Godzilla (2014)

Every summer, one film promises greatness. In 2014, that film is Godzilla. In 2013 it was Man of Steel. In 2012, Prometheus. See a pattern? All massive disappointments.

All the reviews I’ve written thus far on this website have been of films I like. Films I want to highlight, promote, share my love of. But every now and then you see a film that makes your blood boil. Now I have a new calling: I want to crush Godzilla. I want to make sure anyone who happens upon this post will never waste two hours of their fleeting existence on this awful, wasteful film. A blockbuster that completely fails to deliver, to get the pulse racing.

Believe me, no one had higher hopes for Godzilla than I did. It was my second-most anticipated film of the year! It had a rapturous Comic Con reception. A stellar cast. A mesmerising teaser trailer. What could go wrong?

Everything.

Let’s start with the cast: Legendary Pictures went to great expense to hire Hollywood’s finest character actors. And they proceeded to squander them. Fresh from her Oscar-worthy supporting role in Blue Jasmine, Sally Hawkins plays… God, I can’t even remember her character’s name! She only has about eight lines in the entire film – all of which are dull exposition. Her character only has a single defining feature: a British accent. Similarly Ken Watanabe (Inception, The Last Samurai) is a stereotype: a wise Japanese man who warns the Westerners of the hubris of meddling with nature. And worst of all – Bryan Cranston. The Breaking Bad star. The most in-demand Hollywood actor disappears after half an hour. Along with my hopes for this movie.

Instead we’re left to follow his son, Ford. Screenwriter gurus say a hero must have at least five flaws to be interesting and relatable. Ford has one flaw: he’s boring. Boring, boring, boring. A generic soldier with a blonde wife and a bland son. Even his name is boring – I only remembered it because of Ford Lincoln Mercury in The Postman. Ford is supposed to be our “human interest” – the charismatic lead we care about, the emotional anchor. Ford has nothing a blank stare and rote delivery. Aaron Taylor-Johnson impressed as Kick-Ass and John Lennon but here he’s flatter than an 32A. Either this script has given him nothing to work with – or he has unwittingly suffered a stroke in his pre-frontal cortex. He has no chemistry whatsoever with his wife, played by Elizabeth Olsen. Hell, there’ll probably be more sparks between them as superhero siblings in next year’s Avengers: Age of Ultron.

Elizabeth Olsen doesn’t fair much better herself. She’s a doctor, apparently. She wears scrubs and walks in a hospital corridor. Wow – characterisation alert! And worse, she willingly separates herself from her only child and chooses to stay in an evacuated city which she knows THREE HUGE MONSTERS are about to destroy! Her decisions fly in the face of every rational thought, every instinct of self-preservation and maternalism. Part of me wished she would be stomped on! After the critical and commercial flops of Silent House, In Secret, Very Good Girls, Red Lights and *shudder* Oldboy (2013) – Olsen really, really needs a new agent.

Worst of all, Godzilla is relegated to an afterthought in his own film. Call it “Transformers Syndrome”: our hapless hero bumbles about for an hour and a half. Watches a threatening villain escape. And watches the final act showdown between the villain and the BIG HUGE THING THE DAMN FILM IS NAMED AFTER! Why weren’t we following Godzilla this whole time? What makes our protagonist more important, more interesting? Simply being a blank-faced human?

When we do finally see him after half an hour, the build-up is agonising. The tide rushes out to sea. A tidal wave storms through the city. Planes are tosses aside like playthings. A gargantuan foot crushes the asphalt. The villain turns. And the camera pans up to finally reveal Godzilla himself who roars and-

Hey there!

And that’s it. Film-maker Garth Evans cuts away to our glass-eyed moppet watching the clash of titans on a TV screen. WHY!? To make it feel more real? Why should this snot-nosed kid get to watch the fight and we don’t? How is it more interesting, more engaging to watch a blank character watching TV in an apartment. You have $170 MILLION dollars to play around with, Evans! That’s over 300 times the budget of your debut Monsters! So you don’t have to go hiding the damn monsters, anymore. You don’t have to make Blue Balls: The Movie. Yes, I know the best monster movies (Jaws, Super 8, etc.) delays the big bad reveal for as long as possible to build up the suspense. But those movies are GOOD even without the monster – small town politics, dealing with grief – that’s dramatically engaging! It’s not enough to just say – Oh, our hero’s got A wife and A child and A selfless job so, uh, just be happy to watch him bounce around the Pacific. No! No, no, no, Mr. Evans. I’m done apostrophising you! Begone.

Nooby likes me…

And this is the point where people rebut – but Corzie, surely it’s not that bad. It’s not as bad as the other Godzilla, right? No, it’s not. It’s not as bad as hemorrhoids either. Sure Roland Emmerich’s Godzilla (1998) has flat characters. And massive plot holes. And velociraptor rip-offs. And terrible camera-work. And abysmal writing. (“That’s a lot of fish!”)  And dark, ugly CGI – even by Nineties’ standards. But it was a memorable bad movie. Hell, people ares still talking about it 16 years later! This year’s  effort is just bland, safe and forgettable. It’s The Amazing Spider-Man, measured against Spider-Man 3. Sure it’s better. But it’s still not worth your time or money.

And yet, somehow Godzilla is a commercial hit. It made $91m in its opening weekend Stateside, a performance rivalling the three most recent superhero flicks. Put it down to the slick marketing campaign. Put it down to its peerless cast. Put it down to a bemusingly warm critical reception: 78% on Rotten Tomatoes – on par with modern classics such as Fight Club, Gladiator and Prisoners.

Godzilla tries, it really tries to be a loving homage. Vaguely Oriental music plays when the great reptile stomps. A sizeable chunk of the gargantuan budget went towards making Godzilla’s dumb features look like the “man in a rubber suit” 1954 original. But it fails.

It fails in everything it sets out to do.  In the film’s final moments, the music pounds. We’re supposed to be awed by the sight of the great titan rising once more. “King of Monsters, Saviour of Our City?” exclaims a Tyrannovision TV screen. But all this leaves the audience cold. All we see is a big fat lizard with chubby thighs, waddling seaward. Roll credits. Demand refund.