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Godzilla.
I have been anticipating this film since it was teased in 2009. I never thought it would happen. Godzilla was always a favorite of mine. The original is one of my favorite films of all time. It's a tragedy in so many aspects. When 1998 Zilla came around, I was only nine at the time, so it didn't bother me too much. I enjoyed it as a kid, but as I grew older, I realized how much we were all cheated. I'm not going to go into it anymore than that, because it is a horse that has been beaten to death.
So Godzilla 2014?
It does a whole hell of a lot right. It stays traditional to what has made Godzilla iconic to so many people across the world. To most, Godzilla is just a big giant lizard fighting other giant monsters. But to me, it's that tragedy that involves the origin of Godzilla, and how he is just as tragic as any Shakespearean classic.
I want to get into a lot of the details, but I don't want to spoil a thing. I'll say a few words after the spoiler.
I can sit here all day and talk about every little detail of this film, some of which I'm sure I missed, but it was a fantastic ride. It was an experience in the same way Gravity was last year, except this was a popcorn film. It keeps the tension high, the suspense high, and the tone straight. I said this above, but Gareth Edwards deserves some serious props. He mastered a VERY touchy subject. Godzilla could have been done extremely wrong if it had been done by someone like Michael Bay. Gareth approached the film with a ton of respect, and for that, I respect him.
Thanks Gareth.
I have been anticipating this film since it was teased in 2009. I never thought it would happen. Godzilla was always a favorite of mine. The original is one of my favorite films of all time. It's a tragedy in so many aspects. When 1998 Zilla came around, I was only nine at the time, so it didn't bother me too much. I enjoyed it as a kid, but as I grew older, I realized how much we were all cheated. I'm not going to go into it anymore than that, because it is a horse that has been beaten to death.
So Godzilla 2014?
It does a whole hell of a lot right. It stays traditional to what has made Godzilla iconic to so many people across the world. To most, Godzilla is just a big giant lizard fighting other giant monsters. But to me, it's that tragedy that involves the origin of Godzilla, and how he is just as tragic as any Shakespearean classic.
I want to get into a lot of the details, but I don't want to spoil a thing. I'll say a few words after the spoiler.
This film satisfied just about everything that I love about the legend of Godzilla. But, this is a very American film, with characters at the forefront. Luckily, the script isn't horrible, the actors do a good job with their material, and Gareth Edwards was an absolute perfect choice. Edwards understands two things that are extremely important to me, and that is that he knew how to handle Godzilla respectfully, and he also knew that in order for this film to be successful, he had to treat it seriously. He couldn't do what so many of the sequels did and just throw out Mothra, King Ghidorah, and MechaGodzilla and expect it to work. He also couldn't have a herky-jerky Cloverfield where you barely ever show the monster, and when you do, it's fuzzy, blurry, and unclear as to what exactly you are seeing.
Probably one of my favorite things about this entire damn movie is that ALL of the action throughout is very clear. You don't have moving camera shots. You get clear shots of Godzilla. But what Gareth did so well is that you don't get to see him right away. That's something that so many films fail to do these days. You can't build anticipation for such a pivotal piece of your film and constantly show him throughout the damn movie.
The opening credits were ingenious. Show the roots of Godzilla. But not just that. HAVE an opening credits. Let us know who is in the movie. Let us know who the hell the director is. And for God's sake, PLEASE show the title of the film. It's amazing how many films these days don't even have the title of the film anywhere in the film. But back to the main point, I love that they tease Godzilla for a while. You actually hear about the events from 1954. You see bits and pieces of him, his spine, etc. Maybe his tail, but never his face. Never a full body shot in the credits. As it should be. I believe you also see what looks to be Godzilla being blown up using a nuke. Questioning where he will be in the film, whether it will be him, his son, or whatever.
And then the film starts proper. And you're not going to hear or see Godzilla for about another hour. As it goddamn should be. Give a little appetizer, but don't give away the entire purpose of your movie in five minutes. For the first thirty-ish, the film takes place in 1999, and is carried by Bryan Cranston, CJ Adams, and Juliette Binoche. And they do an excellent damn job. If Aaron Taylor Johnson and Elizabeth Olsen had not done such a great job later in the film (which I'll get to later), I would have been so disappointed that they didn't have a bigger role in the film. When the reactor goes down, the film damn near breaks your heart. In literally ten minutes, Gareth did a fantastic enough job with the family that you genuinely care what happens to this family. Not only that, but Cranston, Binoche, and Adams do a marvelous job. I almost wish that the young child that plays Ford would've played Sam, Ford's eventual son. That child actor seemed to do such a better job. But yeah, when Cranston has to close the door on his wife? Man. The emotion came out. I don't know if another film has elicited that kind of response from me that early. And then the kid CJ Adams? He watches from his classroom as the facility where both his parents work at to crumble to the ground? ZAMB. Touche Gareth, touche.
