Weekend at the Movies – Godzilla

His shape is iconic, and his roar even more so, each inspiring terror and wonder in all those who see and hear. He has stood for and against humanity, toppling skyscrapers and besting supercreatures, for sixty years. He is Godzilla, the King of the Monsters, and he’s back in theaters this weekend.

Thrill ride films succeed largely—or, at least, firstly—on the strength of their surprise, which makes it difficult to describe the events of Godzilla without ruining the events of Godzilla for a new viewer. May it suffice to say that this movie is full of scientists, soldiers, and civilians, swaths of mass destruction, moments of heroism and sacrifice, and at least one big scaly monster (or champion, depending on your point of view). That said, it’s also tough to discuss a movie like this without discussing what happens in it, so unlike usual, we’ll be going full spoilers from here on out. You have been warned.

The Courteous Take

Godzilla (2014) might be the most meta-textually layered film I've seen in months. That seems ridiculous, now that I’ve written the sentence out, but maybe it isn’t so strange. The original Godzilla (1954), after all, was a great monster movie that wore its message of nuclear terror on its sleeve. Why shouldn’t the intentions and messages of its great-grandchild have evolved and grown? But then, what have they become?

As a thrill-ride, Godzilla is nearly immaculate. You can feel the care that went into each and every shot, even as we bounce from point of view to point of view, maximizing the “ooh” and “aah” factor for an audience. At all times we feel like we are witnessing the events of the film from over the shoulder of our protagonists.

Well, almost all the time. And that’s where this film starts to get tricky. It likes to toy with us. For one thing, Godzilla isn’t even the first monster we meet—that honor goes to the villainous MUTO—and when the megalizard finally enters the scene, halfway into the movie, we’re only given coy glimpses: a massive foot here, a flash of tail there.

We’re denied almost the entirety of Godzilla’s first few skirmishes against the MUTO, as the narrative conveniently cuts away to other places and perspectives that don’t have an eye on the proceedings. It’s enough that when Godzilla-seeking scientist Serizawa (Ken Watanabe) utters his urgent plea, “Let them fight,” in the opening to the film’s final act, he’s simply verbalizing the wishes of every person in the theater.

Note: Savage, who is something of an expert on all things Godzilla, tells me that this kind of long buildup to monster-on-monster action is pretty typical of the franchise; I’ll defer to his experience, and direct you to his half of the review for more on that.

Regardless, it plays with something of the idea of how and why we watch movies. Are we seeing Godzilla for the slightly hokey human story of fathers and wives and sons, or are we here to watch a giant monster kick another giant monster’s ass? Is one of those the “correct” answer? (Or do we just think one is?)

Ken Watanabe’s Serizawa mostly gets to look shocked and/or dismayed through most of the movie, all of which he carries off with the wonderfully enjoyable gravitas that Watanabe brings to all his roles, but the more I roll Godzilla around in my head, the more important I think he is to the spirit of this film. Specifically, I think he speaks for it.

In addition to his wonderful, “Let them fight,” which seems to cut right to the quick of the meta-movie conundrum, Serizawa also choicely pronounces: “The arrogance of man is thinking nature is in our control, not the other way around.”

In Godzilla, Godzilla is capital-n Nature’s great equalizer, rising from the depths to redress the existence of the radiation-parasite MUTOs (yes, there are two). In that respect, he could hardly be different than his original incarnation: a thing which was man-made and laid waste to all things natural, nuclear power run amok.

Does that make this a pro-nuclear film? No, I think not. It doesn’t really take a stance one way or another, since its one major depiction of a nuclear disaster is stripped of all consequences by the MUTO’s appetite for radiation. Is it an environmentalist film, arguing against our continued destruction of the Earth? I doubt it.

In the movie’s final moments, Godzilla’s battered and apparently lifeless hulk lies collapsed across the ruins of downtown San Francisco. The world’s balance has been restored, we think, at his ultimate cost. But then his giant yellow eyes open. He stands up, shakes himself off, and trundles back into the ocean, while Serizawa and the rest of the humanity look on, awestruck.

“King of the Monsters - Savior of the City?” reads a newscast headline across an extant jumbotron as Godzilla passes by. But he didn’t really save the city. He did what he came to do (kill the MUTOs), and smashed up a sizable chunk of the city in the process. That most of San Fran’s populace (probably) made it through seems to be all bonus.

