Godzilla

Godzilla is a movie that sticks to safe clichés, is appropriate for all audiences and is not surprising surprise, but at least it holds together (Pacific Rim was bolder and cooler, but its plot didn’t work). Unlike Roland Emmerich’s version, it also honors the rules of the Japanese cult classic and, with Hollywood’s technical capabilities, allows the Japanese to enjoy their beloved monster as they have never seen it before. Though played by award-winning actors rarely seen in blockbusters, the characters are secondary, as the most important thing here is overall epicness and atmospheric visuals in the spirit of Steven Spielberg’s adventure movies. Spielberg is also referenced in specific scenes, such as the initial helicopter flight to the island and repeated placement of children in every exciting action scene. Watching it today, I feel satisfied; five years ago, I might even have been enthusiastic. (14/05/2014)

SPOILERS AHEAD. Godzilla is like playing a video game made up exclusively of cutscenes. The characters are there more or less only so that through their eyes we can marvel at the monsters, which the film tries to obscure much less than in Jurassic Park, for example. The film acknowledges that people are important for it primarily as means of focalisation, so that, for example, we don’t see a fight that was not witnessed by any humans or, at the very least, by a main or supporting character (even though the “earthbound” human perspective here is not maintained as consistently as in Battle Los Angeles). The characters are repeatedly deprived of their agency (the impossibility to rescue one’s wife trapped in the exclusion zone) or it is made explicitly clear that they cannot do much against the monster and they won’t be able to coordinate their actions anyway. The real power belongs to nature and instinct, not to rationally behaving humans (regardless of whether they represent the military or science, or stand apart from established institutions), who are turned into a mere negligible part of an uncontrollable ecosystem (the only time I have felt similar helplessness from an American film was at the end of The Incredible Shrinking Man). People don’t have control over either the present or the future (their plans don’t work out for them); they can only learn from the past, which is an idea that is subordinated to the spiralling dramaturgy of the narrative with clearly indicated parallels between the situation in which Brody senior finds himself at the beginning and the situation in which Brody junior finds himself later. By constantly passivising the human protagonists and the predictability of the one-dimensional characters (the film is built on the most banal gender-based allocation of roles: a woman is a caring nurse, a man is a protective soldier), the Oedipal formula with an absentee father is sidelined in favour of the remarkable transformation of Godzilla, which bears the hallmarks of a villain (indestructibility, terrifying appearance), yet functions as a positive hero in the narrative (because it is the only one that can restore order). Using human characters to causally connect the individual scenes, the plot is developed in such a way that we end up siding with the monster, which is what whole film is about. How else should it be with a monster movie? Before I forget…the film also has brilliant sound effects (after all, using echolocation to track the monsters is one of the motifs of the narrative) and very convincing visual effects (i.e. I believe that a giant lizard could really look and move like that), while also offering breathtaking scenes as if from an art film, impressive only in how they look and how imagery and sound are harmonised within them (the night jump). The bar for other summer blockbusters has been set monstrously high. 85% (16/05/2014)

Waiting for Godot... Uh, no, Godzilla. Which wouldn't matter if it was waiting for “a battering" and not a "wannabe father figure Spielberg"; after all, with its focus on the action side "from the subjective point of view of human ants who worship the family above all", standing on insinuation and the unseen rather than full frontals, it is perhaps too reminiscent of Jaws or War of the Worlds. This is mainly due to the overuse of this approach, because what is pleasantly hidden and inspiring in the first half, becomes tiresome in the second half to the point that one loses interest, because if you are merely insinuating for the hundredth time but nothing happens, and for the hundredth time again at the last possible moment… nothing happens, then what’s the point of it all? Just a filler plot and shallow characters, more filler, more filler, Watanabe explaining "what the hell is happening" and all interlaced with "I have to return to my family and although I will not be able to see Godzilla, her roars will be heard constantly" in a thousand and one variations, and without at least one interesting character. To make matters worse, in this scheme that takes itself so deadly serious, this otherwise likable classic that honors the concept of a heroic monster is like Godzilla in a china shop. After all, when the best and the most playful parts of the movie are the opening credits, there must be something wrong. (14/05/2014)

Indie directors shouldn’t get into commercial blockbusters, so I wouldn’t look forward to it only to be disappointed. There’s enough action, I believe, but it’s not exciting, which is a far bigger problem than if there was not enough action. The most interesting characters are removed in the first act, and for the remainder of the film, everyone stands staring like a moron, or either think up some bullshit (the bomb here is used in the same weird way as in the last Batman from Nolan) or try to arouse the emotions of the viewer (unsuccessfully). If they had “forgotten” about the story and just let the monsters beat the crap out of each other, it would’ve been better. But they didn’t and the result is painful several times. Visually it’s great, as expected, I would love to print out some frames and hang them on the wall, but when things move it’s really bland. And what pissed me off the most was that the unidimensional protagonist always shows up by chance exactly where the monster is heading. Were the Japanese Godzilla from the past the same? If that is the case, the bullshit has remained bullshit. And I don’t like bullshit. (15/05/2014)

Unfortunately, it’s impossible to avoid comparisons to the previous Godzilla movie. I’m not reviewing the movies as such, but rather the times when I saw them. I think I would give both movies the same review today, but the first American Godzilla will forever remain the better movie for me because I didn’t have to stand in line at the video store to see this one and it wasn’t talked about so much, either. Also, I was younger and I didn’t really notice all the stupid stuff that Emmerich squeezed into his movie. I simply took it for a fact that everything was supposed to be so monumental and I sort of enjoyed the whole thing. Here I take it for a fact that Gareth Edwards finally managed to make a Godzilla movie that a Japanese person wouldn’t complain about. I also like that the story actually contains a whole different world, which is something I’m actually glad about. Emmerich’s Godzilla was a brutal piece of nonsense and had nothing in common with the original Godzilla. I also like the way Edwards approached the digital effects. Despite the fact that with a movie like this it might actually have been a bad idea. He did the same thing he did in Monsters and I‘m not sure a lot of people will like it. I don’t think this underground approach really works for Godzilla. Night action scenes where I could barely see anything really pissed me off. On the other hand, they still have their magic, which is why I’m going to stick with a three-star review. (29/10/2014)