When you see Ken Watanabe (Serizawa? The tragic character from the original Godzilla? Touche Gareth) and Sally Hawkins investigate in the Philippines, I was shocked. I was like damn, they are re-writing the origin story of Godzilla? That's cool, something fresh. I can dig it. There are multiple eggs too, thus introducing the possibility of son of Godzilla? Awesome! And an egg has hatched, with another still growing? More than one Godzilla maybe?! Crazy.
After we pick up fifteen years later, we see that Ford has tried to move on, as any kid hopefully would, but we do learn that his father survived the "Earthquake," as they deemed it. Unlike Ford, Joe (Cranston) refuses to let go of the past, because he knows that the government (both American and Japanese) were hiding something, that there was a pattern he couldn't quite fully comprehend that was causing all of this. What better way to investigate than try and go back to the site of the original explosion and try and get your floppy disks back! A little radiation never hurts anybody right? Except, there isn't any, and Joe and Ford (tagging along with his cranky old dad) go out to their old home, grab the floppies, only to realize that the old Janjira plant that was a ground zero Chernobyl site, is now active and back to normal, and it's observed that there is a giant chrysalis that's ready to hatch, and by the time it does.... GODZILLA!
No. And this is part of what I really loved about this film. I actually had it spoiled to me that there was going to be another monster in the film, and I had heard the name MUTO (Massive Unidentified Terrestrial Organism), but was unaware if it was a key piece of the film, a codename for Mothra, Ghidorah, or something else. This is one thing I was kind of on the fence on going into it. I didn't want to see this turn into a romp. Almost every Godzilla film after the first has a certain amount of campiness that was allowed and tolerated. I didn't want that for this film. I wanted something akin to the original as possible. So me personally? I would have been fine if we had NO other monsters other than Godzilla. If he would've carried the film, fine by me. And how was MUTO? He was serviceable. I feel like a three-headed dragon, or a giant moth would've been really hard to pull off in an origin story about Godzilla. As I mentioned earlier, it was great to see that the monster wasn't divulged too early, and we still never see him too much, but when we do, it's a very clear shot of him, no shaky-cam, and the effects were great.
So, MUTO goes and wrecks havoc again in Japan, moves his way to Hawaii, and our hero is threatened, and who saves the day? Big Z.
. No, not Zydrunas Ilgauskas (though that would be really awesome, 
). When we finally see Godzilla, Gareth gives the audience time to take in what it is seeing, which I goddamn love. If you're going to have a film about giant monsters, show them! On screen! For more than 0.5 seconds before panning away, or cutting completely. This is what Gareth gets right that so many flawed films get wrong. Show us the monsters, and show us what the hell he looks like. It's very clear what Godzilla looks like. It is memorable, because he is freaking iconic. He looks close enough to the originals that it is permanently engrained into your mind.
The film gets pretty standard at this point, you have fights, another MUTO is hatched to crank up the action another notch, and then it's all about how the resolution is going to go down. But, I want to go off on a tangent and talk a bit more about the monsters.
We don't get a ton of screen time actually seeing these monsters fighting, but what we do get is entertaining. It's very well directed, and the impact that these monsters are having on the cities, especially San Francisco, is very evident. You get to watch and enjoy all of the action on the screen, not sit there and wonder if you really saw what you thought you saw. There isn't really anything groundbreaking that you see with the fight scenes (Until the end where you see Godzilla's atomic breath rip off the head of MUTO,
), but the action that is there is all good. It's unclear at first whether Godzilla is a villain or not, but once he hits the screen, he is protecting all the people of the earth, and wants to exterminate the threat of the MUTOs. Yet, Serizawa begs that the US military not nuke Godzilla, and to let him try and save the world for them. And thus the films final act proceeds, and it's fairly standard stuff. Not reinventing the wheel or anything.
But more about the characters. My favorite parts of the film in terms of character development happened all within the first fifteen minutes. That said, Aaron Taylor Johnson (ATJ) and Elizabeth Olsen do a fantastic job as a couple trying to reunite. Other than Cranston and CJ Adams, those two have the best performance of anyone in the film. They are genuine, they give genuine performances, and you care about their outcome. I never really thought that ATJ could carry a role like this, but he does it effortlessly. This is such a far cry from what we saw in Kick-***. The tone is serious, and he's great in such a dramatic role. I still think his child counterpart outacts him, but that is a compliment of the child actor, and not a diss on Johnson. This could've easily pulled a Michael Bay and had Shia LaButthead and Megan Fox just there to be pretty and soak up the screen, but that's not what the movie is about. It's about characters. So much of the film revolves around these two characters, who are fairly vanilla in their character arcs. Their actions are predictable, but their compassion and love is extraordinary. This is one of the things that really stands out to me in relation to a ton of the other Godzilla films, and maybe all of them. These are characters that I will never forget.
