Godzilla (2014) – Review

Review: Godzilla is visually striking and features a few very compelling moments, but overall is quite disappointing, pulled down by a fairly terrible script. The film is about engineer Joe Brody and his family. Joe works at a nuclear power plant in Japan that melts down due to a presumed natural disaster, killing Joe’s wife. Fifteen years later, Joe is still searching for answers, believing that the plant meltdown is being covered up and that something else entirely is responsible. Meanwhile, Joe’s son Ford has moved on from the tragedy and has his own family in San Francisco. Ford must come to Japan, however, after his father is arrested trespassing on the site of the old plant. Joe convinces Ford to come with him one last time to search the site for answers. Once there, they discover something profoundly terrifying. This is a film about a giant monster after all.

Godzilla is very polarizing for me (the film, not the character). On one hand, I found it to be mesmerizing aesthetically, often thrilling me with its fantastic visual spectacles and the best score of 2014 so far. But on the other hand, the characters and script are just plain awful. Sadly, despite very impressive visuals, this is just not a good film.

Director Gareth Edwards seems poised to deliver a classic monster movie, delaying Godzilla for most of the film’s first two acts, seemingly instead to focus on building strong characters.  The problem is that his characters are paper thin and their emotional exchanges are laughably clichéd and contrived. The scenes involving the human characters are mostly unwatchable, especially when they attempt to convey some sort of emotional exchange. Edwards never takes the time to give his characters any real character attributes or character-centric moments to involve the audience on a deeper emotional level; they are all hollow shells that just blankly say poorly written lines of dialog. The audience could care less about any of these human characters. They are essentially pointless; and yet, they take up most of the screen time. Thus, Edwards structuring the film to delay Godzilla’s appearance for a large chunk ends up hurting the film overall as the first half plays very slowly (due to the lousy characters).

It is as if Edwards devoted all his time and effort into making sure the visuals and the action involving Godzilla worked, forgetting that for the film to exist outside of being just pure spectacle he also needs strong characters at its core that the audience can care about and invest in, which in turn allows the drama and action the play bigger. Clearly, the human characters were an afterthought, only included at the last minute with little effort taken because someone told him he could not have a film without human characters (pure speculation).

But even with all that said, Edwards gets the visuals completely right. Once Godzilla gets involved and the action ramps up, the film actually becomes fairly interesting, as the viewer is thrilled by the pure ambiance created by the smoky, overcast, dark, foreboding cinematography and the brilliant thunderous and sort of spooky score. The atmosphere created is wonderful. And then Edwards introduces the monster and is able to pull off the epic imagery with panache.

After being bewildered by just how bad the characters are in the film, I found myself entranced by the film, enchanted by the striking images and atmosphere Edwards employs in the second half. The characters themselves are still pointless, utterly, but the visuals take over carrying the film.

At the end, one might even call the film satisfying – but that is completely dependent on one’s expectations for what the film should be or aspire to be. For those looking for something that is pure spectacle featuring a massive monster engaging in grand terror and destruction then this film will probably work quite well, as essentially that is all it does well. For those, however, looking for a complete narrative film with strong characters, Godzilla will be a letdown. Again, even with its tremendous visuals, it is just not a good movie. But, and this is its saving grace, it does entertain once it gets going.

On a side note, Edwards seems to be highly influenced by Steven Spielberg. There are a number of moments that feel like they are carbon copies of similar moments across Spielberg’s films. Particularly, Edwards utilizes “The Spielberg Face”, especially when it comes to using children to employ the dramatic device; though, I will say that Edwards uses it much less effectively. Even worse, Godzilla ultimately feels like a remake of Jurassic Park, mirroring many scenes and thematic and stylistic elements (but with far weaker characters). Everything somewhat shamefully copies everything else in filmmaking generally, but I kept thinking that the two paralleled each other very closely throughout, as if I were watching a updated version with slightly better visual effects.

