This time last year, it was “Today we are cancelling the apocalypse!” Today, it’s “Let them fight!” After making a valiant, but ultimately less than successful attempt to revive the daikaiju for the CGI blockbuster age with 2013’s Pacific Rim, Warner Bros and Legendary Entertainment have stepped right back into the ring with a movie many of us have been hoping to see for a long time. Gareth Edwards’ Godzilla might not be quite everything that everyone was hoping it would be, but let there be no misunderstanding – this is a movie made in absolutely the correct spirit, with the correct understanding of just what it is that’s so special about the central character, and indeed the giant monster genre overall – which, of course, is a hell of a lot more than can be said of that late 90s Roland Emmerich movie of the same name (and I say that as one of the few who actually doesn’t mind the Emmerich movie that much…)
Godzilla is and has always been a singular figure in pop culture; even with other such giant monster icons as King Kong having come first, there’s just something so specific and unique about the big G that really makes him stand apart. He’s an almost-literal mountain of contradictions, as heroic as he is villainous, as awe-inspiring as he is terrifying. His monstrous nature, to say nothing of his fire-breathing act, immediately tie him to the myth of the dragon – and yet the dinosaur connection lends him just that tiniest bit of real-world plausibility. As such, he is every bit as much at home in horror, science fiction, and fantasy adventure; every bit as appealing and iconic in his native Japan as anywhere else in the world; and, as this latest movie in particular proves, every bit as welcome in a mainstream blockbuster at the multiplex as a cult midnight movie marathon. Edwards and co recognise this, and have clearly done their utmost to craft a movie which appeals as much to the uninitiated as to the hardcore fan – and, while the rather mixed reactions seem to indicate they may not have entirely succeeded, I think they came very close indeed. They’ve done a far better job than Pacific Rim, for one (and, again, I say that as someone who did quite enjoy Pacific Rim.)
The key surprise for me was, this is nowhere near as dark and brooding a film as I had anticipated. As soon as Gareth ‘Monsters’ Edwards was announced as director (and apparently he was their first and only choice for the job), the mind boggled at the possibilites; I for one was immediately envisaging something with a quiet, understated, almost art film quality, not unlike that of Monsters itself. And when those first trailers came out: the 2012 San Diego Comic Con teaser, with its trail of devastation displayed against Oppenheimer’s murmur “now I am become death, the destroyer of worlds;” the second trailer’s almost Saving Private Ryan-ish quality to the troops taking the HALO jump over San Francisco, catching a glimpse of the giant monster stepping over the city through a slightly fogged-up visor, with no sound but the falling soldier’s quickened breath… all this seemed to point toward one of the doomiest mainstream blockbusters ever made. I get the feeling that some may be disappointed to find that, in fact, it takes a fairly standard blockbuster tone – but I for one don’t have a problem with that at all. At his best, Godzilla has always been first and foremost about spectacular entertainment for more or less the whole family. Anyway, Edwards still gives us a plenty more to chew on with the rest of the popcorn.
The most common complaint I’ve seen of the movie is that it places way too much emphasis on the human story, at the expense of the monster action. I can’t dispute this; Edwards’ movie and Max Borenstein’s script do, without question, pad things out a tad bit more than is really necessary. For starters, I’m not sure we really needed the story to begin fifteen years earlier with a nuclear power plant catastophe that turns Bryan Cranston’s brilliant nuclear physicist into an obsessive conspiracy theorist, anxious to uncover a truth which the viewer already has a pretty good grasp on. Sure, a bit of tragic family history perhaps lends some weight to his father-son relationship with Aaron Taylor-Johnson’s young USN Lieutenant, and subsequently Taylor-Johnson’s relationship to his wife Elizabeth Olsen and their young son… but when giant bloody monsters are walking the earth set to squash everything in their path, I’m not sure we need reminding that the stakes are high. Even so, to my mind they didn’t overdo this side of things, though I gather there are many who disagree. I also have to point out that it’s hardly alone among Godzilla movies for focussing too much on the people when all we really want to see are the monsters.
Still, if Cranston, Taylor-Johnson and Olsen (and, briefly, Binoche – chill, that’s not really a spoiler) bring the human drama to lift this all above standard blockbuster territory, fear not, for Ken Watanabe and Sally Hawkins are on hand to bring us straight back into sci-fi fantasy tropesville, as the obligatory providers of exposition and vaguely scientific explanations. Yes, such figures are pretty corny stereotypes, and no, neither character gets to do much other than stand around looking anxious, but let’s face it – you can’t get too realistic when it comes to Godzilla. Yes, so, in the original he represented the A-bomb attacks on Japan, and in this movie he seems as representative of 9/11, Katrina and the Indian Ocean tsnuami – but he’s still our hero. And yes, Godzilla is without doubt very much the hero here, seemingly called up from depths thirty storeys high – sorry, I just had to – in order to combat the threat of the MUTOs (I won’t give away what that proves to be an acronym for, but I laughed and I’m sure you will too, and I’m fairly confident we’re supposed to). I like that, despite the degree of scientific plausibility the film tries to attach to events, the Big G himself retains this very mythic quality; Mother Earth’s secret weapon, called from his slumber by some unknown force when the world is in need of help, in much the way that pot-smoking skinny dippers wake up Jason Voorhees.
The question remains, of course, as to why they insisted on creating new monsters for Godzilla to fight, rather than drawing on his existing opponents from the Toho movies. Still, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with the MUTOs; they’re very cool original monsters, balancing elements of the Alien Queen with the bugs of Starship Troopers, only a shitload bigger (but, this being a 12A/PG-13, not as bloodthirsty). We’ve had some pretty sweet monsters come out of Hollywood this past decade, what with Clovie of Cloverfield, the Kraken of Clash of the Titans, and of course the Kaiju of Pacific Rim, but I daresay the designs of Godzilla leave them all in the shade – and, of course, that extends to the new improved 2014 incarnation of the King of the Monsters himself. I’m not sure there’s any higher compliment I can give than this: at no point did I think to myself, “enough with the CGI, why can’t it just be a man in a suit?” The monsters might not be so wobbly and the sets might not look like they’re about to snap, but when Godzilla and the MUTOs throw down, damned if it isn’t every bit as thrilling a spectacle. And if the climax of the final fight doesn’t leave you grinning ear to ear, I’d seriously ask yourself what has become of your soul.
Still, call it a hunch but given that the opening weekend’s global haul of $190 million has effectively greenlit a sequel immediately, I suspect we won’t have too long to wait to see the likes of Rodan, Mothra and King Ghidorah be reborn in CGI to bring more crazy monster action to our cinemas. I certainly hope not, anyway. Looks to me like the giant monster movie is well and truly back, and I doubt I’m alone in saying I hope it sticks around for a while.
Godzilla is in cinemas just about everywhere now, from Warner Bros.