I didn't like my original review for Gareth Edwards' Godzilla, it is too much of a rant for my tastes, so I took the time to watch the film again. It really has been 2014's most divisive film yet and I wanted to be sure of my original opinion (You can't say I'm not fair!) But, despite a bit more forgiveness this time, I still find it to be a poorly executed film.
Is there need for a synopsis again?
Doctor Serizawa (Ken Watanabe) has been following an ancient parasitic organism and tracked it down to a nuclear plant explosion in Japan. He finds one of the physicists there to have information he needs on the creature (known as a MUTO) but as the creature hatches and causes global destruction, Serizawa believes the military is not enough... and that an equally ancient creature is their only hope...
Now I'd like to stress, first and foremost (and despite my first ranting review) this is not a bad film, it is simply very easy and very necessary to view the many problems it has. I like the film's audacity: in a time were big monster/robot movies are light or popcorn munching flicks (Transformers, Pacific Rim etc) this Godzilla attempts to merge what is a very rich legacy of films. On the one hand, we have the original 1954 film, for its time it is an edgy, morose and compelling blockbuster, but on the other hand we have the ridiculous and often laughed at monster battle movies that Toho Studios are famous for.
Here, Gareth Edwards appears to be wanting both. An atmospheric, realistic (and almost philosophical) monster battle movie. We don't just get Godzilla, we have other monsters for him to fight, as well as human interests to follow! That is a big ask, for a film just two hours long, and I do respect the attempt.
The film looks great; there are some proper moments that are very cool and give a great sense of awe and enormity (Godzilla is staggeringly huge in this rendition) the marine "halo jump" scene is an intense sequence. I like the monsters as well, both traditional and new. The music too, upon the second viewing, is great! Going from low, trembling fear to bombastic chaos in a heartbeat. Ken Watanabe is also good in the film, giving a sense of origin to this otherwise all-American story.
But... (and it is a big, Godzilla-sized but) the storytelling, premise, motivations and character arcs are absolute garbage.
I honestly have trouble understanding people saying this has better character motivation and emotion than say the aforementioned Pacific Rim or Transformers. This film is choked with some of the most unnecessary cliches of any typical blockbuster. "Oh no, mass destruction of a major city, BUT WILL THE DOG SURVIVE!?"
There are some terrible oversights in logic also, making the military depicted appear completely incapable of rational thought, while the characters themselves work off an asinine script (something Gareth Edwards "claim to fame" Monsters also suffered from, a terrible script) All of this makes the human subplot, or should I say main plot, appear confused and redundant.
Ugh, to stop a rant from developing again I will move on.
Bryan Cranston from Breaking Bad features heavily in the film's trailers, yet his part has almost zero bearing on the film's story. Don't believe me? Watch it again. You could cut him out from the story completely. He should have been the focus of the film; he gave the most impassioned performance, but no, we follow instead his son, Aaron Taylor-Johnson's Ford, a cardboard soldier who is forever under the feet of these monsters regardless of which country he's in. I know Aaron Taylor can act, I liked Kick-Ass, but here both the script (and mostly likely the director) gave him nothing to work with.
A cynic could say, and I do, that Bryan Cranston's involvement was merely to boost ticket sales.
It is a difficult film to like; I can see a lot of it working (a sequel as a lot of potential for improvement) but it becomes so frustrating over time and two hours starts to stretch on for eternity. The monster fights climax wonderfully, but with literally one hundred minutes of build up, either of teeth-grindingly tedious character fluff, or continuously teasing grand battles with merciless edits and cut-aways (dare I say this is as bad as Cloverfield) the entire experience becomes a frustrating endurance.
I don't see why we needed a first act that is nearly pointless. Cranston's character could have been cut and replaced with more of Ken Watanabe's character giving Godzilla (you know, the titular character!) an actual backstory. We have an audience who believes the Roland Emmerich 1998 Godzilla is "the original"! That is blasphemous; Japan and Toho actively distance themselves from that film. This was the opportunity to tell western audiences about Godzilla... and the film fails to do that.
Additional Marshmallows: That's a whole half-cup of cocoa more than the first review's rating, how come!? That half-cup is basically for the soundtrack, which I hadn't appreciated until much later.
