’s climax. Ford Brody is a Navy Lieutenant just home from deployment as an explosive ordnance disposal officer. What this means is that he defused IEDs. This niche is supposed to make us believe he can also para-jump out of an aircraft at 30,000ft, defuse a nuclear bomb, and somehow survive every calamity his dumb luck puts him in while hundreds around him perish. His wife and kid also keep stumbling into monster encounters escaping just by the skin of their teeth.
What we all want to see here are the monsters and not the humans scurrying around with strained looks of awe on their faces. Director Gareth Edwards made impressive choices with the creatures yet is unfortunately saddled with mostly one-dimensional characters we do not care too much about. The exception is Bryan Cranston (Argo, 2012) whose character receives the most melodramatic elements but carries them quite well. Aaron Taylor-Johnson (Anna Karenina, 2012) is an emotionless robot while the rest of the cast only receives perfunctory screen time.
Assigning Edwards to helm a $160 million picture was a brave choice from the producers. Edwards's one previous feature length film was 2010’s Monsters, a thriller/romance where the monsters with unknown motives were barely glimpsed until a wonderful scene in the end. Edwards made the film with almost no financing and his reward is a gargantuan budget to resurrect one of the most infamous monsters of all time, and he pulls it off.
Whenever Godzilla is on screen, the movie soars. Watching him move, walk, scream, and fight are the best moments of the film. Everything else in between is merely filler; just a necessary vehicle to get us to the next lizard encounter. Aaron Taylor-Johnson did not make the case that he is the next blockbuster action star but Gareth Edwards without a doubt proves his director bona fides and I look forward to see where he goes from here.
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