Good evening. I am a man in a fine suit. I just returned from a viewing of the Godzilla reboot. Let's not waste any time here. Here's my half-assed take on 2014's GODZILLA.
Plot summary...
It’s the year 1999. Hal Nolastname is an engineer or a scientist or something at a nuclear power plant in Tokyo. His wife carries a similar job title, and works there with him. We join this character on his birthday, which promises to be like any other workday.
Except it isn’t. Unexpected seismic activity shakes things up at the power plant, leading to a breach and apparent nuclear meltdown. This takes Hal’s wife, and much of his hope.
Flash forward fifteen years. Hal’s son Kick-Ass Nolastname is a soldier returning from overseas to his wife, Wanda Maximoff, and a kid whose hair rivals Superman’s son. Their reunion promises to be short lived, however, as Kick-Ass gets a call informing him that Hal has been arrested for trespassing in the now quarantined area of the former power plant. Kick-Ass flies to Japan to bail Hal out, who tells him in a fit halfway between tears and obsession that it wasn’t a meltdown which claimed his mother, and he needs to head back into the Danger Zone to retrieve some very important floppy disks.
They do, but they’re captured. As it turns out, things are busy at the site of the former plant. Some government types and Not Ra’s al Ghul are there researching some kind of cocoon which has set up camp in the rubble. Hal tells NRAG’s compatriots that he knows there’s some cover-up stuff going on, and that his wife died in this plant. Their reaction is cut rather short, as the cocoon starts whipping out some nasty EMP’s (electromagnetic pulses). On the orders of Not Ra’s, the cocoon is blown up faster than you can say ‘League of Assassins.’ But, oops. There was a monster inside, somewhere between a Pokemon mascot and a spider. The wild Pokemon destroys stuff, injures Hal, sprouts wings, and escapes.
After the chaos, NRAG recruits Hal and Kick-Ass to come to the SHIELD Helicarrier, where they are to tell him everything they know about this mysterious and rare Pokemon. Tough luck, however, as Hal dies after telling Kick-Ass to always put family first, or something like it.
Onboard the US military’s personal Death Egg, Ra’s and Kick-Ass have a conversation, revealing that this Pokemon (now dubbed ’MUTO’) isn’t the first beastie to show up. In 1954, an attempt was made to nuke a creature in the Pacific Ocean, who is called (you guessed it) ’Gojira.’ Ra’s speculates that Godzilla shows up whenever he’s needed to maintain the balance of the Force.
As such, NRAG tells the Head Military Guy to let Godzilla take care of it. HMG says no, and concocts a plan to plant a warhead in San Francisco, because these things are attracted to radiation by the way.
Of course, Kick-Ass' rank in the military was bomb disposal guy, so he's the only one who can arm it. They try to get it into San Fran via train, while another MUTO surfaces outside of Las Vegas. Turns out this MUTO is the other one's mate, and they're both harvesting radiation for their spider babies.
One of the MUTO's steals the warhead that was supposed to destroy it and builds a nest around it in the middle of San Fran. The bomb now needs to be disarmed, because, you know, shitloads of people. Of course, Kick-Ass is the only one who can disarm the bomb. He and a squadron of red shirts air drop in. Unfortunately, the bomb cannot be disarmed because it's sealed shut. The red shirts take the bomb, while Kick-Ass blows up the spider babies.
Godzilla shows up somewhere amidst all of this to do what you'd expect Godzilla to do, except this Godzilla also gets his ass handed to him a fair amount until he eventually gets tired of this shit and unleashes his Spirit Bomb Breath.
At this point, the MMUTO (Mama MUTO) gets pissed and starts attacking all of the soldiers in the bay, while Kick-Ass takes the bomb to a boat. The MMUTO tries to stop him in his tracks, but Godzilla’s not having any of it.
Yadda yadda, Godzilla kills the MUTO's. It's cool, but very anticlimactic. He collapses in the middle of the city, and everyone assumes he's dead. But oops, no he’s not. Goji wakes up, brushes himself off, and retreats to the ocean, now hailed by Important Television News as 'The King of the Monsters.'
The end.
Performances...
Messrs. Aaron Johnson, Elizabeth Olsen, Ken Watanabe, Juliette Binoche, and Bryan Cranston aren't given tons of meat to work with, because that's not why you're here. That said, they (mostly) chew the meat they are given properly, and some are given bigger servings than others.
Aaron Johnson, as Ford, is perfectly adequate. I've heard a lot of criticism passed his way as far as acting competence and line delivery, but his character really isn't given much emotional range to tackle. As the soldier, tackling his duty from point a to point b and hoping to reunite with his family, he gets the job done.
Elizabeth Olsen tries on her panic shoes, and they fit well. Again, not too much meat.
We get a glimmer of Bryan Cranston's usual powerhouse self from his turn here as a tortured whatever-his-occupation-was. Though his screentime is brief, it's effective, and he's the character you will probably carry the most of leaving this film.
Juliette Binoche is okay. Mostly, she serves as the catalyst for Cranston's tortured man persona.
Finally, we have Ken Watanabe, portraying Serizawa In Name Only. His one job throughout the film is to deliver the exposition, and he does it without sounding perfectly ridiculous.
Moving on.
Other Stuff...
I'm allowing this to serve as a bit of a catch-all, cause frankly I don't have enough to say on these subjects to justify individual sections.
- Score: Very well done. This is a classic movie score, by which I mean it sounds like it might have been ripped from a classic movie. There is a bit more flavour added to it, though. From the music that plays over the opening titles, you get an idea of what to expect. Classic film score peppered with menacing tribal drums. It works.
- Action: Meh. Much of it is cut away from early on, leaving much to be desired there until the final action sequence. A lot of people will tell you that the last twenty minutes are worth holding out for. I'm here to tell you that they're wrong. If you walked in expecting monster mayhem to tell your buddies about, you will be sorely disappointed. Luckily, the rest of the movie is interesting enough to make this something of a minor quibble.
- CGI: Good. Yeah.
Which brings us to our final section, and the reason you walked into/are considering walking the auditorium into in the first place.
GODZILLA...
...is shockingly absent. Again, a lot of people will bring up comparisons to Jaws or any other number of monster films. That's not the problem. Even the 1954 original gave us very little of the monster to watch. The problem here is that the story, while interesting, almost ignores Godzilla completely. The original was about Godzilla as a direct result of nuclear testing, a kind of hellfire raining down on mankind for their daring to play God. This film is more about the MUTOs than anything else, making this a perfectly well made 'BLANK vs GODZILLA' film, but a failure as a reboot.
Of course, there's also the inevitable redesigns. Many people on this site seem to be a fan of the character's new look. I myself am not. In his time away, Godzilla has grown rather chubby, and there's something about his new face that is unmistakably puppy-like.
Also changed is the character's iconic roar. Whereas the original Godzilla's roar was borderline shriek, Newzilla's roar is rather one note. Disappointing.
Overall/tldr;...
Godzilla is not a great film, but it's a good one. The action is a bit lackluster, but the storyline is interesting enough to hold your attention throughout. Strangely enough, though I do find myself recommending that you see it, I don't recommend seeing it for the titular character.
Until next time,