I hope this review proves to be more... constructive than the first "rant" review. Incidentally the first review will remain available on this blog!
Like some overzealous knee-jerk reaction to the campy, indulgent movie disaster Gozilla '98, director Gareth Edwards brings us one of the most infuriatingly tedious and disappointing monster movies since his own Monsters in 2010.
An organism as old as the dinosaurs has grown into monstrous size and devastates a nuclear reactor in Japan. Fifteen years later scientist Ichiro Serizawa (Ken Watanabe) teams up with a nuclear physicist who lost his wife in the attack on Japan, both uncover a monstrous egg which soon hatches. The insect-like creature craves radioactive material, and while the military struggle to stop its global tirade Serizawa believes a more ancient power, known only as Gojira, can stop it.
On paper, this sounds amazing. In the trailers, it looks amazing. In director Gareth Edwards' execution....... it feels like all of the worst cliche elements of blockbuster films combined into a laborious slog.
To get the best bits out of the way first because its easier, the film has great photography. The atmosphere is intimidating, almost everything is shown from ground level to give a sense of scale, shots are well framed, I like the monster designs. Those parts of the trailer, the halo-jump and the monster? Those are great! (shame you've already seen those in the trailer...)
Literally beyond the shots in the trailer, there is little, little else. Let's start by saying this is not a remake of 1954's Gojira (and no it is not a sequel to the 1998 film!) it is its own creation. Godzilla himself is an existing creature of Japanese legend, Doctor Serizawa perked my interest at first, but there is no connection to the 1954 film; it is just a name drop.
Now onto the major problems. We are here to see Godzilla aren't we. Well, tough. All those bits in the trailer? Yeah, that's your lot, near enough. The entire film is centred around our human characters Aaron-Taylor Johnson's Ford Brody, an army bomb disposal expert and Watanabe's Dr. Serizawa, weighed heavily towards Ford and his army colleagues as they struggle to deal with the giant monsters.
Enter a lot of hoo-hah; military focused action where the monsters aren't even involved. The film dedicates entire sequences to securing a bridge to cross, or arming a bomb, or pushing a boat out from a pier! No monsters! What's worse, this military seems to ignore logic as much as they did in the 98 film, I kid you not! The new monsters (not Godzilla) emit an EMP field, all electronics die immediately within a wide proximity. By the finale of the film the military are STILL sending aircraft into the area! What happens? Buildings are destroyed as fighter planes crash into them. No s*** Sherlock!
And that's only the tip of the iceberg of nonsense this film pulls. For a giant, lumbering and surprisingly fat Godzilla he sure can sneak up on people! Scenes are constantly set up for suspense, even after the monsters are revealed to be towering colossals. No, you can't and shouldn't be playing the suspense card over and over in a kaiju movie, it doesn't work!
Not convinced yet? Here's the real issue. While we are forever chained to our human characters and their distinctly unorthadox melodramas ("I need to get on that train to get back to my family!" He then instead continues to take train so he can face off with the monsters and a nuclear bomb) the film deprives us of seeing the monsters! In a monster movie, in a Godzilla movie, we hardly see them battling until the last ten minutes; the film shyly cuts away whenever a battle begins! Not once, not even twice but several times, all for the sake of following humans as they run away.
WHAT?
I've gone on a lot, but this film's apparent reluctance to show the monsters was infuriating, making its two hour runtime feel like an eternity. This needed some of Pacific Rim's spectacle, some of Michael Bay's frenzy (yes, I just said that) some logic from its human characters to make their cause even remotely important!
There was so much promise in the trailer, there was promise at the start of the film, but no, you'll find your suspension of anticipation worn out with melodrama and a endless line of teasing! If you aren't asleep by the end, you will probably be smirking as the film missteps and trips over its own feet.
So ask me, go on: Is it worse than the 1998 film??
I'll be honest, there are things that even that pile of nonsense does better but, I prefer this film for its atmosphere and its (misguided) respect for the original material.
Oh, and a life tip: When giant monsters attack and your husband is right in the middle of it, you should leave your phone in the other room so you can't hear it when he calls. If you think you should hold onto it for dear life and pray he isn't dead, you'd be wrong.
