Rumble in the Urban Jungle

Rating: 8/10 (19 May 2014)

Godzilla is back and he is set to smack down with the great monsters and the big blockbusters 2014 has to offer. Godzilla (2014) washes out the bad taste of Roland Emmerich's very dumb effort as this new version pays respect and homage to the great Japanese series.
In the Pacific Ocean since 1954 a multi-national organisation has been hunting a mysterious creature, using nuclear weapons to kill it. In 1999 a mining company make a discovery and awaken a beast which causes a nuclear meltdown in Janjira, Japan. Flash-forward to the present day Ford Brody (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) is an explosives expert for the American military and is called to Japan when his father Joe (Bryan Cranston) is arrested for exploring the quarantine zone, planning to expose the cover-up of the disaster. But this could lead to humanity facing its greatest threat.
Monsters' Gareth Edwards was hired to direct this reboot of the series and it is clear his experience of that film was influential on Godzilla. His sense of world building is shown, particularly the destruction and abandonment of Janjira, the chaos that was caused and large scenes such as a tomb for a mysterious creature. Even small things like the use of TV news in the background as it highlights events internationally. Monsters was a film with impressive special effects for its budget of $500,000 and with Godzilla he has $160 Million: a budget he effectively uses to bring Godzilla to life and showing a global scale. His version of Godzilla plays out a little like what a Monsters prequel could have been.
Edwards and his writing team show that they have a great knowledge and respect for the franchise, knowing what works in the series whilst taking the serious approach and accepts the environmental themes of the original 1954 film. As a monster film you get the fun massive creatures trying to beat the hell out of each other and keeping the human drama as civilians look to survive and the military try and fight creatures that treat humans as nothing more than bugs. Fans of the series will notice little Easter Eggs and homage's.
At times Godzilla plays like a classic disaster film as the monsters are unstoppable force of nature as ordinary people watch on and the military fight helplessly against destructive creatures. The human drama is just as important as the monsters as they sort out family dramas and fight for survival. Yet at times this element comes off as melodramatic and heavy-handed, despite the actors' best efforts. Godzilla is very much a film about the build-up to the fight between the monsters, allowing us to appreciate the battle, but the drawback is the waiting as we only get glimpses. Even when the monsters are fighting, the military are still in play.
Edwards makes a visually impressive film with solid action sequences, particularly at the end and he keeps a brisk pace constantly. The idea of what the monsters feed on makes them an even more potent threat. But other ideas are on the derivative, being used in many other sci-fi films. Examples include the military diving into San Francisco being similar to the wingsuit jump in Transformers: Dark of the Moon and the preventing of monsters having offspring is the same plot point from 1998 version of Godzilla.
Godzilla assumes a great cast of actors, Taylor-Johnson, Cranston, Elizabeth Olsen, Ken Watanabe, Sally Hawkins and David Strathaim from The Bourne Ultimatum. This would be a cast that any production would be happy to have. Cranston and Watanabe are the guys whose performance is the best and give the most dialogue porn. But Olsen does not get to show off her obvious talents as Ford's wife. Fun fact, this year Taylor-Johnson and Olsen are husband and wife, next year they will be twins in The Avengers: Age of Ultron.
The excellent composer Alexandre Desplat supplies a truly unique sounding score, a mostly bombastic piece of music that plays for a large portion of the film. With The Grand Budapest Hotel, Desplat has had a very good year.
The 2014 version is respectful to its source material and offers a lot of big monster fun as more major cities get destroyed. It's great to hear that Godzilla roar once again.
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