Godzilla 2014 review

Let's do this.





What did I think of this movie?

It was...alright.

Honestly, I can see where a lot of people were having a huge problem with this one, especially the kaiju fans.

And especially coming off of Pacific Rim of last year.

And....*sigh* Godzilla Final Wars.

What did we get as the last Godzilla movie to be made by Toho?  A monster bash, right?  Or more like Godzilla just hammering it in about how awesome he is after he just defeats one opponent after another in less than 10 seconds.  Poor Hedorah.  Was on screen just to be impaled by Ebirah by accident.  Mostly because Godzilla tossed Ebirah out first, then tossed Hedorah onto Ebirah's claw.

Yeah.

And he had the same sort of stupid green agenda with the same depth as Birdemic.

Yes, I am now comparing Godzilla Final Wars with Birdemic.  It was that awful.

But Pacific Rim in its absurdity, which was just delicious due to all the archetypes being just over the top hammy.  And it's why we enjoyed them...it was a fun ride.

This movie...wasn't a fun right, at least not until the fight at the end.  And that's what everyone complains about.  However, devil's advocate, this movie is not meant to be the hammy, archetype, fun kaiju brawl fest that Pacific Rim was.  Or hell, any of the 1960s Godzilla, let alone the middle Heisei Series Godzilla movies, or Godzilla vs. Megaguirus.

This movie is supposed to be serious.  

Mostly.

I will say this, aside from Cranston, I really didn't attach myself to any of the main characters.  Serizawa included.  Unfortunate because the original Daisuke Serizawa was excellently done and I do remember him as a character who did something in the film and who had conflicts and questioned if what he was doing was right.

This Serizawa, and not bashing Watanabe's work here, just seemed vacant eyed and opened mouth most of the time.  Aside from being Japanese exposition man, he contributed little to the story.

"The monsters are gonna fight."

"Let them fight."

We pretty much get nothing as to why he's so interested and hell bent on finding Godzilla and studying him.  

And our other lead done by Aaron Taylor-Johnson...who I saw in the Illusionist and he did a good job in that role, here...I understand why he's a bit dead in his acting.  He's playing a soldier who despite confronting these titans, keeps his mind on the job and doesn't let that phase him, but...I think he hammers that hard edged soldier in a bit TOO much.

And I do understand his troubles and his worries.  He's trying to get back to his wife and son.  And I do feel at times his over all concern for their wellbeing and he believes that he has to do these jobs, and once these jobs are done, the kaiju are gone, he can return home to them and he is rewarded because of that.  And at the end, to see him hug his wife and kid after going through hell to save them and the city...yeah...I did feel a bit of satisfaction that they were together again.  I was happy for him.

So, I get why he played it that way, but it still wasn't good.  He was very flat.

There may have been an in universe reason for it, being a soldier, the last thing you need is to be a pouting little bitch.  You're there to do a job and you fucking do it no matter what.  There's no time to sit and gawk at the giant monster.

And he does it.  

So I get it, but it still doesn't make it a good performance.

But I do get why it was done that way.

Also, the name Brody.  I get what you did there, dude.  Brody, as in the guy who helped chase after the shark, who's name was Bruce, from Jaws.  Yeah, I see what you did there.  Though Steven Spielberg said he would not touch Godzilla do to it being too complicated to do, somehow, he managed to sneak himself in there anyways.

Serizawa, there's no excuse.  He's not military, he's a part of a secret organization that studies ancient monsters that were around during the time when our planet was more radioactive....

Okay, stop.  Hang on.

So, here's where I kinda scratch my head and start digging out all my paleontology books...

Here's the thing.  Yes, the planet was more radioactive than it is now.  Due to the fact that there was indeed more uranium than it has now.

Uranium has a decaying half life of 4 billion years or so.  That means, by this time, we have lost half of our uranium on this planet.

Half of it is gone.

