Let's Review: Godzilla

 

I love Godzilla. To be honest I love giant monster movies in general. It has been an extremely long wait to see the king of all monsters back on the big screen. Everything I saw for this film had me pumped to go see it. Godzilla was finally coming back and it was going to be done right. So did the film live up to my excitement? Let’s review Godzilla.

 

The Negative

 

Bryan Cranston is wasted in this film. I hope nobody went into this film expecting him to be the main character, because he is honestly barely in the film at all. The film makes you very invested into his character at the very beginning of the film and he sticks around for a little bit after that, but he is mostly just dropped from the film. The real main character of the film is Aaron Taylor-Johnson’s character, Ford Brody. While Ford is an interesting character, he just doesn’t carry the same investment that we had with Cranston’s character and it sort of brings the whole movie down another level.

I’m sure you know by now that Godzilla faces another monster in the film named MUTO.  In the film we see two very different MUTOs, one male and one female. I really want to praise the fact that the two MUTOs are designed differently. The male is smaller and has the ability to fly, while the female is larger with multiple arms. They could have just as easily made two of the same monster but they made them both unique and I really appreciated that. With that said I really didn’t like their overall design. The Godzilla series is well known for its bizarre and uniquely designed monsters, but something just doesn’t seem to work for the MUTOs’ design. For me personally, I think their design is just too angular. Nothing about them seems overly organic at all, and it sort of ruins the illusion that what you are looking at is a living, breathing monster. For a giant monster film, that is one of the greatest failings.

I go to a Godzilla movie for the very reason that I want to see Godzilla. I hope you are really patient folks, because Godzilla doesn’t really show up until the end of the film, and then he is only on the screen for about the same amount of time that Bryan Cranston is. I can honestly say that I left the theater disappointed. The very first fight scene between Godzilla and MUTO is BRIEFLY shown on a small news television screen. Every single fight in the film is shown in quick claustrophobic shots from the human’s perspective. The fight that we see the most of is at the end of the film and it is so brief I wanted to cry. I have waited 10 years to see Godzilla return to the big screen, and what I got was barely any of him.

The Positive

 

As you can imagine from that last paragraph, the majority of the film is taken from the human perspective. It is my opinion that in most Godzilla films, the most boring aspect is the human’s story. Lucky for us, the human story in this film is actually quite captivating. You do find yourself being invested into these characters and you genuinely want to find out what happens to them by the end of the film. While I was hard on Aaron Taylor-Johnson’s character earlier, I was just saying that he wasn’t as captivating as Bryan Cranston’s character, but that doesn’t mean he is bad, far from it. The rest of the cast varies in quality, but Ken Watanabe plays a fantastically stoic Dr. Serizawa.

While the monster fights were incredibly brief, what I did get to see wasn’t lackluster in the slightest. It was like the film kept giving me little teasers of the amazing fight that I wanted to see break out and when the ultimate showdown finally did happen at the end of the film, it was glorious. I found myself getting back into my old Godzilla fan boy mode, cheering him on to beat down the other monster. I wasn’t the only one either, many times during the fight the audience broke out in applause at successful hits.

Godzilla himself was stunning. He had a massive presence on the screen. This film returned Godzilla to a role that he hasn’t been in for a very long time, the role of protector. Throughout the film Godzilla goes out of his way to avoid mindless destruction and has his sights solely on destroying the two MUTOs. By the end of the film, Godzilla is cheered by humanity for being a hero who has protected us from utter annihilation. It was really nice to see Godzilla return as a hero again. I think we have all been a little tired of seeing Godzilla fight the military over and over again in each of his films. This was a very welcomed change of pace.

In Conclusion

 

I had a good time. I went to see a Godzilla film and I left feeling extremely disappointed due to the lack of Godzilla being actually in the film, but was my time wasted? The answer is no, this was a very fun action flick that had a brilliant mood to it. I recommend you go see it for a good popcorn flick. I will admit that my disappointment is still very present with me. I worry that as we bring Godzilla into the age of CGI, we leave behind the ability to have him and his fellow monsters on the screen longer. I can only hope that with future sequels, we end up getting more screen time with the King of the Monsters. 3.8 out of 5.