Film Review: Godzilla (2014)

Elise Bianchi, our site editor, reviews the most famous big monster film.

There are certain expectations when you watch a Godzilla movie. There must be giant monster battles that bring down the city around them. And that’s about it. In this latest instalment in the Western kaijuu canon, the king of all monsters steals the show, though he has a close contender in Ken Watanabe’s furrowed brow. He certainly isn’t shown up by the main character. What was his name again? I honestly can’t remember. I think he had a wife and child who I also didn’t care about.

There are two giant parasitic monsters threatening the earth and it’s up to the nondescript military-something protagonist to blow them up. Ken Watanabe plays a Godzilla scientist with a single facial expression and a big schoolgirl crush on the giant lizard creature. He also has a strong aversion to nuclear weapons. America wants to blow up the giant monsters with nuclear weapons, despite the fact that they feed on nuclear power. What is Ken’s complaint about the plan? His father died in Hiroshima. Does he give any alternate plans? No. But it doesn’t even matter because Godzilla arrives to take on the monsters in a city-smashing two-on-one battle.

This movie has been criticised for leaving the monster reveal for too late in the film. I would almost agree, as the human element is cripplingly dull, but the suspense builds in a joyous manner. We get to play an hour of ‘Where’s the monster? There’s the monster!’ with the U.S. military. You are the parent/monster covering your face, and the military is the burbling child, waving its arms excitedly and ineffectually in the air when you reveal that the monster was behind your hands, or the nuclear facility, or the giant submarine, the whole time!

After the embarrassment that was Pacific Rim, I’m glad to see some joy in a western kaijuu film. (Or was Pacific Rim actually a giant self-referential joke? Hard to tell.) There are some moments of real poignancy, such as when Breaking Bad’s Bryan Cranston watches his wife die. Actually heart-rending. And the moment when the two giant monsters reunite and get all puppy-dog affectionate? Deeply touching. Ken Watanabe finally smoothing his ever-furrowed brow once he discovers that Godzilla survived the battle? The greatest romance of modern cinema.

Don’t watch Godzilla for good acting and a thought-provoking plot. Watch it for the joy of seeing Godzilla rip the head off a giant monster and breathe atomic breath down its neck, before tossing it into the ocean. That’s just about as good as a kaijuu fight scene can get.