The film goes on and finishes with the possibility hung open for a sequel. The king of the monsters returns to the ocean, with his fate unknown.
I don't know where the rights lie for Legendary Pictures with Toho, but if I were them, I am very pleased with the way this turned out. I honestly am kind of hesitant to bring up the question of sequels, because you have to really walk a fine line when dealing with this kind of subject. Pacific Rim didn't take itself nearly as seriously, so they can get away with sequels. If Legendary starts putting out sequels and they get a little campy? Ehh, huge turnoff for me. But if Gareth is attached?
Sign me up. He is the key reason why this film was successful. He has an understanding of the sub-genre, and what exactly fans need to see, and what the die hard fans EXPECT to see. He did an absolute perfect job in my opinion. The film may not be perfect, but he did the best he could have done. I am excited to see how well this does, because it deserves to rake in a ton of money.
Probably one of my favorite things about this entire damn movie is that ALL of the action throughout is very clear. You don't have moving camera shots. You get clear shots of Godzilla. But what Gareth did so well is that you don't get to see him right away. That's something that so many films fail to do these days. You can't build anticipation for such a pivotal piece of your film and constantly show him throughout the damn movie.
The opening credits were ingenious. Show the roots of Godzilla. But not just that. HAVE an opening credits. Let us know who is in the movie. Let us know who the hell the director is. And for God's sake, PLEASE show the title of the film. It's amazing how many films these days don't even have the title of the film anywhere in the film. But back to the main point, I love that they tease Godzilla for a while. You actually hear about the events from 1954. You see bits and pieces of him, his spine, etc. Maybe his tail, but never his face. Never a full body shot in the credits. As it should be. I believe you also see what looks to be Godzilla being blown up using a nuke. Questioning where he will be in the film, whether it will be him, his son, or whatever.
And then the film starts proper. And you're not going to hear or see Godzilla for about another hour. As it goddamn should be. Give a little appetizer, but don't give away the entire purpose of your movie in five minutes. For the first thirty-ish, the film takes place in 1999, and is carried by Bryan Cranston, CJ Adams, and Juliette Binoche. And they do an excellent damn job. If Aaron Taylor Johnson and Elizabeth Olsen had not done such a great job later in the film (which I'll get to later), I would have been so disappointed that they didn't have a bigger role in the film. When the reactor goes down, the film damn near breaks your heart. In literally ten minutes, Gareth did a fantastic enough job with the family that you genuinely care what happens to this family. Not only that, but Cranston, Binoche, and Adams do a marvelous job. I almost wish that the young child that plays Ford would've played Sam, Ford's eventual son. That child actor seemed to do such a better job. But yeah, when Cranston has to close the door on his wife? Man. The emotion came out. I don't know if another film has elicited that kind of response from me that early. And then the kid CJ Adams? He watches from his classroom as the facility where both his parents work at to crumble to the ground? ZAMB. Touche Gareth, touche.
When you see Ken Watanabe (Serizawa? The tragic character from the original Godzilla? Touche Gareth) and Sally Hawkins investigate in the Philippines, I was shocked. I was like damn, they are re-writing the origin story of Godzilla? That's cool, something fresh. I can dig it. There are multiple eggs too, thus introducing the possibility of son of Godzilla? Awesome! And an egg has hatched, with another still growing? More than one Godzilla maybe?! Crazy.
After we pick up fifteen years later, we see that Ford has tried to move on, as any kid hopefully would, but we do learn that his father survived the "Earthquake," as they deemed it. Unlike Ford, Joe (Cranston) refuses to let go of the past, because he knows that the government (both American and Japanese) were hiding something, that there was a pattern he couldn't quite fully comprehend that was causing all of this. What better way to investigate than try and go back to the site of the original explosion and try and get your floppy disks back! A little radiation never hurts anybody right? Except, there isn't any, and Joe and Ford (tagging along with his cranky old dad) go out to their old home, grab the floppies, only to realize that the old Janjira plant that was a ground zero Chernobyl site, is now active and back to normal, and it's observed that there is a giant chrysalis that's ready to hatch, and by the time it does.... GODZILLA!
No. And this is part of what I really loved about this film. I actually had it spoiled to me that there was going to be another monster in the film, and I had heard the name MUTO (Massive Unidentified Terrestrial Organism), but was unaware if it was a key piece of the film, a codename for Mothra, Ghidorah, or something else. This is one thing I was kind of on the fence on going into it. I didn't want to see this turn into a romp. Almost every Godzilla film after the first has a certain amount of campiness that was allowed and tolerated. I didn't want that for this film. I wanted something akin to the original as possible. So me personally? I would have been fine if we had NO other monsters other than Godzilla. If he would've carried the film, fine by me. And how was MUTO? He was serviceable. I feel like a three-headed dragon, or a giant moth would've been really hard to pull off in an origin story about Godzilla. As I mentioned earlier, it was great to see that the monster wasn't divulged too early, and we still never see him too much, but when we do, it's a very clear shot of him, no shaky-cam, and the effects were great.
