For those of you that don't know, the 1998 Godzilla featuring Matthew Broderick was so hated by Toho, the company that owns the rights to Godzilla, that they decided that it was not, in fact, a Godzilla movie. Despite the movie's title, the monster featured throughout the film is actually "Zilla," a completely different beast. Which is good, because Godzilla isn't a pregnant, size-changing, iguana-looking motherfucker that can be killed with a few missiles. Godzilla fucking rules.
The new American Godzilla begins in Japan, as it should. Actually, the title sequence begins with old archive footage of the nuclear tests on islands in the Pacific. According to the film, these "tests" were actually the military attempts to destroy Godzilla, who could not be destroyed even by repeated nuclear assaults. We then see Ken Watanabe as Ishiro Serizawa discover a collapsed mine that reveals the remains of an enormous creature and the freshly hatched egg of another one. Bryan Cranston is Joe Brody, a scientist working for a nuclear plant in Japan as it is destroyed by a mysterious natural disaster. He spends the next few decades trying to uncover a government conspiracy that quarantined the areas surrounding the plant. We also follow Aaron Taylor-Johnson as his son, Ford Brody as he travels the world following the path of the monstrous creatures that have arisen to wreak havoc on the surface world.
What I love most about the new incarnation of Godzilla is that the plot revolves entirely around the monsters. The human moments, however, help to anchor the monsters in reality and help to create a more emotional impact with the audience. The monsters have their own stories, and even though their mythology stretches back to millions of years before humans came into existence, their paths and those of the human characters interact in surprising ways. For example, one of the biggest themes is the power of family, shown by Ford's begrudging love of his father and his dedication to keep his family safe though he is separated from his wife and son for almost the entirety of his screen time.
As I said, the movie focuses solely on the monsters. All of the humans, even Bryan Cranston, are entirely secondary to the real action of the movie. This perfectly reflects the true meaning of the film, that man is powerless in the face of nature. Originally, Godzilla was a metaphor for the destruction of the atomic bomb in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. In the modern imagining, Godzilla and the other monsters are a metaphor for natural disasters. Case in point: the first big disaster of the movie is the destruction of a Japanese nuclear power plant by what is believed to be an earthquake. Though the movie version took place in 1999 instead of 2011, this perfectly reflects the disaster at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant. The rest of the film follows suit, as many of the scenes of destruction are eerily similar to news footage of earthquakes, hurricanes, tsunamis, and other natural disasters. The monsters truly show the power of Mother Nature against the feeble efforts of mankind.
"Godzilla" earns a SEE IT for awesome (meaning "inspiring awe") set pieces that emphasize the incredible scale of the action throughout epic monster battles. Leave your comments on Godzilla in the comments below.
No comments:
Post a Comment