Runtime: 2 hours, 3 minutes
Rating: PG-13
Director: Gareth Edwards
Quick Impressions:
We’ve been dying to see Godzilla, but last weekend we were out of town at a family wedding, and we didn’t want to see it without my stepson. He’s been looking forward to it almost as much as my husband.
My daughter, on the other hand, has spent weeks trembling in horror at the very mention of the name Godzilla. Typically when she launches into one of her near fainting spells of fright, I suggest, “Well, you could stay with Grandma and Grandpa while the rest of us go,” and then she immediately snaps out of her trance and assures me matter-of-factly, “Oh, I’ll go. I’ll go.”
And she went. It’s probably a good thing she did because she seemed to be following the movie better than I was. At one point, she whispered to me, “What’s that?”
Trying to figure it out, I squinted at the screen and replied, “I think it’s Godzilla.”
She asked, “Are you sure? I thought Godzilla would be bigger and not as pointy.”
Later on, I nudged her and whispered, “You were right. That’s not Godzilla.”
Rolling her eyes, she whispered back, “Yes, I know.”
As we all walked out of the theater, my husband remarked, “I think that did a great job of paying homage to the original Godzilla.”
To his great surprise, I told him, “I’ve never seen the original Godzilla.” Now that I think about it, I’m not sure that I’ve seen any Godzilla movies at all. That seems impossible. In fact, I’m positive I must have seen the 1998 version with Matthew Broderick (on TV if nothing else), but when I try to remember it, all that comes to mind is a cringe-worthy montage of scenes from Inspector Gadget (possibly why I chose not to see that Godzilla).
This Godzilla is pretty good, though.
The Good:
If you’re like me, when you hear Godzilla, you immediately think, “Oh! The star of the movie will be a giant lizard monster.” Even though I haven’t seen any previous Godzilla movies (that I recall) when I try to imagine one, I immediately picture random people running through city streets screaming, “It is Godzilla,” as a giant lizard monster pursues them, smashing up Tokyo (or wherever) in his wake.
But the giant lizard is not actually the star of this movie. One reason I’ve been excited to see Godzilla is that its preview revealed a bevy of talented actors in the cast. We get Bryan Cranston, Juliette Binoche, Ken Watanabe, Sally Hawkins, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Elizabeth Olsen, and David Strathairn (among others). That’s better than an all-star cast. It’s an “all actors” cast. I’m personally delighted to see Sally Hawkins and Elizabeth Olsen breaking through into a wide release, (fairly) big budget, summer blockbuster. Basically everyone in this cast got famous because of acting talent, and (not surprisingly) all of them turn in solid performances (though some are given way more to work with than others).
Even though the story is mainly action-focused, the script is surprisingly decent. Ken Watanabe, in particular, gets to deliver some exceptionally memorable and thought-provoking lines. Several times I found myself intrigued by some idea inspired by the dialogue, zoning out and pondering epistemology, myth-building, semiotics, metaphysics, and other stuff you would not expect to be considering actively during a movie named for a giant amphibious lizard monster. Watanabe has an especially memorable line near the end when he advises to “let them fight” (or something like that). Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about war and peace (perhaps—and this is just a wild guess—because I’ve been reading War and Peace (maybe more slowly than any other human being in history). If you’re interested at all in war and what it does to the human psyche, I think this film explores all that surprisingly well (if frustratingly non-verbally at times).
I also like the treatment Godzilla himself gets in this film. The way they respond to him is great, too. There are few moments of shock and awe here. Most of the time, the people in charge simply recognize a new threat, assess it, prepare to meet it, and carry on. Sometimes I missed the corny jokes that usually pop up in movies like this, but on the other hand, that kind of silliness can get old really fast. This movie finds a curious middle ground. It doesn’t make Godzilla into a joke or acknowledge anything at all ridiculous or absurd about the situation. But, on the other hand, it also never overdramatizes the danger. Basically, Godzilla is just another threat, one of many that people are used to encountering and overcoming.
The movie also has a couple of incredibly iconic scenes that seem likely to have a long cinematic life. Most striking and unusual is the vivid recreation of the experience of parachuting out of an airplane and into (deliciously disorienting) danger.
In general, the film has incredibly appealing cinematography. I’m bizarrely fond of shots that focus on a character in the foreground to the left or right of the screen, then bring everything else into soft focus in the distant background. Godzilla contains shot after shot like this, and I have to say I love every one of them.
Best Non-Action Sequence:
Bryan Cranston delivers what is unquestionably the best performance of the movie (though Ken Watanabe is great in his part, too). Cranston’s performance is a true early highlight of the film and provides most of the emotional momentum of its early sequences. The best bit of his start-to-finish strong turn is the impassioned speech he makes to “the wall” while detained in Japan.
Best Scene:
By far my favorite scene in in the movie is the kind of trippy descent by parachute through the air and into the thick of the monster battle zone. There’s something almost hypnotic about the experience of watching. In 3D, it’s probably mind-blowing.
Best Action Sequence:
Godzilla’s killer breath looks amazing, and you can’t argue with the results. I’m not even particularly interested in action, but I found this face-melting Godzilla solo utterly spellbinding.
Best Scene Visually:
The reaction of Ken Watanabe and Sally Hawkins to the events unfolding near the end of the movie is really spectacular. You watch them and think, “Wow! I wish someone would watch me like that!” What must it be like to inspire such a spellbound gaze? This probably sounds odd since they’re basically just standing there staring, but for me, this scene is one of the soaring highlights of the entire movie, possibly even my very favorite part.