So, MUTO goes and wrecks havoc again in Japan, moves his way to Hawaii, and our hero is threatened, and who saves the day? Big Z.
. No, not Zydrunas Ilgauskas (though that would be really awesome, ). When we finally see Godzilla, Gareth gives the audience time to take in what it is seeing, which I goddamn love. If you're going to have a film about giant monsters, show them! On screen! For more than 0.5 seconds before panning away, or cutting completely. This is what Gareth gets right that so many flawed films get wrong. Show us the monsters, and show us what the hell he looks like. It's very clear what Godzilla looks like. It is memorable, because he is freaking iconic. He looks close enough to the originals that it is permanently engrained into your mind. The film gets pretty standard at this point, you have fights, another MUTO is hatched to crank up the action another notch, and then it's all about how the resolution is going to go down. But, I want to go off on a tangent and talk a bit more about the monsters.
We don't get a ton of screen time actually seeing these monsters fighting, but what we do get is entertaining. It's very well directed, and the impact that these monsters are having on the cities, especially San Francisco, is very evident. You get to watch and enjoy all of the action on the screen, not sit there and wonder if you really saw what you thought you saw. There isn't really anything groundbreaking that you see with the fight scenes (Until the end where you see Godzilla's atomic breath rip off the head of MUTO,
), but the action that is there is all good. It's unclear at first whether Godzilla is a villain or not, but once he hits the screen, he is protecting all the people of the earth, and wants to exterminate the threat of the MUTOs. Yet, Serizawa begs that the US military not nuke Godzilla, and to let him try and save the world for them. And thus the films final act proceeds, and it's fairly standard stuff. Not reinventing the wheel or anything. But more about the characters. My favorite parts of the film in terms of character development happened all within the first fifteen minutes. That said, Aaron Taylor Johnson (ATJ) and Elizabeth Olsen do a fantastic job as a couple trying to reunite. Other than Cranston and CJ Adams, those two have the best performance of anyone in the film. They are genuine, they give genuine performances, and you care about their outcome. I never really thought that ATJ could carry a role like this, but he does it effortlessly. This is such a far cry from what we saw in Kick-***. The tone is serious, and he's great in such a dramatic role. I still think his child counterpart outacts him, but that is a compliment of the child actor, and not a diss on Johnson. This could've easily pulled a Michael Bay and had Shia LaButthead and Megan Fox just there to be pretty and soak up the screen, but that's not what the movie is about. It's about characters. So much of the film revolves around these two characters, who are fairly vanilla in their character arcs. Their actions are predictable, but their compassion and love is extraordinary. This is one of the things that really stands out to me in relation to a ton of the other Godzilla films, and maybe all of them. These are characters that I will never forget.
The film goes on and finishes with the possibility hung open for a sequel. The king of the monsters returns to the ocean, with his fate unknown.
I don't know where the rights lie for Legendary Pictures with Toho, but if I were them, I am very pleased with the way this turned out. I honestly am kind of hesitant to bring up the question of sequels, because you have to really walk a fine line when dealing with this kind of subject. Pacific Rim didn't take itself nearly as seriously, so they can get away with sequels. If Legendary starts putting out sequels and they get a little campy? Ehh, huge turnoff for me. But if Gareth is attached?
Sign me up. He is the key reason why this film was successful. He has an understanding of the sub-genre, and what exactly fans need to see, and what the die hard fans EXPECT to see. He did an absolute perfect job in my opinion. The film may not be perfect, but he did the best he could have done. I am excited to see how well this does, because it deserves to rake in a ton of money.
I can sit here all day and talk about every little detail of this film, some of which I'm sure I missed, but it was a fantastic ride. It was an experience in the same way Gravity was last year, except this was a popcorn film. It keeps the tension high, the suspense high, and the tone straight. I said this above, but Gareth Edwards deserves some serious props. He mastered a VERY touchy subject. Godzilla could have been done extremely wrong if it had been done by someone like Michael Bay. Gareth approached the film with a ton of respect, and for that, I respect him.
Thanks Gareth.
It actually reminded me of Up where he had to get a lot of story and emotion across in a short amount of time to get things rolling, and for what the part was...he nailed it. Juliette Binoche was good. And Ken Watanabe...everything. His voice is everything. He could dub over Fight Club, all the Jules scenes in Pulp Fiction, Heath's Joker...everything. His voice is butter, and he kills it every time he says Godzilla (Gojira?). 
