Godzilla

Back in 2010, a young British director by the unassuming name of Gareth Edwards made his debut with Monsters, a low-key sci-fi movie that chronicled a couple’s journey through a Central America infested by gargantuan extraterrestrial creatures. Shot on a shoestring budget and, more impressively, digitally rendered by said director’s visual effects software on his laptop, it played out like Them! meets Lost in Translation: a slow-burning romance that happened to have giant monsters in it. As unlikely a premise it may sound, it worked in its own, quietly affecting sort of way.

So when Edwards landed the gig of rebooting Godzilla, the mother of all monster movies, expectations were understandably high. Here was a filmmaker who clearly had a love for the genre, but also demonstrated he knew not to forget about the human element of the story by portraying characters the audience could truly identify with. Of course, there was always the risk that Edwards might sell out to the Hollywood corporate machine and end up churning out a soulless, pixelated mess for a fat paycheck…

… And yet, while it is safe to assume that what’s on screen reflects the indie director’s vision and not the studio’s, there is something undeniably underwhelming about Godzilla’s latest reboot. For starters, he’s hardly in it. His name is on the poster and at 350ft tall you’d think he’d be pretty difficult to miss but, as evidenced so clearly in the first two acts, the giant lizard’s more reclusive than Banksy.

One could argue that, despite the $150 million budget, the director is staying true to his indie roots and is more interested in telling a human tale about survival in the face of insurmountable odds or that, like Jaws and Jurassic Park, the choice to conceal his creature is a clever tactic designed to mount suspense until the big reveal. Both would be entirely valid arguments if it weren’t for the fact that, for some inexplicable reason, Edwards dedicates more screentime to the other multi-limbed, dragon-winged MUTOs (that’s “Massive Unidentified Terrestrial Organism” to you and me). It’s an odd, even frustrating narrative decision that leads you to question the rationale behind it and ultimately makes it seem like Godzilla is gate-crashing his own movie.

The human cast, made up of some of the most intriguing talents working in Hollywood at the moment, also feels a little wasted. Aaron Taylor-Johnson is on Orlando Bloom mode (i.e. bland leading man), David Strathairn barely registers as a US Admiral, Ken Watanabe is on obligatory exposition duties, and all the lovely Elizebeth Olsen has to do is show up in a pair of hospital scrubs. Bryan Cranston almost steals the show from everyone involved (and yes, that is including the monsters), all teary-eyed and snarling his dialogue like he is the danger, but he’s regrettably whisked off the screen all too soon.

The final brawl between Godzilla and the MUTOs is admittedly the stuff of monster mayhem dreams – colossal, thundering and gloriously chaotic – but by then the pay-off doesn’t make up for the lumbering build-up. Even more awkwardly, the plot holes are of the gaping kind, similar in size to the craters left behind by the film’s MUTOs. How can a team of soldiers tip toe their way around a monster grudge match without getting squished? Surely Elizabeth Olsen’s character was hiding in a building that got flattened just now? And isn’t it a little too convenient that Godzilla seems to be siding with mankind despite being repeatedly fired at?

Granted, most of these questions could be posed for countless summer blockbusters that make their way onto our screens every year, but considering the serious tone Edwards is going for, you can’t help but be less forgiving with the lapses in logic. Godzilla is certainly not the most disappointing blockbuster of the season (that dubious honour goes to The Amazing Spiderman 2), but given the pedigree involved, it could’ve been so, so much more. A monstrous success, even.

2/5