But to pretty much have the planet be so radioactive as to produce a sort of mutation...where these creatures feed off of radiation as a food source like Godzilla normally would from a nuclear reactor in the other movies...these monsters would have existed during the first 4.5 billion years our planet was formed on.

Here's the thing, our planet had nothing on it except a molten crust.  Nothing could survive it.  Nothing.  Except maybe Neltharion.  I'll buy it if it was Neltharion.  He can pretty much live on Venus and not feel the least bit uncomfortable.

Hell, he could take the amount of radioactivity that was there back then and absorb it without a belch.

Because he's Nel and he's made from the mantle and the core, which still contains the other half of our uranium that hasn't decayed yet, by the friggin' way!

Also, nasty Potassium, cadmium, and other nasty radioactive isotopes that can be found down there that is vital to our planet's heat to keep us alive, but if we come in direct contact with, we'd die.

I almost wanna say they should have stuck with the old origins of Godzilla in which in 1952, when we were testing bombs, the fallout mutating the dinosaur to make Godzilla.

But in this version, almost similar to Gojira in 1954, this Godzilla was well...always that big.  But did he have the atomic breath?

And they were apparently testing nukes in the efforts to kill Godzilla.

Killing Godzilla with a nuke.  

Okay, first thing, Russia didn't test their nukes in the Pacific, we did.  We and a few others who backed us up.  That's why the French were mentioned in the 1998 one.  Because they did help us do that.

Russia tested their bombs on their own soil.  Because Russia, despite being the largest country on the planet, land size wise, it is not the most populated country on the planet.  Much like the US, the USSR was still very much wilderness.  Hell, a few times, we even tested nukes on our own soil too.

That's why John Friggin Wayne died of cancer years later after he filmed The Conqueror.  He was filming near a nuclear testing site.  The ground and water were contaminated.

So, to state we mostly tested our nukes in efforts to kill a monster who seemed impervious to such weapons...without any regard as to the other tests we made...that's a head scratcher.

Also, the reason why we stopped testing and signed the Nuclear Testing Ban in 1996 was because we fucked up on our last test.  We were testing a bomb that was supposed to be like 14 megatons and we ended up lighting off a 30 megaton one instead because someone forgot to carry the 2.  Nuclear physics, I know it's hard work, but math, dude.  Do your math!  You got a degree that makes you do math.  So do math!  So, we scared ourselves because we lit off a big fire cracker and signed the ban.

But being a kaiju fan, yeah, at times we have to do this, is turn off our brains during the exposition as to why these things exist.

However, in those films, they don't want us to take it too seriously.  This one?  Yeah, they want us to take it seriously.  Dear director dude, you claim to be a G-Fan like the rest of us...please...you must realize that we have to turn off our brains.

So, here is where I see why people bitched.  It focused on the human characters.  However, many other Godzilla have done the same thing.  Hell, Godzilla 1984, it took pretty much a good hour before Godzilla showed up and the bits where he did before the big reveal were small segments that built up the reveal.  You didn't see the whole thing.  It was a slow, big reveal.  And when he was revealed, oh, it was beautiful.

And yes, they cut away a lot from the monster battles.  I get why they did that too and honestly it was well done to me.  A good first part of this story is more about the reaction to the devastation or how people are reacting to the monsters than the monsters themselves.  

The original Gojira did this as well.  It was a good long time before we saw the monster and really, we only saw it three times fully, and only once during the day.  Ishiro Honda prefered to focus on the destruction that was left behind.  And this mirrors the scenes we see after the bomb was dropped.  It wasn't about what the bomb looked like when it blew that gave us the impact of how grave this was, it was the destruction left behind.  It was seeing the people suffer through this destruction.

This again harkens back to my complaints about the Cataclysm trailer.  Yeah, it's cool to see Deathwing destroy the empty landmarks, but it's more impactful when you see the aftermath and the reactions from the people who's lives he destroyed.

