Godzilla

Japan’s most famous contribution to cinema has long been slated for the big, expensive Hollywood treatment. The last stab at it in 1998 was almost universally considered a failure, memorable only for its complete and thorough badness. Well, fans can rest easy knowing that this Godzilla treats the King of the Monsters with respect and utmost seriousness. The only question is, is that totally a good thing, particularly the latter?

For the most part, yes, it’s definitely good. The darker tone matches the sense of the unknown and dread of the very first picture from 60 years ago, if not its allegory (Godzilla was originally a metaphor for Hiroshima and Nagasaki). The special effects finally, finally measure up to the awe those feelings suggest (unlike back in ’98). And the film respects the mythology, incorporating it into the new plot while updating and rewriting it in creative, not destructive, ways.

The story begins with a nuclear power plant in Japan being destroyed by an earthquake. 15 years later, however, an American nuclear engineer (Bryan Cranston) whose wife (Juliette Binoche) was killed in the accident believes that something else destroyed the plant. After some illegal snooping at the site of the disaster with his son (Aaron Taylor-Johnson), a bomb technician in the U.S. Navy, he’s proven right: it wasn’t an earthquake, but an enormous ancient creature that feeds on radiation. And it’s not the only one. As these colossal predators make their way to the West Coast, a secret multinational agency looks to another prehistoric giant (you-know-who), one they secretly encountered six decades before, to aid in destroying them.

The big green guy is actually used sparingly for much of the picture, as his foes are the bringers of most of the property destruction. These are solid monstrosities, making up for what they lack in originality (they look a bit like the creature from Cloverfield) with some cool, innovative abilities and the far superior agility that CGI allows. But surprisingly, the lack of clear looks at the monsters is more effective as buildup. Scenes of just before the destruction and the aftermath create as much tension as towering shots of the monsters’ size as they knock down buildings. And the new Godzilla looks great (though complaints about him hitting the buffet do look a little warranted), but seems even more impressive because he’s revealed slowly, piece-by-piece. His tail, his feet, his full behemoth figure, his trademark roar, his atomic breath, making its way up from his tale on his spiky spinal plates like a bomb fuse. The movie masterfully plays with the viewer, and knows what people came to see.

Except in one department: the monster-on-monster battles. They’re there, but they’re relatively few. One incredible sequence culminates in finally seeing Godzilla in all his glory, spoiling for a fight, only to cut away. All we see are small glimpses of this encounter on fake news reports. The big climactic battle in San Francisco is better, with both feral beast-like combat and hand-to-hand brawling like the classic Toho monsters that were clearly guys in suits. But the monsters have to share the screen with the human characters and their military action flick subplots. No disrespect to the cast, but the actual people in a Godzilla movie should only be there for exposition, and not have their story overshadow the real stars of the picture. Last year’s Pacific Rim was a much lighter and goofier take on the genre, but it understood why people watch giant monster movies, and delivered the goods in its fight scenes. They were crazy and ridiculous, but who cares? They were tons of fun.

That’s about my only complaint, the fights, not that they’re bad but that there’s not more of them. In every other respect, this is probably the best Godzilla imaginable. I just hope that now that this film gets all the introductions out of the way, if there’s a sequel, it’ll have plenty of room for more, and bigger, monster matches.