Waiting for Godotzilla

Rating: 1/10 (14 July 2014)

Sometimes the very best films are unintentionally funny, however it is with a heavy heart I inform you that the only unintentionally funny thing about this film is the cavalcade of comedic wigs donned by Bryan Cranston's character. I have seen more convincing hairpieces at a pensioner's pool party in Boca Raton. The only thing that was missing was a Hawaiian shirt, short shorts and a pick up line that begins with "Hey baby....".
The movie has a stellar cast, with two Oscar winners and three Oscar nominees but you would never know it. Juliette Binoche was clearly taking the money and running, gone in 60 seconds (literally) and Ken Watanabe is as lifelike as the Oscar he won. Watanabe stomps leaden footed through most of his scenes garbling his lines but when it comes to stomping, who does it better than Godzilla? Sure the film is called Godzilla but...where IS GODZILLA? It's like some sort of absurdist piece. The titular head of the movie appears only sometimes, and we are first forced to endure a good thirty minutes of scene-setting and bad wigs. Godzilla appears more like the original Japanese version and there is some hat-tipping to the origins of the film franchise, but apart from that...we are still waiting for Godzilla. Not only is Godzilla hard to find in this hard slog of a film, but when Godzilla isn't just stomping over landmarks he is noshing on some sort of angry flying leftover from the film Starship Troopers. He isn't an angry refugee from atomic testing, he is a hungry behemoth who unintentionally saves the world. It's a good thing too...because NOTHING saves this film.
Elizabeth Olsen runs the gamut of emotions from A to...well A. Aaron Taylor-Johnson, MUST be better in other films, because he makes Godzilla look life-like and believable. It is for Sally Hawkins that my heart breaks. She is an outstanding actress, and just this year was rightfully nominated for an Oscar for Blue Jasmine. What was she doing here? What was she doing signing on for this film? She was virtually invisible as the handmaiden to Watanabe, and although she is the only one who it can be said of, was actually acting, she was wasted and lost in the carnage and close ups of Cranston and Watanabe. My final sorrowful song is sung to David Strathairn who is also an Oscar nominated actor, and is deservedly considered one of America's finest character actors. However, therein, lies the problem. In order for one to be a character, one must have a character to inhabit. Strathairn blinks his way through this film seemingly oblivious to the mess around him. It must make it easier when your resume includes, "Lincoln", "Good Night and Good Luck" and "L.A. Confidential" to simply not move and hope no one notices you.
Most good stories start with a fundamental list of ingredients: the initial situation, conflict, complication, climax, suspense, denouement, and conclusion. None of these ingredients will be found in Godzilla. They are simply not applicable. In "Waiting for Godot" Nothing happens, nobody comes, nobody goes. As scholar David Bradby says in his criticism of Godot, this is an understatement: "less than nothing happens."
That same criticism can be made of Godzilla, or as I have called it, "Waiting for Godotzilla."