Additional Marshmallows: You might be wondering, "Cocoa, you didn't mention Breaking Bad's Bryan Cranston at all!? What's wrong with you?"
There's a reason for that. Don't get too invested in his character. That's all I'll say...
It is ironic that people today moan about action movies having ten, twenty minutes of solid action and destruction; little do they realise that films have been doing this for decades!
This is something of a Remake Rumble as well as a saga review. The original Gojira, an American release of the same film Godzilla: King of Monsters, and Godzilla.
One of these three remains (so far) the only Godzilla film to be nominated for a Best Picture award and won one for Best Special Effects.
Another one of these films won the award for worst supporting actress and worst remake or sequel, and was also nominated for worst picture of that year.
Which ones could they be?
Gojira (1954)
Twenty years after King Kong, Japan's first major entry for what is now called the "monster movie" genre.
When ships are destroyed off Japan's east coast and all further attempts to investigate end the same way, the story follows a salvage ship owner and a zoologist as they deal with a colossal prehistoric creature behind the destruction.
Being a monster movie from the 50s and one of the original "blockbusters" the film has a remarkably casual pace; the first act of the film does not feature the monster but shows the effect his mere presence has on Japan. Godzilla is portrayed more as a force of nature, a steady, unstoppable creature who is influenced by our actions as much as we are of it.
Godzilla's prehistoric nature is because of his home deep beneath the oceans being corrupted by nuclear testing, and as a byproduct he himself is radioactive and has unnatural powers and invulnerability.
Of course, this is the heavy subtext of nuclear weapons, but the more challenging message the film provides is how far humanity should go to stop a new danger? A scientist in the story has developed a new super weapon, possibly the only thing to stop the monster, but should a new weapon of mass destruction be unleashed to stop the effects of another?
It was good fun to watch. At its most dated moments it is charming; I love miniatures in special effects! (even when it can look like someone tossing toy cars around) Most of the action is at night which helps, and even the black and white nature of the film makes the sight of destruction a little more believable. That said a lot of the fire effects around the monster are still spectacular to look at today, and Godzilla's ten minute long tirade through Tokyo is impressive.
Of course it has dated, and the first act is strangely void of major characters and in fact you have to wait until the main heroes are actually revealed. Any possible compassion for Godzilla, through the zoologist character who would rather study the creature, is left at the wayside; we see the monster causing such terrible destruction and his character can do little to stop or condone it. What compassionate subtext there is is for the audience to decide.
It was great to watch, and I recommend others appreciate the origins of the classic monster!
Additional Marshmallows: Did you know that Gojira coupled with Toho Studios' other film that year The Seven Samurai nearly bankrupted the studio?? And that Gojira was nominated for best picture and won Best Special Effects at the Japanese Academy Awards! George Lucas has been quoted saying the miniature effects in Gojira inspired the miniatures for Star Wars.
Godzilla: King of Monsters (1956)
In today's film industry of remakes, this sixty year old variation on the idea is a breath of fresh air by comparison!
The film follows the exact events from Gojira only from the perspective of an American reporter who found himself swept into the turmoil of Godzilla's attacks.
Instead of blindly missing the point by remaking a piece of art, Godzilla: King of Monsters (supplied by Toho Studios for general release in America) attempts to extend the story instead. This works at times and has noble intentions, but I suspect due to budget restraints a proper parallel story couldn't be made.
Our American protagonist, Steve Martin (Raymond Burr) is nothing more than an audience surrogate: he watches the events unfold from the sidelines and is placed among the crowds that witness the destruction. His unique scenes are entirely him and a handful of Japanese extras watching "nothing" (or more accurately, the footage of the original film!) occur off-screen, or his own narration over the more widespread events. Other scenes between Gojira's main cast, which he couldn't possibly be involved in, are dubbed.
What is most impressive about the endeavour is Toho's decision to have the Japanese characters (while in earshot of Steve) speak only in Japanese and give the audience no subtitles, giving the sense of confusion our foreign hero would experience.
