Godzilla
Director: Gareth Edwards
By Alex Watson
Ever since Roland Emmerich’s disasterous (albeit financially rewarding) take on Godzilla back in 1998, Hollywood has been waiting for someone to step forward and correct this error. Finally it appears the man for the job has appeared in the shape of British director, Gareth Edwards whose last feature ‘Monsters’ was one came a pleasant surprise to many and demonstrated his great visual eye. But Godzilla is no easy monster to bring the big screen, so will Edwards succeed in his difficult task or will we leave the cinema cursing under our breath again? All questions will answered in this new Godzilla reboot!
In 1999 a seemingly massive earthquake shatters the lives of scientist Joe Brody (Bryan Cranston) and Ford (Aaron Taylor- Johnson) whilst stationed in Janjira, Japan. Fifteen years after the incident, Brody is now serving in the US Navy and Joe is still convinced that the event was no accident and has set out to prove there is something out there causing it! As father and son team up, they begin to discover a threat that could devastate the world and it comes in shape of a monster, awakenened beneath the sea many moons ago- Godzilla! His arrival along with the equally dangerous creature MUTO will shake the earth to the core and will leave both scientists and the military clueless on how to stop it.
After a magnificent trailer campaign, Gareth Edwards’ Godzilla reboot is an entertaining affair, but sadly is not a definitive version of this monster tale. It’s main problem lies in the increasely slow pace of the movie, which begins very sharply with the destruction of the nuclear plant where Joe works and the gut wrentching loss of his wife Sandra (Juliette Binoche), but from there the pace lessens and the build up before the great beast arrives is far too long. There are brief moments which do impress and thrill us such, such as a submarine stuck in a tree and the image of the damaged Statue of Liberty on the New York, New York casino in Nevada. Also although it tries mighty hard to shred its B-Movie origins, Edwards just cannot shift things to the required level and aside from the magnificent effects, the result rings distinctly hollow.
The characters on display we never get a chance to really care for, purely because there is not much to their personality to draw us to them. Brody is a committed soldier, but there are not nearly enough scenes of him with his wife Elle (Elizabeth Olsen) for us to root for him to get home safely, likewise crackpot scientist Joe whose has spent more of his life looking a wavy lines on a computer than looking after his son. Also there are a variety of one note characters who fail to add things to proceedings such as Admiral Stenz (David Strathairn) who is required to do nothing more than look serious and Japanese scientist Serizawa who seems to just spout conspiracy theories. The script by David Callaham also confuses the logic of the movie as well, such as why transport a key nuclear missile by rail when they are massive beasts lurking? And as impressive as the noted Halo Jump sequence is, why is neccessary to the army?
But one sequence Godzilla does redeem itself on, is in the presentation of the notorious creature, when he strides onto screen, the long wait is very much worth it and his iconic roar pierces right through us! Also he is singled handly responsible for a hair-raising finale as Godzilla does battle with the MUTO and descends San Francisco into rubble! But bizarrely in the midst of all the terror and fear he creates, Edwards makes him into an unlikely hero at the films end. Criminally though, he feels severely underused in his own movie and never feel like see enough of this character when he has such potential to thrill us.
Performances in this movie are fine, but nothing groundbreaking, Aaron Taylor-Johnson makes for a decent hero but this isnt a role that requires anything great from him which is a shame as he has proven a good leading man in movies such as Kick Ass. Bryan Cranston is again short changed in the movie world as Joe and we are still waiting for someone to give a role that demonstrates just what he is capable of bringing to the big screen. A great supporting cast including Elizabeth Olsen, Sally Hawkins and the always consistent David Strathairn are also given stringy parts, to waste a cast of this calibre is very disappointing. Though do play a game of counting the number of Ken Watanable’s facial expressions- you will be pleasantly surprised!
Although Godzilla is not the movie that we hoped it would be, it is still a very way to spend two hours and asides from the hoaxy premise, the movie is still damn good fun and this is the closest we have had so far to properly nailing this famous Monster. Edwards is a director with a big future before him and his visuals in this piece could set him on his way- though sadly he did not hire Jamiroquai for the soundtrack- at least Emmerich got that part right!
Closer to the Edge 