Godzilla

The last time I saw the great monster Godzilla on a theatre screen was in in the Japanese film Godzilla 2000, and, even though there was still Japanese Godzilla movies made after that, the giant Kaiju went quiet in North America, returning to the deep for many years.  And perhaps it was a good move as the excitement for the giant lord of the deep was starting to wain and began to quiet down.  Some things, however, can only remain dormant for so long.

In the latest installment of the franchise, Godzilla (2014) brings its own new interpretation to the history of the mammoth beast, and spends the first half hour or so of the movie introducing the major players and allowing the mystery to slowly be unravelled.  Bryan Cranston plays an engineer turned conspiracy theorist who is convinced that the Japanese government has something they are trying to hide at the site of a nuclear reactor that he worked at before it melted down.  He finds his antics getting him into trouble with the Japanese police, and his son Ford (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) heads from his nice life in the states after returning from military duty to bail his father out before finding himself wrapped up in the mess as well.

There, that is the plot.  Most of the times in a monster movie the plot is just a spinning wheel that transports us from our pleasant introductions to furious creatures pounding the monster-snot out of each other.  The trailers for the film had added an element of intrigue around the concept of a government cover-up, and I became kind of sad through the first portion of the film as the execution of the plot felt lifeless.  I also began to learn that thinking too much about the plot really was a waste of time, because it did not bring any excitement and was pretty ripe with possible holes.

Before the story could be too much of an issue for me, I was pulled off into a world of the giant monsters, which had now arrived on the scene, and began feeling just like a little boy again.  Director Gareth Edwards and screenplay writer Max Borenstein know well just how to build to a big event.  We got a lot of teasers from the Godzilla and his Rodan-like opponent, but full payoff was held back until the very end.  At a time in cinema where summer blockbusters are all about flexing 30 minute long battle sequences that end up numbing the audience, the build and anticipation showed that less can be more, and it can top the excitement of a Michael Bay movie about fighting robots.

One of my favourite moments in the movie was the first real appearance of Godzilla, a sequence that took place over perhaps ten minutes.  The monster’s arrival was not the purpose of the scene, but rather another element as there was a lot happening, which allowed Edwards to drag it out and get people like me ultimately geeked out and pumped for what was about to happen.  Much like the world of professional wrestling, the entrance sets the tone, and what a wonderful tone it set.

The special effects crew on this film was enormous, and it showed in the quality of the visuals.  Seeing it in 3D actually assisted giving scale and proportion at times, creating the sense that human characters were puny and insignificant.  Edwards also chose moments of a first person perspective in scenes that added to the emotional element that Ford was going through as he was trying to help save humanity.  And, on another technical note, it was not an incredibly loud movie, especially not compared to the aforementioned Michael Bay.  Edwards showed great abilities in using silence during portions of the movie, which then would elevate the effect of Godzilla roaring.  Technically, this film was a treat.

And that is why I chose to give up on worrying about the plot.  The people in charge of the film knew exactly how to create very epic and memorable moments, and pulled them off with expertise that forced a child-like grin to be tattooed on my face for much of the movie.  The biggest accomplishment of them all was the fact that the audience gains an appreciation for Godzilla and roots for him to not just kick ass, but to win and live to fight another day.  This movie proves that summer epics do not have to be close to three hours long, they do not need to be loud, and they do not need to rely on lengthy fight sequences to be entertaining.

Rating – 3 out of 4 stars