But my forthcoming review of Godzilla (2014) is going to be an exception to that rule. Why? Because I felt so strongly about NOT feeling strongly about ANYTHING that was happening in the film.
Have I ever watched a film so passively? Have I ever been so disinterested in a movie before this one? It's funny when you think about the subject matter of the movie...it's pretty hard to make a film about giant monsters destroying cities that's more boring than an informational video about fire safety.
I guess I should say SPOILERS at this point, because I am now going to bitch about every little thing in this film that bothered me.
Alright. So we start with Bryan Cranston, the main reason I felt like paying the price of admission. I know I'm not alone in this--people LOVE this man. Anyone who's watched Breaking Bad knows that Cranston deserves all the hype in the world. He's a top-notch actor, to put it lightly. Anyway, so we start with Bryan Cranston, an engineer in Japan. I won't go into the specifics of his position because I really didn't get it. A lot of scientific mumbo-jumbo. But that's okay! I don't need to understand everything, and Cranston's character is informing me that something is wrong. The facility he works in starts rumbling, and we find out that his wife (!!) is trapped in a hallway that's being flooded with deadly radiation. She dies, and Cranston is crushed. :'(
Then we skip ahead fifteen years, and...we're focusing on his son now. I've seen this actor, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, before. I didn't really care for the movie Kick Ass, but if there was anything good about it, it was Taylor-Johnson's performance in the lead role. So I'm excited!
Uhh, not so fast. My theory is that Taylor-Johnson is much MUCH better at playing the nerdy, outcast roles, because he really bombs in this movie as the straight, tough-guy, humorless lead. I mean, he is DULL. I'm not saying this to be mean--like I said, he impressed me in Kick Ass. Some actors are just better suited to play certain roles. For instance, I love Jay Baruchel, but could you see that lanky Canadian playing a crime boss or a grizzled Army vet? Taylor-Johnson does not work in this role, and its something that really hinders the success of this movie.
So anyway, now we're spending time with the son character, who has a wife and a small kid. He's just gotten back from the war. He receives a phone call that same night that his dad (Cranston) is in jail in Japan. He was caught trying to break into the quarantined area where his wife died, apparently spouting crackpot theories that it wasn't an earthquake that caused his facility to be destroyed...it was something else (dum dum duuuuuuum)!
I don't want to get into the specifics, so I'm going to very briefly go through the rest of the movie's events. Taylor-Johnson goes with his dad to the facility. They start uncovering clues about what really happened fifteen years ago. I am still intrigued at this point, and 95% of that is due to Cranston's character and his performance. Then, five minutes later, Cranston is killed by a giant spider-looking monster.
....
...
You mean I'm stuck with the son for the rest of the movie?
This is when I pretty much disengaged from the movie's events. I didn't do it purposely...I really wanted to like this film, but I could NOT connect to any of the remaining characters or give a rat's ass about what happened to them. The wife character, while perfectly performed by Elizabeth Olsen, is uninteresting. We have no sense of her character quirks or her personality. She is the 'wife' character. Ken Watanabe is the 'scientist' character, only there to reveal important plot developments through dialogue.
Taylor-Johnson coasts through the movie, coincidentally showing up at every spot that the spider-monsters do. I guess I should say here that Godzilla only appears in maybe the last 45 minutes of the movie...until then, the main plot involves two big spider-things. Not really a complaint from me since I'm not really attached to the Godzilla character or anything, but others were probably bothered by it.
I don't get Taylor-Johnson's motivations.He steps in as the de-facto war vet, dedicated to doing whatever he can to stop the spider-monsters. MAYBE I would buy it if there had been some attempt to make it seem like revenge for poor dead Bryan Cranston, but there's no mention of his character after he's dead. His son moves on from that pretty fast! You would think his main motivation would be to get back to his family, but he constantly gets sidetracked trying to help with the operation to eliminate the spider things. Whatever. By this point I was slouched over in my chair wondering how much longer I had to sit through this dreck.
I'll be fair. Technically, it is a well-made movie. The effects are great, and when Godzilla finally is revealed, he looks awesome. But when it comes to the heart of everything--the characters, their motivations--it falls flat spectacularly. The dialogue isn't bad, per se, but it isn't good or realistic either. The dialogue does nothing to establish characters...it simply moves the story along.
In the end, the spider-things are defeated and our hero (?? I guess ??) is reunited with his wife and son. Aaaaand I couldn't care less. Elizabeth Olsen cries her head off, which is believable, and Taylor-Johnson just sort of looks pleased with everything? Are we supposed to care about these people?
This might make me sound like a rabid fangirl, but WHY was Bryan Cranston's character killed so early in the movie? Until his death, I viewed him as the main protagonist. He had a clear motivation for his actions (understanding his wife's death), and he had the scientific smarts to figure out what was going on with the spider-things and Godzilla. AND, as opposed to other protagonists *eyes swivel to Aaron Taylor-Johnson*, his character was engaging and completely believable. Had Cranston been the movie's lead, I would have liked this film so much more. I would've had a character to care about and connect to. Without him, the movie just plods along, biding time until the inevitable BIG BATTLE in the city! Woohoo!...I guess.
The film is only two hours long, but it feels like it's at least three. By the last twenty minutes, I was actively trying to fall asleep. Unfortunately, Godzilla was being too loud.
I'd give this film a solid C-. Technically, its fine, and visually it's quite breathtaking, but there's no meat to this story whatsoever. I'd recommend it on a rental basis only. Watch until Cranston dies, then fast forward to the big monster battle at the end if that sort of thing interests you.
