Godzilla - suitably epic, but flawed

Wednesday night buy get free night is still running courtesy of EE, and so it was that last week a bunch of us went to go and see one of the first of this summer's blockbusters - Godzilla!  The original Gojira is the seminal Japanese monster movie that riffs off that nation's post-world atomic paranoia and tells a story of an ancient sea-borne monster that rises from the depths to punish humanity for its experiments with nuclear power.  As the monster destroys the cities of Japan, scientists realise the they only way to kill it is worse even than atomic weapons, and so they wrestle with a moral dilemma - to act and risk future destruction, or stand idle and allow nature to take its terrible course.

Ever since Gojira there have been numerous adaptations of the monster theme, though none have really touched on the theme of morality of science and warfare or been as strongly anti-atomic.  Mostly they're just interested in having a monster or several monsters fight Gojira.  There was even a cartoon series.  This latest incarnation of Godzilla does little different, and though it makes nods towards the nuclear paranoia of the original, but it couldn't really be accused of making any sort of political statement about the nuclear age.  Instead the makers have opted to go for more of a straight-forward monster movie in which a paranoid ex-scientist played by Bryan Cranston believes the government is covering up what happened in the nuclear accident that resulted in the death of his wife - little does he know the truth though.

Any movie calling itself Godzilla needs to get one thing right - monster fights.  Despite several failings this is one thing that the film gets absolutely right.  Godzilla himself looks suitably huge as he battles the ridiculous metallic giant bird-like creatures.  The sound and feel of each sequence where this happens is truly spectacular and feels genuinely apocalyptic, it's a true cinematic spectacle.  This new Godzilla movie also takes time to build to the final fight, cutting away from a lot of the preliminaries or only showing us what's happening via the medium of news reports.  A bit like Cloverfield did.  Unlike Coverfield though, here we eventually have a pay-off worth waiting for, as monsters stomp around San Francisco obliterating all around them while humanity stands back in awe and terror.

The film does have failings though.  The main one is the woeful under-use of its cast.  Ken Wattanabe seems to only be there to say "Gojira" in a Japanese accent, Sally Hawkins explains the plot, Juliete Binoche gets killed in the opening scene and Bryan Cranston isn't in it anywhere near as much as you'd want.  In their place you have Aaron Taylor-Johnson and Elizabeth Olsen as the annoyingly bland military family who run around just happening to be places where Godzilla does his stomping.  Is this a clever comment on the helplessness of humanity against natural disasters / Godzilla?  Unlikely.  More likely it's a script-writer having to pander to Hollywood sensibilities.  It's a shame, but what can you expect from Hollywood?

Overall, Godzilla is a pretty good monster movie with a number of flaws.  Thankfully the actual realisation of Godzilla himself is extraordinarily good, which puts criticism of the plot and character flaws into the realm of nit-picking.  You should be watching this for the visual spectacle, try to ignore the rest and you'll be fine.