Godzilla: The Return Of The King

                                    GODZILLA [2014]

THE RETURN OF THE KING

It’s great to see the King Of The Monsters back on the big-screen, and it was a no-brainer that I was gonna go and see it. I’ve had a couple of weeks since seeing it now, a couple of weeks to think it over, think it through and get over my initial slight disappointment and grumpiness at all the plot holes. On coming out of the cinema, I was a bit unhappy; why wasn’t it perfect, dammit! However, after a couple of weeks to calm down, let’s have a more balanced little look. Apologies for the lack of flow.

First of all, the good stuff. At least he looks like Godzilla! It sounds D’oh! But the Emmerich 1998 version got it wrong. There veteran creature designer Patrick Tatopoulos [also Broderick’s surname in the film] was given instruction to ‘redesign, update’ Godzilla for a modern audience. Well, Tatopoulos did create a pretty cool reptilian monster but it just so plainly wasn’t Godzilla. The Big G is stompy, not speedy!  That 1998 film is kind of derided nowadays but I’m fond of it, it’s a good monster movie, just with the wrong title. Anyway, the 2014 version of Godzilla is spot-on. This part of the film couldn’t be better; Godzilla  is a force of nature, a huge and awesome behemoth of angry scales and grumpy stompy feet. His design, with bleeding-edge special effects, is fantastic; proper old school King Of The Monsters. Also, in his manner and expression I got the idea of him being an old monster, hundreds or thousands of years old, the last of his race, proud and honourable; director Edwards has described him as being like an old samauri warrior, and I think that comes across, especially towards the end. Godzilla is not undefeatable, he is fallible, he needs a breather and a lie down now and then. The tantalising glimpses of him swimming about underwater or whatever were, for me, a highlight of the first hour, leading up to the big reveal.

More good stuff; the other monsters, the MUTO’s [Massive Unidentified Terrestrial Organisms] are pretty good, again, as you’d expect, with excellent CGI. While I would perhaps have preferred something a bit more old school and kaiju, these creatures nevertheless are welcome to the film. To my mind, the things [which are slightly different, male and female] are a bit like Bagorah the bat-monster, with a head like Gyaos’, and in some ways are similar to the Cloverfield creature. It’s all good stuff, bring on the monsters, and they cause plenty of carnage and causing buses to be late. The climactic battle is great, very well done, I didn’t want to blink to miss any action [whereas I ran off to the toilet in the first half [shouldn’t have had my pre-cinema pints]] This was perhaps my favourite part of the movie, along with the nostalgic scenes of Godzilla’s huge feet smashing through the streets, and seeing his spine spikes whiten as he prepares his heat ray. My wife didn’t know about his heat-ray, and my mother must have forgotten, but all three of us gave suitably appreciative “Oooohhh”s at this point. Basically, Godzilla is awesome!

This brings me to my bad points, and I’m gonna really try not to go on for ages. Mainly, THERE SIMPLY WASN’T ENOUGH OF GODZILLA!! It takes around an hour [half the film] for him to be properly revealed, and I reckon he’s only on screen altogether for about 25 minutes. It’s an awesome 20 minutes, with some proper bridge-smashing, train-eating monster-in-the-city carnage going on, but more please!  I could have done with less of the army boys running around in confusing fashion, trying to deliver a bomb, a plot point which ultimately goes nowhere. And while the basic story is good [check anywhere else online for a detailed plot] the film sometimes disappoints and is slightly confusing; sometimes certain scenes don’t follow on properly and don’t seem to make sense, and the details of the plot are often left unexplained leaving the viewer to just go along with the plot as a whole. I got the feeling that sometimes the film gave the illusion it was making sense, but actually wasn’t in some parts. I was often left a bit unsure of exactly what the intricacies of all the military action was all about; the viewer kind of gets the idea of it all, but sometimes the film skips a bit of explanation. I also thought that it was curiously cut, with things or concepts built up to and then just left in favour of something else. These two points are demonstrated in the climactic scenes with the nuclear bomb; much is made of the bomb, many minutes are spent moving it about and setting up plans for it, yet ultimately, at the end of the film not much comes of the bomb at all, and now that Godzilla has dealt with the threat, the bomb is surplus to requirements and forgotten about..
Basically there was too much screentime [often confusing] with the military. The first hour was good set-up, and Bryan Cranston a sympathetic and engaging character, but as he moves off-screen in the second half, the plot and characterisation fall a bit flat. It’s a good job there’s giant monsters to boost up the interest.

A few last quick words; the opening credits are fun and clever, Bryan Cranston plays about the best character in the film, the final scene is really cool, comic-booky, but a bit twee, and the film suffered only a tiny bit from not having a giant mechanical monkey in it.
It was an okay, a good film, but it was excellent to see Godzilla at the cinema again [I’ve only actually seen the 1998 version at the cinema, and that wasn’t really him], and to have his image in the media again and on the sides of buses and stuff. I’m pleased me and the family went to see it, to support it, and I’ll be buying the DVD when it comes out in December [or asking for it as a Christmas pressie! – Does my wife read this blog?] to likewise support it. I believe a sequel has been announced already, which is great. My thoughts for the sequel;  let’s have a bit more work on the consistency of the story, a couple of decent human characters to get behind, an enemy monster from the vast kaiju stable [Guiron or Speiga, but your best bet is Ghidorah theThree-Headed!], and most importantly, a bit more of the title monster please.And possibly a giant mechanical monkey!
 











                               SPECIAL NOTE TO MY WIFE: That Godzilla T-Shirt's pretty cool, innit?