And the same can be said here.  The build up is great.  Not seeing the entire picture, only part of the action in the first bit only makes the action more gratifying in the second bit.  Because it's just Godzilla fighting these two monsters and that's it.  We don't need to see two different versions of the same fight.  So, yeah, cut away, show us pieces...then show us the big fight at the end.  I was entertained in it.  

So, let's talk the design, shall we?

First the MUTO designs.  I'm kinda Meh about it.  They do look different and original...but...honestly, I would have much rather seen Godzilla take on a revamped version of one of his old enemies...hell one of his lesser known ones would have done too.

Have him beat the crap outta Gabera.  That was an interesting fight and it would play right in with the EMP thing the MUTOs gave off.  Gabera had electrical powers.  And he looks very strange.  Update him for the modern era and we'd got ourselves a fight.

I do like that the Mutos do show some sort of mate relationship...when the male comes and brings food for the female, she thanks him with a snuggle.  That was cute and rarely seen in monsters.  It showed us that these things were just animals and were only doing what they were doing for survival, not out of some malice towards humanity.

So, let's talk about Godzilla's design.

I don't mind it.  It certainly looks like Godzilla.  Hell of a lot more than Patrick Tatopoulos' design.  The guy who designed this Godzilla obviously knew what he was doing.  Or she, double points if it was a girl doing this design, then I would instantly fall in love with it.  Why does it always have to be a guy, we chicks can do good Godzilla's too.

But it was very big, bulky, it reminded me of the original Shodai suit.  And yeah, that Godzilla looked like he's seen some shit.  As Brad said, Godzilla Post-Vietnam.  He's all haggard looking, tired, worn out.  And he takes naps.  And I loved this little exchange between Brody and Godzilla.  It almost gave me a feeling that Brody realized that Godzilla was a warrior of his own caliber, but was not doing so well in saving the day.

And he collapses after that.

Hell, the second time, they both collapse, kinda symbolic, right?  Like they were tied to each other.

Meh.

I remember someone once really having an issue with Neltharion's design as he had a small head and an overly huge body.  Well, if you look at Godzilla, you'd see that yeah...small head, big body, it's supposed to represent a size that's...intimidating, monstrous, and at the same time almost confining to the being.  And I do see that in Godzilla.  He seems confined in his hulkiness.  But not so much as to have all good rolls on his stealth skill.

Outside of GINO, this guy is the stealthiest Godzilla around.  He avoids buildings for the most part, unless he's kicked into one or falling on top of one.  The destruction is more due to the fact he's an oversized creature fighting in a confined space.  Mostly Godzilla moves around the buildings as if they were trees in a forest.

Which makes sense.  And the stealthy silent Godzilla makes sense too.  He's described as hunter.  So, yes, he needs to be quiet and stealthy.  He's there to kill the prey, not chase it.  He needs to get in as close as he can to take the thing out as quickly as possible.  

The main reason why he destroys the Golden Gate Bridge is because of a mistake done by the navy for getting too trigger happy.  He seemed more than prepared to duck under the bridge and miss it entirely.

And him missing buildings...well, we're not gonna be purposefully chopping down trees because they're there.  At least most of the time.  We only clear a path in the forest, most of the time, to allow us passage.  Godzilla's gonna do the same thing.  He's not Superman from Man of Steel.  Superman was just punching Zod on purpose into every building.  Godzilla was making efforts not to destroy buildings.

Again makes sense.  Destroying buildings makes noise, and as I stated, that's not what a hunter wants.

God damn it, Godzilla's a better hero than Superman.  However, each time he just magically appeared, I kept seeing Godzilla tippy toe in and shushing the audience.

Godzilla: Be very very quiet.  I'm hunting MUTOs, huhuhhhuhh...

The breath weapon, it harkens back to the original which didn't have so much of a concussive ability as it did a melt everything metal ability.  Gojira had a breath of super heated plasma, it didn't blast things away, it melted them.  And it was more white than it was blue, which again was more like Shodai again.

So, over all, I liked this movie and suggest it to others.  But don't go in thinking it's Pacific Rim.  You will set yourself to be disappointed.

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