Technical, aesthetic & acting achievements: Gareth Edwards has made two feature films, both of which focus on large monsters making landfall engaging in carnage and creating dread among human inhabiting the areas. His first film Monsters somewhat feels like it could be a sequel to this Godzilla film, as Godzilla introduces monsters to the human world, while Monsters is about humans living in a world also inhabited by monsters. They are similar in many ways, but what sets them apart is that Monsters feature reasonably good characters while Godzilla has terribly underwritten characters, and thus its seems as if Edwards has taken a step backwards as a filmmaker. But that said, I look forward to seeing what he does with Godzilla 2, as again his visuals were rather good.

The wonderful aesthetics are thanks to the collaborations with the great group Edwards worked with on the film. Composer Alexandre Desplat delivers a phenomenal score given the genre and style of the film (here is the full score; it is honestly far better than the film it is in). It has a great chilling power to it, often sounding as if it were written for a horror thriller or ghost story. It is spooky and very fun; and, I like the Japanese influences and accents as well. I will be surprised if it is not among my three favorite scores of the year when all is said and done (Desplat already gave us the fantastic The Grand Budapest Hotel score earlier this year as well, which I also loved). Seamus McGarvey’s cinematography perfectly sets the mood working in dark and gloomy tones. There is a scene in which paratroopers deploy through the clouds which is just visually astonishing and kind of beautiful. Owen Paterson’s production design does a good job grounding the film in reality, even though it often feels ridiculous (the sheer spectacle of watching Godzilla traipse through a city is kind of just as hilarious as it is mesmerizing). Designing sets that feel and look obliterated must have been fun. Overall, the film being as good as it is in moments (not overall) is thanks in large part to the work of these three.

It is hard to say that any of the actors are good in Godzilla as it is not really true, but it is not their fault. The script is one of the poorest of this year so far. They do their best. David Strathairn plays a typical military man type, while Juliette Binoche plays Joe’s wife who has the tough task of making the audience feel something (unsuccessfully) by dying in the first five to ten minutes of the film. Ken Watanabe plays a scientist who just wants to see Godzilla flourish, while Sally Hawkins plays another scientist who follows his lead completely (neither serves any purpose except maybe for some exposition). Bryan Cranston plays Joe, a crazy person who is vindicated while also wearing a horrifically terrible wig. Aaron Taylor-Johnson plays Ford, a military man who is fed up with his father being a crazy person. Ford finds Joe being obsessed by the tragedy that claimed the life of his wife (because that seems unreasonable), believing that it is being covered up, annoyingly tiresome, as he has moved on. Elizabeth Olsen plays Ford’s wife Elle, and like Ford she too has no personality or character whatsoever. These actors have all been very good in other things, but here with Godzilla they are basically being paid to kill screen time until Godzilla shows up (as presumably the budget could not pay for two hours of Godzilla smashing stuff) with little care given to actually creating fully realized characters of any kind.

Summary & score: Godzilla is everything one could hope for in terms of being a grand monster movie. There is just one hitch; it is not a very good film in every other regard. 6/10

