After that sad state of affairs in 1998, Godzilla is back for another round. This time he is bigger and badder than ever before in Gareth Edwards' (Monsters) second directing effort, Godzilla.
The story starts in 1999 with Joe Brody (Bryan Cranston, Breaking Bad) and his wife Sandra (Juliette Binoche, The English Patient) working in a nuclear plant in Japan. There is seismic activity that destroys the plant that is explained away as an earthquake. Joe doesn't buy it because it is not random. He sees a pattern. Fifteen years later the "quakes" are happening again and he gets arrested for entering the quarantined zone looking for his old data to compare. His son, Ford (Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Kick-Ass), who is now in the navy, gets him out of jail and is convinced to go back into the quarantine zone with him. Here they learn, from Dr. Ishiro Serizawa (Ken Watanabe, Batman Begins), of a monster referred to as MUTO (Massive Unidentified Terrestrial Organism), which was the cause of the quakes. It is headed for the states pursued by another monster, our titular Godzilla. Ford then joins up with the rest of the military to try to stop these monsters. Then you get what you all came for, giant monster fight!
This movie, in a way, almost felt like two different movies smashed together. Edwards tries to give his characters a little depth, and make you care about them. This was done to great effect in the first act of the movie with Cranston and Binoche. You really bought their affection for each other and got invested in his struggle to find the truth. Then there was the second movie, which happened in the third act. This section gave viewers what they were waiting for with an all out brawl between the monsters. The characters were still good, but were not given as much to work with as some had in the first act. The second act tried to bridge these two movies together, and this is where it went into kind of a lull for me. We follow Ford's journey from Japan to the states. The problem lies in the fact that Ford was the least interesting character for me. Aaron Taylor Johnson just seemed a little wooden in this role. Luckily, this act is redeemed a little with teasing glimpses of the monsters.
So, the acting is great for the most part. Johnson is the only weak link, but he is still passable. Cranston and Binoche (who has very little screen time) make you wish they were the protagonists through the whole film. Watanabe and Elizabeth Olsen also did a fine job with what little they were given to do.
Some of the plot is where you have to kind of turn off your brain and just enjoy the ride, but I'm suspecting most people will have done that just knowing it was a Godzilla movie. Godzilla himself is supposed to have been around since 1954, but he has been kept a secret. Seriously, he's the size of a skyscraper. That is one BIG secret. Another thing is how stupid the military is portrayed. They get in the way of fleeing civilians to shoot at these giant monsters with puny little bullets and missiles, doing about as much damage around them as the monsters themselves. The real fun bit though, is their ultimate plan. It is established over and over again throughout the movie that these monsters eat radioactive materials, so they come up with the brilliant plan to hit them with a giant nuclear bomb.
The biggest fun is the throwdown at the end. Godzilla proves he is the baddest monster in town. Between him and the MUTO's you get your fair share of fighting and destruction. A lot of the fighting takes place in the evening, but the action is clear and you get a lot of great shots. The effects are done real well. The cinematography is also beautiful in this movie. There is a scene (also shown in the first trailer) where the military does a HALO jump into the thick of it all, and it is quite breathtaking.
The second act lulls a little, and Godzilla himself does take quite some time before he shows up for the first time on screen. I think these are minor quibbles in the long run. The story with certain characters makes up for some of this, and Godzilla really does make good use of all of the screen time that he does get, beating up the MUTO's, which themselves are quite cool looking. Overall, good popcorn summer movie with some character development in the first half that you don't normally see in this type of movie.
Rating: *******--- (7 out of 10)
Memorable Quote:
Serizawa: Let them fight.
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