Mess With Nature And Nature Will Always Mess Back

Rating: 7/10 (18 May 2014)

Back in 1954, the original Godzilla taught us many things.
Mess with nature and nature will always mess back. Give a monster a motive and the audience is yours. Get the atmosphere right and no one will notice the cracks in your budget. Or at least care.
Created as a vehicle to sustain director Roland Emmerich's blockbusting momentum after Independence Day, the last Hollywood version of Godzilla taught us something else entirely: Special effects can't single-handedly carry a giant monster film and it can't simply rely on big named actors either. Which is why nobody's seen Mr. Emmerich since 1998.
As the creator of 2010's acclaimed sci-fi-on-a-shoestring "'Monsters"' and now the director of this hopeful franchise-reboot, Gareth Edwards has clearly learned from these lessons – for the most part.
But while the blood of "Monsters" runs through it, it's pretty obvious where – or rather who – this 2014 Godzilla's greatest inspiration comes from.
From the "War of the Worlds" plotting and inevitable nods to "Jurassic Park" to sundry small but "Close Encounters" (note the shape of those sonographs), it's got Spielberg's baseball cap all over it. The 2014 reboot of Godzilla is a hugely serious business starting in 1999 with a genuinely wrenching tragedy at a Japanese nuclear facility that leaves scientist Joe Brody (Bryan Cranston) torn from his wife (Juliette Binoche) and son Ford.
Fifteen years later, army lieutenant Ford (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) is on leave with his own son and wife (Elizabeth Olsen) when he is summoned back to Japan to get his now-paranoid dad out of jail.
Convinced that the events of 1999 were part of a massive cover-up, Joe has made a nuisance of himself ever since. But with the truth almost in his grasp, Joe drags Ford back to the abandoned city they once lived to retrieve the last pieces of the puzzle.
They find all the evidence they need. Much more. As do the researchers at the heart of the conspiracy (Ken Watanabe and the spare part-like Sally Hawkins).
And as if one hundred-story, radiation-absorbing, evolution-defying menace wasn't enough for the world to deal with, there are more.
On top of that, like every other recent global threat film that doesn't take place in New York, they're all heading for San Francisco. Where Ford's family happens to live.
Yes, Edwards even throws in the old 'packed schoolbus on a bridge' routine as everything between Hawaii and Vegas is caught in a devastating pincer movement that renders the US Armed Forces as impotent as a basket of neutered puppies.
Like previously mentioned, a blockbuster shouldn't live and die by it's special effects, but in many ways that's often as much as Godzilla has going for it, alongside a number of exquisitely composed and atmospheric shots.
The visuals are astonishing, whether it's the creatures tearing down entire cities or a tsunami devastating Honolulu.
The first big sighting is just about worth the wait and the one thing Edwards certainly manages to get right are the reveals. As Godzilla or the M.U.T.O.'s appear from out of smoke or out of the sky to maul each other or a skyscraper, he's able to deliver a handful of truly jaw- dropping sequences. Godzilla is huge and really quite unsettling as a presence, and in one or two moments the film touches on being a proper intense film, posing genuine danger from these massive beasts.
And how they love it, supplementing their smash-and-trash campaign with bursts of electromagnetic mayhem that leaves cities powerless and – in one eerily impactful scene – causes planes to drop out of the sky.
And yet it's often to be found skimping on the action, cutting out early from the scraps and only showing us the aftermath rather than the main event. As a result the first two-thirds consist of an awful lot of teasing, which, in less capable hands, could have been a blockbusting mistake.
Although it could be argued that an all-out assault would be exhausting in a Transformers or Pacific Rim sort of way.
A little lightness of touch might have worked wonders too. It's an entirely humorless affair, which makes you question the point of having something as silly as two hours of monsters hitting each other when it doesn't try to make you smile once. Enjoy the thrill of the few times when Godzilla lets rip with all his might, but mayhem isn't really enough if you're not having fun with it.
Godzilla, after all, is the reason you're here. But like most bill- topping acts, and with millions of years of pent-up, FX-fuelled frustration to release, he's worth the wait.
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