I saw: Godzilla

Hey there! I haven't written here in a while. But, let's fire it up and do a movie review. I'll write up more important things laterish. But, for now....Godzilla.

Full disclosure: I haven't seen the original Godzilla movies (which I need to rectify) nor the 1998 version (which, from what I hear, I do NOT need to rectify). So, I'm not exactly the greatest source on this, but eh, you're in it now. Also, there are spoilers ahead, so....

First off, I enjoyed the movie. I really did. I thought Godzilla looked fantastic. I thought the MOTUs (the other creatures that Godzilla fights) were well done. I thought, all in all, they did a good job.

But....

I have two main qualms about the movie. One was, there wasn't enough Godzilla. This seems odd in a movie titled "Godzilla", but it's true. Maybe it was for budgetary reasons, maybe it was to save up for the final act, but Godzilla rarely is the focus until near the end of the film. The humans in this film aren't even trying to find Godzilla (they actually act more or less as an escort for him at one point, which is kind of adorable if you think about it). Godzilla is treated as an ally for the humans from the minute the first MOTU escapes. This isn't a misunderstood anti-hero. Godzilla acts as a force of nature FOR humanity. Now, he does this in the original films (I know a little), but I think in this re-boot, it's ok for Godzilla to start off as the bad guy. The first thing to cause major damage is a MOTU. It is a nice little fake out, because after all, we're here to see Godzilla and the first monster we see isn't him. But then, when Godzilla begins his "hunt", we see a little of it. His first major fight in Honolulu was seen briefly on TV. His major battle in San Francisco is spliced up a bit.  We continually see Godzilla through a restricted lens (a window, goggles). This prevents us from getting a real idea of the true scope of Godzilla (other than huge), and prevents Godzilla from truly taking center stage.

My second major qualm is (and this is a big spoiler) is that they kill of Bryan Cranston's character fairly early on. Cranston plays an engineer who, in 1999, knows that something's not quite right with these seismic anomalies. When the nuclear plant he works at is destroyed and the surrounding city is quarantined, Cranston devotes his life to finding out "the truth". He eventually does when the MOTU that had nested in the plant wakes up, but he dies shortly thereafter. Which is a waste of great actor. Maybe it's just the Breaking Bad fan in me, but come on, Bryan Cranston could (and does) act circles around Aaron Taylor-Johnson, who plays the part of "generic hero #1" in this film. Cranston's character is motivated to finding out the truth. Taylor-Johnson is just sort of there. His entire character's motivation is to protect his family. So, when he knows that a MOTU from Nevada is coming towards his family, does he tell them to high-tail it to literally anywhere in the world BUT San Fran? No. He says, "wait for me, I'll be home soon."

All that said, I did enjoy the movie. Godzilla looks fantastic. The destruction scenes look fantastic (numerous reviews point out that the film evokes images of the tsunamis that have damaged Asia). Whenever Godzilla was on screen, it was awesome. When the people were on screen, it was less awesome. One thing that Pacific Rim did right was it said, "people want to watch monsters and robots fight each other, so let's do that." Godzilla said, "People want to see Godzilla smash things, so let's put in the most cliched hero story ever just to smooth it out."

Other fun observations from the film....

~A MOTU that had been dormant and put away in Yucca Mountain comes alive and burrows right out of the mountain. This is not noticed until Army personnel literally open up the vault where it was contained. I mean,the US stores it's nuclear waste there and there are no seismic sensors? It's not like this thing ninja'd out of there.

~Biggest hero of the film for me was a bus driver transporting kids. The police and military have decided they need to stop all traffic on the Golden Gate Bridge. When all the monsters show up, they fire missiles at the monsters....which means they are firing at the bridge. The bus driver, who is nameless, decides that this is dumb, and slams on the accelerator, getting the bus to safety.

~Taylor-Johnson does get some credit in the film when he is literally the only person to recognize eggs when he sees them. When soldiers find the MOTU's nest, none of them say, "Holy geez, those things reproduced, we should do something about it." Instead, they take a nuclear warhead and leave. Taylor-Johnson, deciding to not make the situation worse down the line, lights everything on fire.

~I loved the scene where a military commander says that his number one concern is people's safety and a Japanese scientist just shows him a watch that stopped when the Hiroshima bomb was detonated. It was a classic "show, don't tell". "Yeah, yeah, you didn't care about OUR safety."  All in all, this movie does a nice job of breaking the classic "The Army will fix it!" trope. Even Pacific Rim (which I really enjoyed) falls into this. Guns don't do anything against the monsters and they literally feed on nuclear energy, so humanity has to take a big gamble that Godzilla won't decide to eat everyone.

~At the end of the movie, Godzilla swaggers on back to the ocean after a long, hard day of being awesome. And yes, he kills the MOTU. But, the fight destroys literally all of San Fran. As news crews show footage of Godzilla strutting back home, the chyron on the screen says, "Savior of Our City?" and the crowd at a stadium cheers. You're telling me that there isn't a faction of the country that wants that monster killed now? Like, mere hours after he wrecked an entire city, everyone loves him? Given that this is when the movie ends, we don't get any resolution on this. This ties into what I was saying before. Godzilla is treated like he's Batman in this film from the get go. No one questions his motives. No one thinks that maybe Godzilla is bad news. And while he pretty much is the savior of the city, it would have been nice to see a little more doubt. That would have made this movie a lot better.  Maybe the sequel begins with the Japanese scientist in front of a Congressional panel being grilled about what he knew when and where Godzilla is now.

~As noted above, we see Godzilla through different lenses in this film. But, a lot of action takes place this way. You've probably seen the scene in the trailers where Cranston says good-bye to his wife through a window in a sealed door. In Honolulu, Taylor-Johnson watches the MOTU attack through the windows of an airport tram. His son watches Godzilla and the MOTU fight on television (but we see little of the fight). Naval officers watch a team of soldiers close in on a Russian sub through satellite. This happens so frequently in the movie that it has to mean something. My guess is that this is meant to symbolize that this is going to be a new generation of Godzilla. We can view the old Godzilla movies, but we can't experience them. Not the same way. Film making technology, special effects, and audience expectations have changed drastically since 1954. And so, while we can still watch those films, they can't have the same impact on us as those original films did. This new Godzilla though comes with expectations, and is going to be viewed through our own personal lenses. We may have high hopes that he will live up to his best, and we may have reservations that he will be a retread of 1998. And even if you're like me and this is your first true go-around with Godzilla, your perception of the monster is influenced in some way. Showing Godzilla through all the screens in this film may represent that we bring our own lenses to the theater.

Or maybe it just represents saving some money.

Either way, it's a good time. You should check it out and decide for yourself.