This past weekend, Gareth Edwards’ Godzilla opened to a monstrous $93 million, which is pretty remarkable for a non-sequel, non-superhero movie, especially one following in the footsteps of one of the most critically panned blockbusters ever (that would be Roland Emmerich’s reviled 1998 version). If someone told me several years ago that a giant reptilian monster would out debut a legendary web-slinger, in the same month no less, I would have shrugged them off without hesitation, but such is the case as Godzilla stomped on Peter Parker and stole his summer crown (although the X-Men will probably steal it again this upcoming weekend). Clearly, Legendary Pictures’ well-planned marketing strategy – which hid the titular monster, played up the massive world destruction, and featured an angry Bryan Cranston trading in meth for mutated beasts – paid off in spades. While anticipation was extremely high going in – not only was the film #2 on Reel Reactions’ 20 Most Anticipated Movies of the Summer Movie Season, but it also received a glowing review from our own Mike Murphy, who called it a “damn good summer blockbuster” – I have to admit that I walked out massively disappointed. Godzilla may get major points for refreshingly holding back from the onslaught of numbing spectacle so common in present day tentpoles, but its laborious suspense results in a tiring, painfully boring summer blockbuster and a complete titular rip-off (the film should have been called MUTOs, or Horny MUTOs for that matter).
I should note that Godzilla is not a completely thankless movie experience. As Mr. Murphy expertly points out in his review, “[Gareth] Edwards is the star of the film…his camera hiding small gimmicks or employing giddy tricks.” One such trick is the way in which Edwards grounds the action, shooting the large-scale destruction form the streets with handheld cameras; whereas most blockbusters go wide to show millions of dollars worth of CGI (here’s looking at you, Zach Snyder), Edwards goes small, shooting much of the early action from our perspective and showing bits and limbs of the monsters in the process, which allows their size to seem more massive and their devastation to feel more terrifying. While the very notion of giant monsters duking it out WWE-style is ridiculously silly, Edwards grounds his version of the story in as much realism as possible, opening with a credits sequence set against archived footage from the 1940s-50s that puts the titular monster in a historical context before segwaying into a film less about Godzilla and more about a family living through his catastrophe. Our first introduction to the Brody family is through a tragedy that occurs at a Japanese power plant where parents Joe and Sandra work (Cranston and Juliette Binoche). This scene makes the devastating effects of the MUTOs dramatically clear, and while Cranston might not have much to do but frantically yell, he’s an absolute pro when it comes to turning tantrums into emotionally effective beats.
Ultimately, Joe is phased out of the story and his son, Ford (Aaron Taylor-Johnson), becomes the main driver of the action, all while scientists and military generals weigh in on the forthcoming mayhem. Continually, the film grounds itself in a real world affected by unreal species; even the way in which Godzilla is re-imagined here, not as the product of nuclear testing but as a centuries old monster whose very purpose is to restore balance to the natural order when it is threatened, speaks volumes to debates regarding man vs. nature and roots itself in such earthly and timely themes like global warming (there’s a reason the best line of the movie is when Ken Wantanabe states, “The arrogance of men is thinking nature is in their control and not the other way around”, even though it indirectly prevents the movie from speaking for itself; what ever happened to show, not tell?). Edwards’ vision of a grounded, as-realistic-as-possible Godzilla is a noble and refreshing idea, but it indirectly works against him by the time the monsters are ready to clash in the film’s third act. Here, Edwards clearly wants to have as much fun as possible, to provide those badass moments of roaring “wow” that are only possible in films like these, but when a feature spends practically 90% of its runtime focusing on the human drama of such an event, the introduction of a mindless monster bash results in a pretty sharp tonal shock. When Godzilla shows up to fight the MUTOs in San Francisco, it feels as if all three are coming from an entirely different movie, one that is livelier and way more fun.
I’ve heard many people over the last short week compare Godzilla to Pacific Rim, last summer’s similarly kaiju-specific blockbuster from director Guillermo del Toro, and while it’s unfair to do so since each approaches the “monster movie” from a polar opposite direction, the entirety of Rim seems to be the kind of experience that Edwards intends to achieve in the third act of Godzilla. While Edwards creates a realistic world in peril from the get go, del Toro goes as big as possible for the entirety of his movie, filling it with one note, cartoony characters so that nothing distracts from the main event of watching giant robots duke it out with giant monsters over and over again. Rim is non-stop, imaginative CGI spectacle, which makes it the antithesis to Edwards’ grounded take on a similar story, but because Rim embraces such mindless behavior it can pretty much do whatever it wants when it needs to. Who can forget that standing-ovation worthy moment when a robot whips out a gigantic sword to slice a kaiju into sushi? Sure, it’s over-the-top, but it works because every moment before it fits into the same wild, irresistibly fun tone that del Toro has purposefully created. That moment in Godzilla in which our monster unleashes an unexpected power obviously intends to be a similar feat of awesomeness, and although it is indisputably cool, it still feels out of place and lacks any badass-gravitas because Edwards’ tone has attempted to be so serious for so long. It’s hard for a moment like this to be as playful as it should be when the tone established prior is so grounded.
