[Movie] Godzilla

[Quiver he/him]

So... that was a thing.

 

Can you hear the enthusiasm dripping from my voice? Avoiding spoilers... it was okay. I mean, I've seen far, far worse films, and Godzilla isn't really bad, it's just... eh. It was an enjoyable way to spend two hours, I guess, and it's certainly better than the 1999 American film. 

 

That might be a reason for my general apathy, I suppose. I'm not a Godzilla fan; the only film I've seen was the American one. By contrast, this has a feel of being very much an... American-produced Japanese Godzilla. If you like Godzilla, I imagine you'd enjoy it; there were somethings I picked up on, from reviews/research of old Godzilla movies leading up to this. But I just found it an okay, but unremarkable, experience.

 

First of all, the trailers lied. They advertise Brian Cranston as the protagonist of the movie, and... he really isn't. He dies some twenty minutes into the movie, leaving us with our real hero, who is... eh. 

 

Honestly, Cranston aside, the human characters were all rather dull. They were competent characters, but not particularly colorful, and their story simply wasn't very engaging. There was also a sense of... Small Worlditis; the paths of the main character and the monsters cross too many times to be believable. I find myself wishing they had expanded the cast in some way, and portrayed this more as an international event, affecting more people than it did.

 

That said, they do pull that off fairly competently at times. The monsters and the film bounces across the globe and, while a lot of the action does take place in America, the fact that none of it happens in New York is at least a push in the right direction. Effectively though, the humans are to act as eyepieces for the story of the monsters, and...

 

Okay, the monsters are cool.

 

I'm not a huge fan of how they got handled throughout; the movie teases the fights to the point where it gets annoying, and after the moneyshot of Godzilla In Hawaii, the fact they not only skip that fight but then go back to pretending we've never seen him is a bit irritating. But besides that, their actually kind of cool, and there was some interesting stuff 'about' them. 

 

The 'explanation' for the monsters is fairly ridiculous. Again, not a fan of the Godzilla canon, so I can't say how accurate that is... but the idea of them being predators from Jurassic times who ate radiation is kind of... goofy. But, as the film goes on, I think that goofiness is kind of the point. Maybe I'm looking too much into it, but it kind of felt as if this movie was about Japanese Kaiju vs American Monsters, and the respective filmmaking styles. Both 'sets' are described in biological terms as being 'Alpha Predators', but I think there's more to dig into than that.

 

First, the MUTOs. They ahve a very Western feel to me; the weird construction of the forelegs and the details of their relative sizes and the eggs feel as if they are meant to be biological, like Cloverfield. At the same time, they seem too clean. They look absurdly smooth, and their eyes and 'vents' have that strange pulsating glow to them, not to mention being able to cause EMP blasts by walking. They aren't just biological creatures, they seem scientific, like the result of genetic research gone awry or something... and that just feels like a very Western setting.

 

By contrast Godzilla is... rougher. More natural. He looks fantastic, and when he moves, you can see all the scales and spines in beautiful detail. He looks a lot more natural than the MUTO's do. But there's also this strange sense that he's... almost spiritual. My favourite shot of the movie is near the end, when he and Ford stare at one another before the smoke swallows him up; it's shot in a way that almost makes Godzilla seem like he's disappearing and becoming the smoke, rather than being hdiden by it. And the ending, when he returns? Stars with the smoke glowing a ghostly blue, coalescing into spines, a tail, a head, and into the big guy himself.

 

The MUTO have biological habits; their entire jouney of the film is about them eating and breeding. But Godzilla? Serizawa speculates that Godzilla is hunting the MUTO's because they're his natural prey, but he never actually eats any of them. He rips them apart, roars and stomps off without enjoying the meal he fought for.

 

There is a sense that, whenever the japanese lead speculates "Nature has a balance", that Godzilla is that balance... he's right. Godzilla is more natural than the MUTO's, and instead of being science-fictional, he's more fantastical.

 

So... eh. The monsters were cool. The humans were functional. The film was alright. I certainly wouldn't object to them making a sequel out of it; I just hope that, if they do, they build on what's come before. This movie does have a sense that 'This Is A Big Deal', and it would be cool to examine the idea of living in a Post-Godzilla world. 

 

[Awesomeness Summoned he/him]

You summed up about exactly how I felt. It was worth seeing and I was entertained but definitely had some issues. Primarily:

Stop playing with your food and eat it! Apparently, the way Godzilla brings balance is by destroying everyone just because he can.

[Briar King]

I enjoyed the hell out of this movie personally. It sweet redemption from our 1st horrible movie.

They announced before the 1st weekend of release a sequel is coming.