The Negatives:
Bryan Cranston brings a tremendous intensity to the film, an intensity Godzilla has trouble sustaining when he’s absent. I think this fault would probably be less noticeable were Cranston never present to ratchet up the intensity in the first place. But what fun would that be?
Although I enjoyed Godzilla, I never felt so fully engaged that I lost myself in the movie. Now to be fair, I was sitting next to a frustratingly talkative five-year-old, and it is pretty hard to lose yourself in a film if you’re constantly going, “Shhhhhhh!” or whispering incorrect answers to complex questions about the movie’s plot and the characters’ motivations.
So I do admit that some of the inability to engage resulted from a problem on my end. But even so, from my point of view, the early scenes featuring Bryan Cranston are easily a thousand times more compelling than everything that comes after. Others may not share this experience of the film, though. I think I’ve figured out why I find Cranston’s Joe Brody an infinitely more engaging protagonist than Aaron Taylor-Johnson’s Ford Brody.
Cranston is a pretty good actor, but (in fairness) so is Taylor-Johnson. The difference is, Cranston plays a character who simply appeals to me more. Conspiracy-driven, tormented Joe Brody is trying to uncover secrets, avenge the wrongs of the past, and assuage the guilt he feels about past actions. Not surprisingly given these motivations, Joe Brody talks a lot. Basically he talks non-stop all the time. He talks to others. He talks about others. He talks to himself. He talks about himself. He talks about what’s happened. He talks about what’s going to happen. He just talks and talks and talks and talks. He’s got this amazing, to-die-for intensity, and he expresses it almost entirely verbally. So of course, he totally gets my attention.
Ford Brody, on the other hand, is a soulful, pensive, brooding, action-oriented young protagonist. He hardly ever talks—at least, not about anything interesting. For him, speech is almost entirely utilitarian, used for facilitating basic exchanges (i.e. getting orders, obtaining information). When we first meet the adult Ford, obviously he’s driven by inner turmoil and swimming in pent up emotions and a surplus of vexing feelings, but he never really expresses any of them verbally. For Ford, actions speak way louder than words, so he doesn’t really bother with words unless he has to, like, call his wife or something. And even then, his speech is pretty terse and focused on expressing pertinent facts with the greatest efficiency possible.
I’m a very verbal person naturally drawn to linguistic expressions of ideas. Action doesn’t always hold my attention, and Ford is a man of action (and of brooding, something else I’m not exactly crazy about).
Because I like Joe and his (impeccably delivered) words so much better than Ford and his anguished silences, I prefer the first half of the film. It just works better for me. As far as I’m concerned, Godzilla loses too much momentum in the middle. It’s not that nothing is happening. Plenty continues to happen. It’s just that without Bryan Cranston there to comment on it, nothing seems even remotely as important.
I also think Elizabeth Olsen needs a better part. I’m glad to see her in a big, mainstream movie, but I wish her character got more to do. She’s in it quite a bit, but nothing that happens to her is very interesting, and (possibly because she seems so capable), we never really feel the urgency we should about her wellbeing. On Ford’s end, we get the idea that he’s made a promise to his wife and feels an urgent obligation to rescue her. But when we could be leaning forward on the edge of our seats wondering, Will he get to her in time? Will he reach her before it’s too late?, instead we’re basically thinking, Whatever, he’s never home anyway, and when he is, he’s not emotionally available. She’s on her own most of the time, and she’s been okay up to now. By this time, surely she knows how to take care of herself. What happens in this movie may be realistic (and even socially progressive in the sense that she clearly doesn’t need a man to save her), but the ending of Die Hard is way more satisfying and fun.
Speaking of fun, Godzilla doesn’t have much of a sense of fun. Humor is conspicuously lacking here (perhaps not the worst thing since summer action flicks are notorious for going overboard with lazy jokes and excessive comic relief, but it seems odd that nothing funny ever happens at all.) Even in grim situations in real life, mildly funny things do occasionally occur.
The only other major criticism I have of Godzilla (apart from the fact that Godzilla himself is barely in the movie) is that sometimes the score seems off. Let me try to explain what I mean, though I’m having difficulty expressing this point clearly. There’s one scene when Sally Hawkins gets a particularly large amount of dialogue. Both Hawkins and Ken Watanabe are great actors, but something about this moment of grave (borderline hysterical) concern rings false. After turning it over in my mind for some time, I finally decided that the background music is too excited about itself and makes what should be a taut, well-acted, dramatic scene seem overdone and slightly cheesy. For me, something like this happened sporadically throughout the film. But I can’t say that the score is bad because during other scenes (especially several late scenes), the score shines conspicuously. Maybe there’s a more precise, more telling way to describe this particular quirk of Godzilla, but I can’t think of any plainer way to put it.
Overall:
At the end of the movie, my five-year-old announced matter-of-factly, “I wish Godzilla would come here for two days. Then he would die. Then he would face plant. And then at the end, he would fart.”
If you’ve been excited to see this summer’s Godzilla, then you’ll be thrilled to know that her comment is not a candid summary of this movie. The film is actually a well-made, surprisingly thoughtful, refreshingly respectful tribute to what is clearly cherished source material. Now that I’ve seen this latest Godzilla, in fact, I’d like to watch the original movie at home and probably will in the near future.
Our little family of four all enjoyed Godzilla, though I do think my husband and stepson (who hopes to be in the military one day) liked it more than my daughter and me. But my daughter was calling herself Mini-Godzilla and roaring like a maniac as the end credits rolled. So if you go to see Godzilla, you’ll probably like it, too. (Plus, since we’ve already seen it, you’re much less likely to get stuck sitting near a roaring, five-year-old Mini-Godzilla! And trust me, that’s a good thing, a very good thing.)