You would think that the monster bash would be a fun release of tension, but the incredibly dry screenplay by Max Borenstein makes it such a pain-in-the-ass to get to what should be the fun parts that no monster fight or astonishing-skydive-sequence can redeem anything. First off, nearly every character speaks in “plot” and exists solely for expository purposes; even worse, the screenplay laughably spells out everything (i.e. a military general gasping “Hiroshima!” after a Japanese scientist claims his father’s watch is from August 6th, 1945. Thanks for the history lesson!). But the film’s true downfall is how everything that constitutes the grounding of the story ends up being extremely boring. The idea to focus on a family going through these monstrous events is clever, but the execution is beyond abysmal. Once Cranston’s Joe is phased out, and with him the film’s most interesting angle of a government conspiracy to hide the existence of mutated species, the film focuses on his handsome son and, as played by Aaron Taylor-Johnson, that’s all he is – a pretty face. Johnson’s acting abilities are thinner than a paper towel, he has a hard time emoting anything above a blank, emotionless stare and it is shocking that someone cast him as the lead in a big budget event picture like this one. The fact that he is co-staring in Avengers: Age Of Ultron is now a serious red flag. Johnson’s Ford is the only character in the entire movie that must display a full character arc and navigate a range of emotional moments and Johnson fails at all of them. His shocked face might as well be his happy face. Ironically enough, the actors who are seriously talented end up sidelined in thankless roles, such as the great Elizabeth Olsen as the horrified wife, Wantanbe and Sally Hawkins as plot-explaining scientists, David Strathairn as a bland military leader, etc. No one has anything interesting to do and the one person who does – Taylor-Johnson – doesn’t have the acting skills required to make the grounded moments land with the effects that Edwards clearly wants.
Many critics and moviegoers have noted how Edwards has taken a page from the Speilbergian textbook by holding off the reveal of Godzilla in order to build tension. Although he waits a little too long to reveal the goods in my opinion, the film’s big problem is not because of it. I’m all for keeping Godzilla hidden until basically the third act, but if you’re going to do so than you better make damn sure that everything leading up to his reveal is interesting and engaging. There’s a difference between building suspense and causing agony, and when Edwards finally shows Godzilla’s face and has him unleash a powerful roar, only to then cut to black and have the audience deal with another half hour of the meaningless Ford Brody before finally giving us the real goods, he turns “escalating suspense” into a sour “just-show-us-the-goddamn-monster” breaking point. It’s clear Edwards is paying homage to Jaws in the way he slowly reveals Godzilla, but what he fails to bring over from the Spielberg classic is any unique character that the viewer would want to follow up until and through that point.
Jaws is so brilliant because it spends most of its runtime developing a strong dynamic between three identifiable, entertaining characters while the terrors of the shark escalate in the background. When the big bad fish is finally revealed, it’s shocking not just because it’s the money shot of a terrifying shark and his razor sharp teeth, but also because it’s the moment that reveals what exactly it is the three characters must face off against in the third act, three characters we not only care about but who also care about each other. The single greatest achievement of Jaws is how even after the shark is revealed it refuses to become a “monster movie” and keeps its human drama at the forefront. Godzilla, on the other hand, spends a majority of its runtime mistaking uninteresting characters for human drama, than proceeds to idiotically string them along as the film desperately tries to hatch out of its human shell and become a fun monster movie in the third act.
When Godzilla rises off the coast of Hawaii, of course Ford has just been helicoptered into the state. When Godzilla marches through the Golden Gate Bridge, of course Ford’s young son happens to be on a bus in transit. When Godzilla marches through downtown San Francisco, of course Ford’s wife is distraught in the middle of the street. I realize movies are movies and sometimes you just have to go with it, especially in the summer season, but because the film spends so much time grounding itself in a realistic world and within a realistic historical timeline, these moments become eye-rolling coincidences as opposed to fun ways to keep the narrative going (as similar contrivances were in Pacific Rim). When the shark makes his grand entrance in Jaws, we genuinely are scared for Martin Brody. How can we possibly be scared for Ford’s wife when she’s nothing but a face with a horrified expression (and that’s not Olsen’s fault since the screenplay refuses to make her more than a caricature during the first and second acts)? The film’s slow build exists solely to make the audience impatient for the arrival of Godzilla and not as an opportunity to build character development. Spielberg knows that by creating relatable characters in the first and second acts before putting them in peril in the third, the film becomes unbearably tense and horrifically involving. Edwards apparently does not, and for this reason not even the third act of Godzilla can redeem the movie as a whole.
Ultimately, Godzilla isn’t fun enough to pop off the screen or dramatic enough to carry any emotional weight. It bores when it should boom and lags when it should enliven. It has a great vision and some impressive craftsmanship, but it can’t decide whether or not to make a giant lizard beating up two horny creatures real enough to be scary or crazy enough to be an outrageously good time. I would have personally gone with the latter, but the fact that Edward makes a great case for the former makes it all the more disappointing when a crappy screenplay drops the ball entirely. As we enter the fourth weekend of the 2014 Summer Movie Season, I’m still looking for a rousing great time at the multiplex, something I had hoped Godzilla would’ve provided in full.
Hey X-Men, the ball’s now in your court.
Article by Zack Sharf
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