Godzilla - a monstrous disappointment

Rating: 4/10 (18 May 2014)

I am not sure what I was expecting with Godzilla, but the 120 minutes I experienced was not what I had in mind. Maybe it was the pretty decent reviews that seemed to be floating around that got my hopes up, or maybe it was the amazing trailer (it was probably the trailer). Unfortunately, the hype got the better of me, as after walking out of the cinema all I felt was disappointment. The 2014 Godzilla is not a great movie, in fact, it's not even good.
I guess I was so impressed by last year's Pacific Rim (I'm being serious – not tongue in cheek), that I really thought Hollywood had the 'big monster causing destruction' thing all worked out. As it turns out – they don't. What made Pacific Rim so fantastic was that the writers knew the premise behind the film was ridiculous, and accordingly, they made no attempt to hide what the audience was there to see – being destruction. They kept the story simple and didn't take themselves too seriously. In contrast, the writers of Godzilla failed to grasp the ridiculous concept at the center of their film, and instead tried to make a moody, brooding, serious Godzilla film.
So the story - Bryan Cranston (Joe) is the lead engineer of a nuclear power station in Japan. Something 'mysterious' causes an explosion. Cut 15 years forward and past some sappy back story about Joe's son (Ford) and Joe is still in Japan, trying to uncover what caused the explosion. As it turns out, it was a MUTO (yes – a Massive Unidentified Terrestrial Organism) that the Japanese had been growing in a weakly fortified pit since the accident. Unpredictably, it escapes.
As it turns out, after 15 years of hibernation, the MUTO is simply looking for some action, and another MUTO appears, with the two of them obviously having planned years earlier to meet for their sneaky rendezvous in downtown San Fran. It is now, about half way through the movie that Godzilla gets to make an appearance, but by this time the thrill is already starting to wear thin. There have already been two big monster reveals (the first and the second MUTO) and there have already been plenty of scenes of destruction (Japan, Hawaii and Las Vegas). But – third time lucky. Godzilla friend or foe of humanity – that is the question. The scientist who let the MUTO escape from the most pathetically secured cell on earth thinks friend, the US military – keen to use some nukes for the first time since WW2 – think foe. So there is Godzilla (pretty much a fat, slow, swimming T-Rex), and the two MUTOs, and the 2 nukes – and they are all converging on San Francisco.
Queue scenes of escaping and running people, the bridge getting wrecked (surprise!), the usual "monster moving slowly and people not moving as they hope the monster suffers from the 'T-Rex can't see still people' thing from Jurassic Park", and all the other general scenes of chaos and destruction that seem to be copy and pasted from these movies year on end. It's not this sort of stuff that irked me though, it is the rubbish side stories that get thrown into the mix. Rescuing kids, calling wife on phone, walking a train track - its all very unnecessary.
Thrown in the last 20 minutes of the movie is what the fans are really there to see, and that is a face-off between Godzilla and the two MUTOs. Is Godzilla here to destroy humanity, or is he here to restore balance to the globe and be the big scaly superhero we never knew we wanted? It panned our predictably – and I was uninspired. For a start the director decided to set almost all of the action sequences in the dead of night. It might be great for atmosphere, but when there is a 50 story lizard on the screen I want to be able to see it in the full brightness of day, not dramatically hidden by smoke and night. The whole time I just wanted to turn on the lights and experience a good old day time fist fight. Secondly, Godzilla really wasn't all that impressive a monster. He lumbered slowly and pretty much got his ass kicked for most of the fight sequences, until he remembered at an all too convenient time he had the power to shoot blue fire from his mouth! Again, I feel like Pacific Rim got in a year earlier, and two stars better, as the battle sequences really felt clumsily put together. To top it off, Godzilla finishes with one of the most laughable movie endings I have ever seen. Truly awful.
In short, Godzilla tried to do too much. The first hour was full of too much pointless back story. The whole thing was full of too many pointless locations and changes of place / time (there were seriously about 30 subtitled location / time / destination changes throughout the film). The first half was full of two too many pointless monsters, and the last half featured far too little of the one monster you actually wanted to see. There was too much darkness, too much bad acting and too little Bryan Cranston.
It will probably not be a long wait before the next Godzilla movie – sequels are all too easy to come by these days and the end of the film leaves that window entirely open. I just hope it strips back the story and focuses on what audiences want to see. In the meantime, I might go watch Pacific Rim again.