Gojria Vs. Cloverfield - Hollywood Kaiju homage has heart in right place but inherits many problems from its source material.

Rating: 8/10 (16 May 2014)

As a lifelong Godzilla (and Kaiju movie in general) lover, I was both excited and wary when the new version rolled around, still bearing the terrible scars of disappointment with the 1998 "reimagining". Back then nobody would have spent a nickel on a genuine 'Kaiju' homage, but a lot can happen in two decades and now 'Geek is King'! So like last year's equally niche but fun Kaiju/Anime homage "Pacific Rim' this one nods many knowing winks at the 'cognoscenti while keeping it generic enough for the layperson to part with their entrance fee.
The new take sticks closely to the traditional 'Kaiju' template.The characters are all stock as well, save Taylor Johnson's Brody who is an American military everyman archetype, with scientists and generals meeting regularly to discuss unfolding developments and devise ineffective solutions. 'Godzilla 1998' borrowed from the first movie's premise, Godzilla as atomic destroyer, but it also showed how limited such a template is, becoming 'just another frakking disaster movie'. Even Ishiro Honda and the guys at Toho realised this as the format changed immediately with the second movie, going for a 'whoever wins we lose -Godzilla does battle with another monster who may or may not be more dangerous than he is' style. Eventually the series merged with "The Mysterians" to become 'Godzilla and humanoid heroes vs a series of kind of sympathetic but still dangerous alien races who control monsters intent on taking over the Earth' battles, and this is probably Godzilla's most famous phase, giving us classics such as "Destroy all Monsters" "Invasion of the Astro Monsters" and "Godzilla vs Gigan". This film borrows the basic outline of phase 2, Godzilla vs a more dangerous monster while humanity looks on not sure who to back if anyone?
The 'MUTOS' (a designation rather than a name) are based unashamedly on the 'Cloverfield' monster, a clever little jab at that 'found footage' disaster (in more ways than one!) and its pretence to the Godzilla crown. One male hatches and destroys a Japanese nuclear reactor in 1999 while the other incubates until it's ready to mate. This initial story line involves Bryan Cranston's Joe Brody, a scientist and family man who becomes an obsessed maniac when his wife dies, trying to convince the world of the existence of a monster only to be ridiculed and mocked. It's a little homage to one of the best of the original series, "The Terror of Mechagodzilla', the ultra –dark film with which Honda closed a series that other hands had turned into increasingly cheap and ludicrous bubble gum cartoons for kids. Alas he is only in it for the first twenty five minutes or so, swiftly written out once his character arc is done. (His screen wife Juliette Binoche is in it for even less!) The baton is handed to his son, Aaron 'Kick Ass' Taylor-Johnson, a bomb disposal expert and family man who becomes our 'on the spot' hero armed with the necessary scientific knowledge to make him the human epicentre of events. David Strathairn takes the role of 'General who sits in endless meetings and gives audience exposition' usually played by Yoshifumi Tajima while Ken Watanabe plays the 'wise and knowing' scientist role usually played by Takashi Shimura. Like the originals, two very talented character actors give kudos to utterly empty roles requiring only gravitas and a straight face. Spunky and intelligent female characters were a regular in the series, but for our American hero archetype we have the 'devoted wife and mother' role played by a similarly underused Elizabeth Olson. Perhaps to counterbalance we have Sally Hawkins as Watanabe's assistant, who joins the rest in having little demanded of her talents. Whatever this movie is, a powerhouse acting tour de force it isn't! (save Cranston)
The structure is clunky, the characters two dimensional at best and the dialogue often hokey, but these faults are mostly inherited from the structure they were trying to copy. A bigger fault that is all its own is that we rarely see the battles between Godzilla and the MUTO lovers, a kind of 'always in the background' technique director Gareth Edwards used in his ground breaking sci-fi home movie "Monsters'. Like Spielberg, this route was taken due to a simple lack of means, and so there is no call for it here. Sure, what we see is great, but we see so little of it! Most appears on TV screens or in the background when all we want is to sit down and get a ringside seat for the big fight, 12 rounds between the champ and the contender, like the originals. It turns out to be extremely frustrating, especially since the human characters we focus on are just place-fillers!
That said, the digital CGI Godzilla looks and moves just like the original (gone is that chicken lizard POS from 1998!) and also has that same intelligence in his expression, reminding us he is no dumb brute. He also has blue fire which powers up along his dorsal fins and punches and throws his opponents, a 'motion capture' update of the 'men in suits' technique, which endears it to the fans. The film ends, as all good Godzilla films do, with the battered hero returning to the sea after his bout is done, leaving the wide eyed humans to see him off. Nobody actually waves and shouts "Goodbye Godzilla!" alas, unless it is in a deleted scene somewhere.
At last a Hollywood tribute to Godzilla done right, it is nonetheless riven with problems which may hurt its chances at the Box Office. We hope not, because if this works then future bouts against King Ghidorah, Hedorah, Gigan could become a mouth-watering prospect for future summer seasons!