It may just be my personal dislike for dubs, but the film starts to collapse when Steve starts to interact with the characters from Gojira (I'm sure this wasn't apparent back in the 50s) but a conversation between Steve and the-back-of-an-actor's-head feels clunky and impersonal. But time and budget restraints are likely the cause of these issues.
It is a film of the times. Now that we have access to watch either film this one suffers by comparison, but as a concept for remaking a film it is worth implementing today! With the resources and funds the film industry has, a parallel story with an American focus could be far more interesting than simply re-shooting everything with western actors and even missing the point of the original screenplay. That said, some of the themes might be lost in the translation; the final note here isn't as foreboding as the original film.
Having watched Gojira and now this, I can safely say that you only need to watch Gojira (unless you are as obsessed with learning about films as I am) as this is the same film. I suppose if you are one of those people who hate subtitles then Godzilla: King of Monsters might be better suited. Back in the 50s this would have been an inspired idea, but now it looks more dated than the original.
Godzilla (1998)
Uuuuuuuugh.
So you might be wondering: "Cocoa, why torture yourself so?" and the reason being that I've heard people, actual real people, asking whether Godzilla 2014 is a sequel to this movie or not. Or asking why Matthew Brodrick isn't in it.
Yeah. That's right.
News flash: Godzilla 2014 has NOTHING to do with this awful, laborious pile of nonsense!
So, after French nuclear testing in the Pacific ocean an amphibious lizard is transformed by the radiation fallout into a colossal monster. It then terrorises the city of Manhattan, and only Matthew Brodrick (seriously?) can stop it.
First of all, this is because of French nuclear tests? Seriously? Despite the fact that America has done hundreds more oceanic tests? Secondly, every scene of this film is awful or contains something awful.
Allow me to elaborate: Someone thought it was a good idea to take a metaphor of nuclear destruction and the death of millions through natural disasters, something that has become a classic piece of film iconography... and turn it into an American comedy. It is a spoof, it is a satire. It has none of the original's subtext, it doesn't try to give it an American spin... actually it does, but only with all the worst aspects America has to offer.
Enter a host of cow-eyed, mushy faced actors and actresses. Brodrick, the king of nerdy, twitchy insecurity, Maria Pitillo is the queen of wide-eyed obliviousness, and the dad from Transformers as the worst military leader, who are joined by every sitcom cliche New Yorker character you can fathom. The sheer weight of awful characterisation (including caricatures of American celebrities) manages to bury Jean Reno, one of the coolest men in cinema during the 1990s.
I've not even gotten to the action. The action is poorly, poorly paced. One is reminded of the recent Die Hard 5 and its repetitive sequences that are one and the same, but the teeth-grinding repetition isn't the worst of it, but more of the entire setup to begin with.
For some ungodly reason the screenwriters believed the best way to have Godzilla in Manhattan would be to prove how a city island, home of over a million people, is the "perfect place to hide". I...
<insert mindless rant>
... What's more, the original Godzilla came to the mainland to eat humans due to its underwater food source depleting. This Godzilla however, came to the mainland to lay eggs and eat fish. You know, because there's nowhere better than Manhattan to lay eggs near the Pacific ocean, and there's no better place to find FISH.
You see my gripe? The action doesn't matter once you lay out the setup and see how atrocious it is, regardless of the fact that the action is overblown and completely dumb anyway.
You might say I am missing the point, this movie has clearly been designed this way: comedic laughs follow total devastation and death, characters never have any straight, honest dialogue. What angers me is that this is what a lot of people consider Godzilla to be. An awful, marketed, Jamiroquai-singing, product-placed, media-driven, dullard sitcom.
This film should be forgotten, and remember: Godzilla 2014 is NOT a sequel to this film!
Additional Marshmallows: An example of how clueless this film is: At one point Maria Pitillo's boss steals her "top secret" report on the creature's history and broadcasts it himself, dubbing the creature as "Godzilla". Maria then angrily shouts at the television: "Its GOJIRA you moron!" as if to preach proper respect to the creature's origin.
But according to sources the name Godzilla was actually Toho Studio's idea during the original marketing for their film Gojira to American audiences in 1954. In fact, "Godzilla" or "Go-dzi-la" is the proper pronunciation of "Gojira".
So you see... this film is garbage however you slice it.
