This article contains some minor spoilers.
British filmmaker Gareth Edwards has remained under the radar for the last four years since the critical and commercial success of his directorial debut Monsters but now he’s back and bigger than ever with his reboot of the classic monster movie franchise Godzilla.
Jay Leno looks a little different outside of the show.
Godzilla satisfyingly restores the franchise with some quaint little nods to the original daikaiju from the tokusatsu series, comfortably restoring faith in the classic monster movie genre which seemed almost impossible after the degenerative chain of monster movies succeeding the 1998 attempted reboot which featured a Gojira that oddly resembled Jay Leno, racial stereotyping and shot-for-shot plaigarism of Jurassic Park. Edwards’ reinvention of the King of Monsters makes an excellent comeback for his return to the big screen and obviously he’s attracted the right kind of attention after announcing his role as director of an upcoming Star Wars stand-alone film in 2016.
Cranston pleases as always in his role. Taylor-Johnson? Not so much.
The film is paced incredibly well, gradually building the tension and culminating in a massive monster fight scene and featuring a couple minor run-ins along the journey and although paced well I was slightly disappointed with the convenience of the plot at times. Brian Cranston’s stellar performance (as is to be expected) *Spoiler Alert* meets an untimely demise and I would’ve preferred to have seen more of his character develop to maintain the emotion of the film rather than focusing on his emotionally devoid son (played by Aaron Taylor-Johnson) who’s part was severely underwritten, leaving him a little bland and dead-eyed. Ken Watanabe’s acting was also wasted, his character was more vacant than authouritive and that authoritive figure is something of a neccessity in the monster movie genre, without Cranston we begin to lose our sympathy for the characters and in all honesty I didn’t really care what happened to Watanabe, Taylor-Johnson or his wife Elizabeth Olsen, by the end of the film I just wanted to see some monsters “f**k s**t up.”
The King of Monsters
Now some people would say that the big guy himself gets quite a small role in his self-titled movie and this may be considered a bad thing but personally I felt like this was movie foreplay at its best, the excitement it exudes intensifies as the film progressed and ultimately resulted in what I can only describe as a visual orgasm with the grand reveal of the spectacular creature in all his monstrous glory. Unlike its most recent counterpart Guillermo Del Toro’s Pacific Rim, which was a fun film (more so like a kids playing with toys kind of film) Godzilla seems to take the genre more seriously and doesn’t overface the audience with a fight fest of monster debauchery, identifying our lovable monsters with a little more character and soul. Although I can only commend the creature design of Godzilla I will be honest and say that the antagonistic monsters known as the M.U.T.O (Massive Unidentified Terrestrial Organism) appeared out of place, they looked more Extra-Terrestrial than Primordial Parasite, don’t get me wrong, the creature design was excellent but it didn’t feel like it belonged in this film, the M.U.T.O seemed more reminiscent of Edwards’ monsters from his debut movie… well, Monsters, with all the glowing appendages and sleek, aerodynamic bodies, it makes it hard to believe that these creatures come from the same world as Godzilla.
Promotional Poster for Godzilla
Casting creature design aside I can happily say that this film did plenty justice for the filmmaker, yes it is flawed but these flaws didn’t really settle and make me bitter about the film, they’re easily forgivable and Edwards’ is still a new kid on the block when it comes to directing and the only way is up. I was excited for the release but I was also apprehensive because of the predecessing mishap of 1998 but Godzilla (2014) towers above Godzilla (1998) on all levels, it isn’t the generic summer blockbuster you might expect, its a classic monster movie, its got the big boss battle at the end, its got the escalating intensity and its got the awesome visuals and creature design. In summary, Godzilla is a worthy watch.
6.5/10
