Godzilla (The New One)

Godzilla (2014)

73% on Rotten Tomatoes (out of 201 reviews)

Runtime: 123 minutes

Directed by: Gareth Edwards

Starring: Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Ken Watanabe, Elizabeth Olson, Sally Hawkins, Bryan Cranston

From: Warner Brothers

Yeah, this is another review from me where a lot of it is from my Letterboxd review. It's pretty long, as I feel like I have to defend the movie and the perfect 5 star rating I gave it. Most people don't like it that much, which is alright for me... it was just a film that worked for moi.

The quick plot description from the IMDb: “The world's most famous monster is pitted against malevolent creatures who, bolstered by humanity's scientific arrogance, threaten our very existence.” I suppose it is not a spoiler by now to note that Godzilla isn't the only kaiju monster you see in the film. My review is spoiler-free, by the way. I'll be back tomorrow night.

“Said, woman, take it slow
It'll work itself out fine
All we need is just a little patience
Said, sugar, make it slow
And we come together fine
All we need is just a little patience”

Guns N' Roses, “Patience”

I decided to quote W. Axl Rose and the GNR song Patience as I think that's an important thing to note when talking about the movie, and also an important thing to inform people who are reading this review and are going to see it but haven't as of yet. Don't worry, I will NOT be revealing any spoilers; sure, it does limit how well I can respond to the criticisms leveled against the movie, but I'll try my best.

Now, I do understand the complaints. If someone doesn't care for the movie then that is fine with me and I certainly am not going to get “Internet mad” about it. There are plenty of movies (whether they be action in general or other Godzilla movies specifically) people can watch if they want to get those exact fixes. In fact, while watching it I was starting to wonder about how things were going. But I was patient and by the end things did work out and come together more than fine... I thought it came together great.

Even when doubt crept into my mind once or twice, I was still really enjoying the movie. The story and characters aren't exactly original or groundbreaking, but I wasn't expecting a super low-budget indie drama in terms of the script (i.e. the exact sort of movies cast members Olson and Hawkins are used to; I am glad they got a nice payday here, by the way) so there's no grounds for me to carp about it. I was always into the story and interested in what was going in. In several ways it was like the 1954 original and there were some mature themes that were part of the plot.

I know that many people think, “Oh, you don't see enough of Godzilla!” (that seems to be so well-known by now it probably isn't a spoiler) but I was fine with that. With various films of the past you needed patience as the suspense is built up; by the end of this movie, what you see the title creature do is more than satisfying. When you don't see him around, I was always interested in everything else. 

A lot of it seems to be an epic disaster film of old; a LOT of stuff in various cities gets destroyed and you do see the devastating impact and the toll it takes on people when something that catastrophic happens. Yeah, you will be reminded of 9/11 and unfortunately, since 9/11 it has really become cliché by now to have the trope of cities getting destroyed in action films; but, this isn't the platform for me to complain about how unoriginal and bankrupt most of Hollywood is creatively bankrupt.

Anyhow, what I dug was how the movie looked and the size and heft of the various creatures. It's made clear how massive and destructive they are. Also nice was how well-filmed it was. The action scenes weren't a shaky-cam nightmare and there are quite a few incredible shots.

With this nicely-filmed movie and all the teasing we get before we get a more than satisfying ending sequence, where there are several “F*** YEAH!” moments... some pretty great setpieces including a few things I hadn't seen before... some more than satisfactory performances... while I know I am rating this higher than most, I am OK with that. This motion picture worked oh so well for me and I am really thankful this was not a disappointment in my eyes as unfortunately, more than once this year I've been crestfallen by a film I thought should have been a lot better than bad or average.

To reiterate, if you're going to see this soon (and seeing it on a giant screen with a nice sound system is ideal; the scale is obvious in terms of the image, and the movie sounds really nice too), just note that you should be patient and you shouldn't turn against the movie because it isn't non-stop destruction right away and it isn't a cacophony of noise and image that becomes numbing or dare I say, boring. Allow the movie to take its time and you hopefully will feel rewarded by the time the end credits begin.

It may be an unpopular opinion but I wish that more big spectacle events like this would focus more on the story and situations and characters rather than the dissonance you seem to get much too frequently. This is a film from a director whose only other feature film was a micro-budget flick from '10 called Monsters (which I haven't seen) and yet that was a great choice for him to direct. The score from Alexandre Desplat was also pretty cool. So yep, hopefully there are others who dug this as much as I did.