Passionless misfire.

Rating: 4/10 (28 August 2014)

So when has Godzilla ever worked? It's not like the 'classics' from the 50s are critically revered, they just seem to exist. I get the symbolism of Godzilla with the Hiroshima bombings and I do think that it's quite thoughtful, but as a piece of cinema, it's never come to par. This is no better than the infamous 1998 version, in fact, it might be worse. While that film was tonally all over the place, this one has none. Never have a seen a brilliant cast so utterly wasted. Maybe Gareth Edwards was just intimidated by them but he didn't seem to give them much to do. They just stand there clueless, Ken Watanabe being the biggest sinner of this, or deliver some dry exposition. The only actor given something is Bryan Cranston, but his storyline is so saccharine that it's hard to take seriously, as hard as he may try to make it work. He can't help but feel incredibly insignificant in light of the inevitability of what's to come.
Naturally, something like this will be terribly contrived, but even its optional choices such as the point where it tries to communicate that Aaron Johnson is a good guy by having him babysit a lost child just doesn't work because of the limited exploration of the narrative. If you were in that situation, then you'd get off at the next station and get the next train back. No way does that train go nonstop until nightfall. But that's beside the point, these things feed into character choices that are completely vapid. It's like a committee has decided what things should be and too often came up with a deadlock so they decided nothing will do instead. It has a huge problem with juggling the way humans would actually respond to this. Instead of awe-spiring wonder, it's vague terror at first and then a whole lot of gormlessness. It's eye-rolling, especially when they end up quite casual about what's going on.
However, the biggest problem is that it's void of atmosphere. The smaller scenes don't blend well with the bigger unconvincing CGI and it never has any cinematic texture which could so easily come. Instead, it shrouds us in the dark and our imaginations run distracted and bored. I laughed at the first reveal of Godzilla. And then the film wraps up by calling it a hero, as if we'd jump to such conclusions, and then it struts out of town like it knows it's a stud. Just a total joke that lacks all vision. It just doesn't mean anything or have anything moving or entertaining. At least Desplat's score is quite nice for what it is. Exciting marketing really mislead us with this one because they spent way too much time polishing the posters and the hype than working on this film. I'm sure Gareth Edwards is better than this and I will certainly give his Monsters a chance at some point, but this is a passionless misfire.
4/10