The new Godzilla is likely to be the worst movie
I’ll recommend seeing this year,
or maybe ever. Because bad, you see, sometimes is good - especially when its
comes to the large-monster movie genre.
It was a
little shaky at first. Godzilla Director Gareth Edward's opening scene of
tender loss was so earnestly played that I worried that his would be the first
of the 28 Godzilla movies to take itself seriously, or, in other words, that
the movie might try to be good… which would be bad, if you see my logic. I shouldn’t have stressed. Immediately
after that short scare, the film dropped down to its natural level and began to
demonstrate all of the ridiculous (or glorious) attributes that are just part
of the DNA of any really bad (or maybe good) movie with the name Godzilla in
it. These asinine (or genius) elements include:
Trait 1 -
Multiple large monsters for more monster-on-monster battle fun: The best
Godzilla films (or the worst, where worst might mean best) have matched the big
aquatic lizard up against other big… ah… things, like Mothra, a radioactive moth and her
caterpillar young, or the three-headed monster King Ghidorah (Monster Zero)
from Planet X. This time Godzilla is up against giant reptile-bug things -
prehistoric animals hatched from spores buried deep underground eons ago. One
might presume the film’s creators are harking back to one of Godzilla's past
nemeses, Rodan, a mutated pterosaur that gave the big guy all sorts of trouble
back in the 70’s,
but these creatures really look more like a combo of the Cloverfield monster and the bugs from Starship Troopers - they’re cool, but not very original.
Trait 2 -
A horrendously ridiculous premise for where these big guys come from: We’ve been trained over time to
understand that Godzilla and his associates are mutations caused by radiation -
payback to the humans for mishandling the power of the element U. Close, but
not quite the case in this reboot. Godzilla’s new enemies are mega-predators
from prehistory, not just mutating from radioactivity but actually feeding on
it. The reptile-bugs, referred to in the film as MUTO’s (Massive Unidentified
Terrestrial Organisms), eat radioactive material like food, somehow converting
small amounts of it into large amounts of mass (them) - you experts on the
relation of energy to mass times the speed of light squared will have to help
us out with that one - feel free to use the comment box below to derive
whatever equations you need to. And what of Godzilla? Well, he’s been lurking deep in the
ocean near areas of high radioactivity and returns once the MUTO’s appear – why you ask... to "bring
balance to nature". Of course… balance nature - it’s so clear.
Trait 3 -
Monster road trips: All bad (good) Godzilla movies need a road trip. The giant
beasts need to travel long distances from different parts of the world for some
outrageous reason. The great part of this tradition is that the path of this
long trip must intersect with at least three major population centers containing massive city skylines providing awesome battle arenas. What are the odds that among
all the vast valleys and plains, Godzilla would stumble onto say... Vegas? – Exactly
100% in this series… lets just say you might want to cancel your reservations
at Circus Circus this summer.
To these
key pieces, the film’s writers add the obligatory military leader (David Strathairn – The Bourne Legacy - as Rear
Admiral William Stenz) whose strategy is always the opposite of what the
obligatory scientist (Ken
Watanabe –
Batman Begins - as Dr. Ishiro Serizawa) suggests. It doesn't really mater whose
plan they take, there's never much we humans can do to stop the inevitable
Godzilla-movie monster throw down. Even the thick-tongued Watanabe’s Dr. Seriwaza
finally relents uttering the most repeatable line in the film... "Let them
fight". And here is where the fun really begins in Godzilla. For those of you who read this blog with some regularity
(all four of you), you know my aversion to the requisite action-film final
battle scenes which are just a series missiles fired and blows delivered while
we’ve-seen-them-before
explosions go off around the good guy and the bad guy. But it’s different in Godzilla. We fans of the genre long for
the final battle, especially because now Godzilla and his foes are so nicely
rendered. And Godzilla does not
disappoint in this area, with the beasts using every inch of dense urban
territory to gain an advantage and every nonsensical special power they possess
to do in the other guy. I believe that the end game alone of this cheesy bit of
guilty pleasure is worth the price of a ticket for fans of Godzilla and maybe
for a lot of you others too.
Regardless
of how well the final scene plays for you, odds are, as the credits role, you
will count the 123 minutes you spent watching Godzilla as squandered. But give it time – some banter with your fellow
movie goers maybe. You might just end up admitting that it was kind of fun... and
what were you expecting anyway. A silly 6 out of 10.