Inception (2010) – Review

Inception is an extraordinarily well made and acted heist film. The narrative structure is layered with multiple realities happening simultaneously and multiple dramatic threads being interlaced through each of these realities. Yet, master director Christopher Nolan is able to weave his seemingly complicated tapestry into a straightforward and easy to follow narrative only asking (must like the opening line of The Prestige) for the audience to pay attention. And while the narrative is straightforward, the film nonetheless encourages, if not mandates, speculation and debate. There are not too many blockbusters that are able to achieve this task – keep the viewer thinking not only throughout the film but long after the credit roll. And make no mistake, this is a blockbuster – there is action, adventure, exotic locations, everything a viewer could want from a big summer film. At times, the film almost plays like a James Bond film – the way the action beats are taken – as an exaggeration of what big action set pieces should be like, yet still anchored in reality (to an extent – given the rules of the film world). This is the rare blockbuster that has the viewers on the edge of their seats not only due to the fantastic action pieces but more so as the audience cares about the outcome for the characters. Nolan’s dramatic threads connect with the viewers as they are eloquently unraveled – each decision made has an emotional resonance which the audience picks up, drawing them deeper into the film – the stakes of the characters are therefore meaningful to the audience. This is not just about wowing them, which the film certainly does; it is about the emotional journey.  The film has a lot of exposition to get through, as this world is foreign to the viewer, which in most cases can cause films to drag, but Nolan is able to lay out the exposition in such a way that not only does it draw the audience in more, as the viewer is intrigued by its visual representation, but it also builds upon the structure that is already in place – raising the emotional stakes. Though, the film is rather long, and can at times feel long, as this is a film that is constantly moving and engaging and that can be tiresome, but this is a minor flaw. The supporting characters are also not given a lot of background and business, and are thus expressed to the viewer through know archetypes. Yet this film focuses on and through its main character, thus the supporting players are merely there to aid in the journey of the main character, and therefore do not need be more than they are – plus, the film is so packed with information, there really is no time or room for multiple deep characters. And, they are so fantastically played by the cast and fit into the narrative Nolan is telling so well that their lack of depth is almost unnoticeable in the grand scheme of the film, and in as much is irrelevant to the film as a whole. But it is the fact that these characters are so great that the viewers want more. On to the technical side, Christopher Nolan once again makes a strong argument for his place among the great auteur directors not only of this generation but of all-time with this film. Nolan is one of the few today who makes wonderful films for the Hollywood audience (much like the great directors of old, like Stanley Kubrick and Alfred Hitchcock). His aptitude at producing stunning films again and again is due to two key aspects: his screenwriting ability is astounding, as this script is quite monstrous in its scope yet easy to follow in its visual presentation, and he has developed a perfectly complimentary group of collaborators to work with him (again much like the other master filmmakers) and yet again they provide strong output. Nolan is a master at structuring his narrative; while often disjointed and nonlinear the films are still clear (from a plot standpoint, as the underlying concepts are left for interpretation). Hans Zimmer’s work stands out the most among his collaborators behind the camera. His score featuring Johnny Marr is massive in its emotional depth and flow – being both beautiful and full of tension. It is magnificent. Wally Pfister’s cinematography is typically superb and emotionally provocative, eliciting viewers to succumb to his visual fest. Editor Lee Smith must have had a tough job with the film, so much detail and business going on, but pressure to tell the film as efficiently as possible. He did impeccably. Newcomer to working with Nolan, production designer Guy Hendrix Dyas brought his expertise in big adventure action sets to the film and provided his best work to date. As well directed, written, shot, edited, scored, and designed as the film is, it is equally well acted with numerous performances worthy of acclaim. Leonardo DiCaprio has well established himself as an elite talent among actors, but his performances continue to get better. In Inception, he is the point of reference for the whole film – the emotional journey for the audience lives and dies with his performance. To say the least, he is perfect in the part. The supporting cast is just as great. Joseph Gordon-Levitt is cool and confident. Ellen Page is sweet and intriguing. Ken Watanabe is powerful and endearing. Cillian Murphy is eager and hesitant. Tom Berenger is tough and understanding. Michael Caine is sophisticated and warm. All wonderful performances, but it is Tom Hardy, in a breakthrough type performance, and Marion Cotillard who stand out. Hardy commands the attention of the audience, while Cotillard beautifully plays the emotional center, yet with an air of mischievousness. Dileep Rao, Pete Postlethwaite, Lukas Haas, and Talulah Riley are also good in smaller roles. Nolan has a fantastic ability to cast his films and garner perfectly suited performances. Inception is a unique film, to be both an exciting adventure-style film and thought-provokingly deep. It is the first masterpiece of the new decade. 10/10