"Godzilla" 2014 review

Third time’s the charm!

Godzilla is a major monster from my childhood.  I have many happy memories of enjoying even his silliest adventures on TV many a Saturday afternoon.  As I grew older and watched Godzilla transition from villain to hero and back again, I admired the resiliency of the character.  While both American attempts to tell Godzilla stories had fallen short, it is a testament to Godzilla’s appeal that he endures as a pop culture icon.  I had seen Gareth Edward’s first film, “Monsters”, and was thrilled to discover a director who understood that without human characters we care about, the inhuman destruction can quickly become a tedious pyrotechnics display.

Gareth Edward’s “Godzilla” is possibly the best American giant monster movie of all time.  It honors the character’s origin and legacy while adding just the right amount of technical wizardry to infuse this long-running franchise with a fresh and exciting feel. The strong human focus grounds this Godzilla film like no other.  The excellent cast acquits themselves admirably, making this the first time that I actually cared about the people as much as the monsters!

Godzilla takes his sweet time before revealing himself, but the build-up is sensational, and when Big G finally appears, the moment is as massive as he is. Throughout the film, the word that kept coming to my mind was restraint.  Director Gareth Edwards exercises phenomenal restraint, slowly building up the anticipation.  Even after the kaiju chaos begins, the brief glimpses of monster mayhem tantalize in the extreme.  Edwards patiently waits until the third act before opening the entire can of whoop-ass, but the extended foreplay results in one hell of a G-gasm!

At the first, long-awaited blast of atomic breath, the audience broke out in cheers, and when the credits rolled applause erupted and continued for several minutes.  As satisfied as I was, I turned to see my wife dabbing her eyes!  I knew she loved Bryan Cranston, but what a wonderful surprise to discover that she now loves Godzilla too!  How could I conjure a greater compliment for this film?  I knew I was going to enjoy it, but if you can get my sweetie’s waterworks gushing over a movie about a humongous, radioactive lizard, you’ve got talent!

Finally, I have to mention restraint again.  There has been a lot of complaining about how short many of the monster fight scenes are, but I believe this is a very conscious and wise decision for several reasons.  First, shorter scenes help preserve the sense of awe experienced just in seeing the monsters and the audience is always left wanting more.  Second, director Edwards knows that there will be sequels, and by not pulling out all the stops he gives the succeeding films more breathing room to create their own, awesome set pieces.  Muto lives!