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Title: Godzilla
Director: Gareth Edwards
Written by: Max Borenstein
Starring: Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Ken Watanabe, Elizabeth Olsen, Juliet Binoche, Sally Hawkins, David Strathairn, Bryan Cranston
While walking out of the theater after watching the credits roll for the most recent installment of Godzilla, this one helmed by up-and-coming British director Gareth Edwards, I overheard a young man remark "it almost makes me forget about the 1998 Godzilla." If this is the sentiment expressed by the majority of moviegoers this summer season, then mission accomplished for Edwards and company, who several years ago set to wipe out from the collective unconscious the memory of Roland Emmerich's overblown and intellectually bankrupt 1998 blockbuster. What Edwards and screenwriter Max Borenstein have managed to do is make the anti-Emmerich Godzilla, a thoughtful, slow-moving blockbuster in which humans and monsters have equal billing. In some ways, this newest imagining of Godzilla goes a little too far in that direction. It suffers, at times, from self-seriousness. But overall, the movie is a successful reboot. The cast, anchored by Aaron Taylor-Johnson (Kick-Ass) and Bryan Cranston (Breaking Bad), lends credibility to the picture; Edwards and cinematographer Seamus McGarvey punctuate the movie with some amazing visual moments; and the monster itself is that rare creation in a world of overwrought digital effects -- one that manages to impress.
Godzilla begins with a pre-title sequence set in 1954, after which it jumps forward in time to 1999, where scientists are called to the Phillipines to investigate puzzling fossils and radiation signatures. From there it moves northeast to Japan, where the movie introduces Joe Brody (Cranston), his wife Sandra (Binoche), and their young son. The majority of the movie takes place fifteen years later, in 2014, where the events of 1954 and 1999 culminate in a major crisis for humankind.
Speaking of humans: for a long time they are the only focus of attention in Godzilla. As in Spielberg's masterwork Jaws, Gareth Edwards wisely chooses to keep his monsters under wraps and shrouded in secret so their arrival on screen is that much more impactful. The "King of the Monsters," after all, should make a kingly entrance. So it's up to people to keep the production moving forward. And while the writing is not quite worthy of a Pinter play or Shakespeare sonnet, and the drama is not quite as powerful as it should be, it still manages to set a solid foundation so that when the the forces of nature descend on human civilization, the audience appreciates the emotional baggage of the movie's protagonists and understands the science behind its monsters.
Emotionally and intellectually, Godzilla hits all the right notes. But visually, it rises into the stratosphere. The earlier comparison to Spielberg was no accident. In Godzilla, Edwards and McGarvey seem to be channeling the legendary director with their aesthetically arresting use of light, shadow, and, especially, mirrors. The visual highlight of the movie, however, is entirely original: a high-altitude low-opening (HALO) jump at dusk, framed against a stormy sky, lit by crimson-red flares.
Walking out of the theater on a sunny Saturday afternoon, I, too, had almost forgotten about the 1998 Godzilla. Whereas Emmerich's movie was boastful of its special effects and meager in its characters and science, Edwards Godzilla is rich in text and subtext, and uses digital effects to texture a vivid visual landscape of monsters, heroes, and nuclear weapons. It's the Godzilla movie we deserve.
