I don't think there's any other reason why any film maker would undertake a Godzilla project if deep down they didn't like smashing architecture. A swish of a tail and 5 stories get taken out of the side of a skyscraper. That's the kind of film making we're talking about here.
The 1990s saw the first attempt to marry the Hollywood special effects machine with the Japanese rubber monster. That Roland Emmerich effort was a terrible film in that the Godzilla featured in that film was merely a big Iguana. At the climax it got shot full of missiles and died on the Brooklyn Bridge like some wild animal. That's not how Godzilla movies are supposed to go. It didn't even look like Toho Studios's signature monster. 'Zilla' as that monster got to be known took a beating in Ryuhei Kitamura's equally obtuse and awful film 'Godzilla: Final Wars'. The lesson here is that it is actually quite hard to make a good Godzilla film.
Anyway, here's the usual spoiler alert.
What's Good About It
If Hollywood is going to undertake the effort to make a Godzilla movie, it's bringing to the table the special effects. On this occasion it delivers in spades. The special effects in this film are pretty dar good. They're even better than 'Pacific Rim', the other Hollywood attempt to make a Kaijyu movie. it features some snazzy animation of the Godzilla and other scary Muto Monster, while smashing through the cityscape nonchalantly There are also some spectacular atmosphere effects deployed in this CGI work and the film has a seamless quality in presenting this totally unnatural phenomena with a great sense of verisimilitude.
The actual Godzilla monster looks a lot like the Toho monster unlike Emmerich's awful Iguana-shaped 'Zilla. It's like King Kong - until you see it's a gorilla, you're not convinced it's Kong. Until you see that face, you're not going to be convinced it's Gojira, king of the monsters. The big mistake from the earlier film, corrected in this one is that Godzilla isn't a big mutant reptile, it's an irrational force of nature like an act of god that smashes everything in its path. It eats nuclear power for breakfast, breathes nuclear radiation fire, and is impervious to mere bullets, missiles or artillery shells. That's the beast/dragon we'r talking about.
The actual Godzilla monster looks a lot like the Toho monster unlike Emmerich's awful Iguana-shaped 'Zilla. It's like King Kong - until you see it's a gorilla, you're not convinced it's Kong. Until you see that face, you're not going to be convinced it's Gojira, king of the monsters. The big mistake from the earlier film, corrected in this one is that Godzilla isn't a big mutant reptile, it's an irrational force of nature like an act of god that smashes everything in its path. It eats nuclear power for breakfast, breathes nuclear radiation fire, and is impervious to mere bullets, missiles or artillery shells. That's the beast/dragon we'r talking about.
What's Bad About It
The main human drama around an irrational freak force of nature is never good. 'Godzilla' at heart is a disaster movie masquerading as a monster movie. Once the disbelief turns into verified belief, there isn't much of anywhere to go except running around trying to do tangential things to what the monster wants to do. And so the puny humans run around trying to arm a nuke, transport a nuke, disarm the same nuke, and then failing that, set it off away from civilisation. In the mean time the monsters have a go at their punch up in San Francisco - which gets surprising few sequences.
In some ways I'd like to see a Hollywood remake of 'Godzilla versus Hedorah' or 'Godzilla versus King Gidorah'. This film gets half way towards that kind of monster action but the human drama surrounding the main monster mash action is pretty dire.
What's Interesting About It
The 1985 Toho entry got a release out west. It had Raynond Burr in it because he was in the original Western release of the first Godzilla movie. I dragged my girlfriend at the time to see it. What the hell was I thinking? I don't know we ere hard up for laughs. At the end, as the credits rolled up, the film made the disclaimer that none of the events depicted in the film were based on real events or people. It brought the house down. All 7 of us in the audience laughed heartily.
It's great that Warner Brothers wants to keep doing Godzilla movies now and then. Toho has run out of steam with its Godzilla movies since the 2004 'Final Wars' entry. The market appetite for Godzilla isn't straight up destruction or rubber suit sequences. It's about the grandiloquent notion of mother earth fighting back. The shame is not many of Godzilla productions east and west have been able to do it cheese-free.
They also need to do it without the origin story and just go straight into it: Godzilla exists. So do other strange kaiju monsters from Planet X. Now roll with the story.
What Were They Doing In This Film!?
Here's another reminder that I do spoil things.
For months we'd been seeing the trailers for 'Godzilla' featuring Bryan Cranston, mostly on the back of his triumphant turn as Walter White. He dies at the end of Act 1, about 35minutes into the film. He dies most unceremoniously, on a stretcher in a copter. And you're left thinking, "how is this going to get any better?"
Worse still is Juliette Binoche who appears as Cranston's character's wife. The mum. And she dies at the start of the film in what would have been a touching scene if we'd known about these characters a lot more. Instead it's like, "Oh there's Juliette Binoche. Wow what have they done to her hair? God she used to be so good looking. Poor thing's a bit wrinkly now. Oh there she is running and ... wow. She's dead."
Did it really need Juliette Binoche to play that character? Is she really that hard up for work these days? It's somehow terrifying.
The main human drama around an irrational freak force of nature is never good. 'Godzilla' at heart is a disaster movie masquerading as a monster movie. Once the disbelief turns into verified belief, there isn't much of anywhere to go except running around trying to do tangential things to what the monster wants to do. And so the puny humans run around trying to arm a nuke, transport a nuke, disarm the same nuke, and then failing that, set it off away from civilisation. In the mean time the monsters have a go at their punch up in San Francisco - which gets surprising few sequences.
In some ways I'd like to see a Hollywood remake of 'Godzilla versus Hedorah' or 'Godzilla versus King Gidorah'. This film gets half way towards that kind of monster action but the human drama surrounding the main monster mash action is pretty dire.
What's Interesting About It
The 1985 Toho entry got a release out west. It had Raynond Burr in it because he was in the original Western release of the first Godzilla movie. I dragged my girlfriend at the time to see it. What the hell was I thinking? I don't know we ere hard up for laughs. At the end, as the credits rolled up, the film made the disclaimer that none of the events depicted in the film were based on real events or people. It brought the house down. All 7 of us in the audience laughed heartily.
It's great that Warner Brothers wants to keep doing Godzilla movies now and then. Toho has run out of steam with its Godzilla movies since the 2004 'Final Wars' entry. The market appetite for Godzilla isn't straight up destruction or rubber suit sequences. It's about the grandiloquent notion of mother earth fighting back. The shame is not many of Godzilla productions east and west have been able to do it cheese-free.
They also need to do it without the origin story and just go straight into it: Godzilla exists. So do other strange kaiju monsters from Planet X. Now roll with the story.
What Were They Doing In This Film!?
Here's another reminder that I do spoil things.
For months we'd been seeing the trailers for 'Godzilla' featuring Bryan Cranston, mostly on the back of his triumphant turn as Walter White. He dies at the end of Act 1, about 35minutes into the film. He dies most unceremoniously, on a stretcher in a copter. And you're left thinking, "how is this going to get any better?"
Worse still is Juliette Binoche who appears as Cranston's character's wife. The mum. And she dies at the start of the film in what would have been a touching scene if we'd known about these characters a lot more. Instead it's like, "Oh there's Juliette Binoche. Wow what have they done to her hair? God she used to be so good looking. Poor thing's a bit wrinkly now. Oh there she is running and ... wow. She's dead."
Did it really need Juliette Binoche to play that character? Is she really that hard up for work these days? It's somehow terrifying.
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