Reviews Film / Godzilla 2014

This is how you do an American Godzilla movie

1998: 11 year old me had seen nearly every Godzilla movie brought to the United States, that's King of the Monsters to Biollante. I came out feeling really disappointed from the Hollywood treatment. 2014: Came out after cheering and clapping and having a good time.

The film is not perfect, it tweaks Godzilla's origins but there is a lot of love in it for Godzilla. It is true, Godzilla does not show up for an hour and even then he does not have a lot of screentime, there is plenty of screentime devoted towards the MUTO, the enemy monsters of Godzilla. Naturally sandwiched between the monsters are the humans.

I also admit now the film is not perfect, and some will find the humans boring and perhaps Brody is not is not the most interesting protagonist he is much like the watcher wondering what is going on. Unlike some adaptions of other media, Transformers I'm looking at you, he can handle himself and does not spend the film whining about his problems. He is not afraid to join in and assit against the monsters and is quite brave.

That's all fine and dandy but we are all here for Godzilla and the other monsters. When they do show up it is always worth the wait. Godzilla and the MUTO are given touches of characterization, keeping them forces of nature but still at their roots are creatures. My favorite scene doesn't actually feature fighting or fire breathing but Godzilla seeing Brody and Brody seeing Godzilla. To me that is the critical moment of the movie, uniting two parts of the same side against the MUTO, much as people argue about the human and monsters bits of giant monster movies both are needed. 90 minutes of monsters would be boring quickly, 90 minutes of humans and no monster would not be much of a monster movie either.

Greatest truth: like it or not this is a far better American take on Godzilla and a better film period than the 1998 Godzilla.