I'm going to preface this review with a
little personal background. It'll help if you know where I'm coming
from.
Some of my earliest and fondest
memories include spending Friday nights with my sister, camped out in
our family VW Van in the driveway. Our father would run out a
portable tv on an extension cord, and my sister and I would eat
popcorn and watch Creature Feature in our own little world. On many
of those Friday evenings, the creature of the week was Godzilla,
another monster from Toho Studios' stable, or some combination
thereof.
When I had kids, I made a family
tradition of hanging out on the couch on Friday nights and watching
Japanese monster movies. There was something about those artifacts
of the '60s and '70s, that combination of giant monsters and visible
costume-zippers, that spoke to children. We had a video game for the
original X-Box that was basically Mortal Kombat, but with giant
Japanese monsters. I can't imagine how many times I've heard an
offscreen announcer intone something like, “Space Godzilla versus
Mecha Gigan! Monsters, fight!”
When I was a C-130 pilot, I used to
travel to Tokyo quite often. I'd always stop by the same toy store
near Ueno Park to pick up some Bandai Godzilla dolls. By the time
I'd made my last trip, our 3 boys had a collection including nearly
every Godzilla monster, as well as quite a few creatures from the
Gamera films. These are not carefully preserved collector's items.
These are battered and worn everyday toys, the stuff of the
imaginations of the next generation of Ellermanns.
My point is that I didn't come to this
movie as a casual consumer of summer fare. I came to this movie as a
guy who has seen every single Godzilla movie, even the really bad
ones. I came to this movie ready to see it as part of a long, long
series of sequels, reboots, and reimaginings. I came to this movie
ready to be entertained.
I got my money's worth.
The first two major players Godzilla
presents are Sally
Hawkins (Made in Dagenham, Happy-Go-Lucky) and Ken
Watanabe (Letters from Iwo Jima). Next, we see Bryan Cranston
(Breaking Bad) and Juliette Binoche (Trois couleurs: Bleu).
Later, we get Elizabeth Olsen
(Martha Marcy May Marlene)
and David Strathairn (Temple Grandin).
'All right,' I thought. 'Even if this movie is terrible, a whole
bunch of legitimately excellent actors are getting big, blockbuster
paydays out of it. That's a win, right there.' Eventually, we learn
that the hero is a Navy EOD (Explosive Ordnance Disposal) lieutenant.
'Hey,' I thought, 'I have a buddy who wrote a book based on his timeas an EOD bubba. This is cool!' Basically, the movie got me onboard
pretty early.
Having
done that, Godzilla
works hard to keep me, the fan, on board. Its secondary monsters
(called MUTOs, a marginally more creative moniker than, say
Mechagodzilla) leave trails similar to those of the larval giant-moth
creatures of Mothra.
Godzillla himself gets his first reveal at sea, thoughtlessly making
naval vessels bob in the ocean like so many rubber duckies. At one
point, our hero rescues a little Japanese boy who looks straight out
of Godzilla vs. Megalon.
Ken Watanabe gets to pretend he's Takashi Shimura and intone classic
Godzilla movie lines like, “Man believes he controls nature, but he
is stupid, proud, and wrong. Nature always restores balance.” Jet
fighters fly ridiculously low to the ground, only to get swatted out
of the sky (as opposed to shooting from a safe altitude and
distance). Cities get leveled, flooded, and irradiated. A good time
is had by all.
And
Godzilla, man, this Godzilla is great. The film retains the classic
roar. Godzy dispatches one of his enemies with a move cribbed
directly from Godzilla: Final Wars.
The reveal of his atomic fire breath is so awesome that it had my
now - 14-yr-old son bouncing in his chair with delight. Perhaps best
of all, this Godzilla takes a page from the later Showa era, when the
King of Monsters served mainly as a defender of the natural order
(and, by extension, humanity). I walked into Godzilla
expecting a standard rehash of the original Gojira.
I got something like that, but with a heaping helping of Invasion of the Astro Monster. What a pleasant
surprise.
'All
right,' you're thinking, 'this guy likes Godzilla movies. Godzilla
is, obviously a Godzilla movie, so he likes it. But will I like it?
Is it actually, y'know, good?'
Well,
taken in the broader context of contemporary American popular film,
Godzilla's just ok.
It has a terrible score, wastes the talented Elizabeth Olsen in an
underwritten part, and takes a mighty long time to get to the rompin'
stompin' giant monster action. Taken in the context of the
mostly-terrible (beloved, but terrible) films that preceded it,
however, it's marvelous. It looks gorgeous, it respects its unique
filmic tradition, and it sets up a world in which we can look forward
to continued sequels. It's everything you could ask for from a
Godzilla movie.
I (and
my progeny) approve.
PS
You may enjoy the Godzilla movie reviews I've written since
starting this blog in 2006:
Godzilla 1998 (written by my then – 10-yr-old)
Godzilla vs. Gigan (written by my then - 11-yr-old)
Godzilla vs. Megaguirus (written by my then – 12-yr-old)