So what is Godzilla? The way I read it, it’s anti-anti-environmentalist. The Earth, it says, like its stand-in Godzilla, lived a long time without our petty interference, and will continue to live a long time after we’ve killed ourselves off. Is it a different message than the one sixty years ago? Sure. But I think it’s no less plain.

Plus, it’s right, which is pretty neat.

The Savage Rejoinder

I don’t utterly despise the 1998 Roland Emmerich film the way many people do, but as fun a monster movie as it was, it failed as a Godzilla film because it didn’t really want to be one. What it wanted to be was a Jurassic Park sequel, so they threw a dinosaur on the screen, tossed in some references to asexual reproduction, and slapped the title Godzilla on the poster to sell some tickets.

Western Godzilla fans took to calling it “Fraudzilla,” while Toho (the studio who created Godzilla) demoted the creature to just “Zilla,” and had the true King of Monsters roast it in Godzilla: Final Wars. It doesn’t matter who you are, everyone seems to agree that whatever that movie was, it wasn’t true to the spirit of Godzilla.

This one is the real deal. With Gareth Edwards at the helm, we get a Godzilla movie that isn’t afraid to be a Godzilla movie, and it feels fantastic.

First, it gets the rhythm right. The best Toho Godzilla films took their sweet time building suspense before getting the Big Guy on screen, which always made the monster showdowns that much more satisfying. The baddies in Godzilla are set loose first and get to wreak all sorts of havoc, and when the titular monster finally does make his entrance, he’s teased rather than revealed.

I can understand why someone might be turned off by it, as it gets a little frustrating when it happens again and again throughout the film, but I’m willing to let it go. I won’t spoil it, but the finishing move of the climactic battle against the pesky MUTOs works so well because of the film’s patience. After watching these brats run around like they own the world, we want to see Godzilla put them in their place.

I also appreciated the movie’s tone. It’s dark and unsettling enough to be a proper homage to the 1954 classic, but also manages to match the frantic and fun feel of many of the later Toho films. Like the original, Godzilla is essentially a disaster movie:

Godzilla and his foes are impersonal forces of nature unleashed on a totally unprepared humanity. The military proves powerless to stop them, and I have to admit that watching Godzilla swat jets out of the air like flies was such a satisfying nod to one of the most beloved clichés of the old movies.

But the point when I realized Edwards wasn’t going to disappoint me with some half-baked human scheme to take down these creatures was when we got an amazing shot of several naval carriers resigned to simply escorting the Big Guy across the waters of the Pacific. Dr. Serizawa convinces the fleet commander to put his faith in Godzilla’s dominance as Earth’s alpha predator. Now there’s a character we can get behind.

I do have a couple of gripes. The human characters aren’t all they could have been. Bryan Cranston’s frantic yelling in the trailers had me pumped to see Godzilla, and his brilliant conspiracy nut Joe Brody is the only character besides Serizawa that I could really care about, but as soon as his theories are vindicated he’s swept aside.

I get that he’d served his purpose and it was probably a smart move to get him out of the way so we could get to the monster mashing, but without Cranston in the picture we’re stuck watching a bland Aaron Taylor-Johnson take the long way home. It’s hard to forgive. If you’re going to have a throwaway character, don’t sell me on him so well. It’s just not fair.

I can only think of two reasons why these creatures weren’t given stand-out designs. Either Hollywood just isn’t as willing to take creative risks like the Japanese, or the creatures are purposefully bland, allowing Godzilla to symbolically stomp on his inferiors. But, even if it’s the latter, I wasn’t impressed.

On a positive note, the MUTOs’ abilities to emit EMPs and swallow nuclear devices like vitamins are plenty menacing, and reinforce the notion that our humans toys are no match for these things. We understand that Godzilla is our only hope.

And on that note, Godzilla gives me lots of hope, especially now that its box-office-smashing opening guarantees a sequel. If they can stay true to the spirit of Toho’s Godzilla as well as they have and maybe take a few more creative risks, I think this could be the beginning of something wonderful.

Let’s celebrate in the traditional way:

Where Do We Go From Here?

C: In for more exuberant monster-on-monster mayhem? As long as you don't mind some of those monsters being giant metal men, you can't go wrong with Guillermo del Toro's Pacific Rim, which may not be perfect, but sure is a hell of a lot of fun.

S: There are so many to choose from, but if you're just looking for some straight up monster ass-kicking, go with Godzilla: Final Wars. If, on the other hand, you're in the mood to get back to the Big Guy's more serious roots, check out the original 1954 Godzilla. You will not waste your time.