Review - Godzilla (2014)

        Hey guys, Chuck here. Well, we're just a week-and-a-half away from the release of the newest entry in the MonsterVerse, Godzilla vs. Kong. So, throughout this week, I'll be taking a look at the first three entries of the series, starting with the 2014 film Godzilla. 

        The movie opens with a montage of news reels and newspaper clippings, signifying that the U.S. military has discovered something beneath the Pacific Ocean, a giant monster from an ancient time. The military then uses an atomic device in a fruitless attempt to kill the creature. We then cut to the Philippines in the year 1999, where we see a caved-in mine under investigation by two agents of the organization Monarch, which is an international coalition dedicated to studying giant monsters. The agents, Dr. Ishiro Serizawa and Dr. Vivienne Graham, then jean into the collapsed mine, discovering the fossilized remains of a giant monster, and signs of two parasitic spores, one intact but dormant, the other open, with whatever was inside having escaped. 

         We then head to the city of Janjira, Japan, where Joe Brody, and his wife Sandra, are heading to their job at the nuclear power plant, where the issues from the Philippines are starting to affect the facility. A reactor breach occurs, which leads to the death of Sandra and others who went to investigate the reactor. The facility is destroyed, and the entire town of Janjira is quarantined due to radiation. We then cut to years later in 2014, where Joe and Sandra's son, Ford Brody, is arriving home in San Francisco after a tour overseas as a U.S. Navy Explosives Ordinance Disposal expert. After a night at home, reunited with his wife Elle and their son Sam. Just as Ford and Elle are about to go to bed, a call comes in from Japan, where Joe has been arrested for trying to break in to the Janjira Quarantine Zone. Ford then flies to Japan, in an effort to bring Joe back with him to San Francisco. However, the two of them head into the Janjira Quarantine Zone, heading back to their old house and collecting floppy disks containing recordings of the day of the reactor meltdown in 1999. 

         So, Joe and Ford are apprehended and taken to the remains of the nuclear plant, where Monarch is studying a giant cocoon-like structure that is feeding on the nuclear radiation. The creature inside, known as a MUTO, stops feeding on the radiation and breaks loose, causing a ruckus and costing the lives of many on site, including Joe. The next morning, U.S. Navy officers arrive, picking up Dr. Serizawa and Dr. Graham, as well as Ford and Joe, who died on the helicopter ride to a nearby aircraft carrier. It is on the carrier where Serizawa and Graham tell Ford, as well as Admiral Stenz, about the creation of Monarch, whose purpose was to track the creature from the 50's: Godzilla. Ford is then dropped off in Hawaii, where he's to catch a flight to San Francisco. Meanwhile, the Navy tracks down a missing Russian nuclear submarine, finding the MUTO, and the MUTO then heads towards the Honolulu Airport. Meanwhile, a second creature arrives from the ocean, meeting the MUTO on the airport tarmac. This second creature is Godzilla himself. Godzilla and the MUTO then proceed to fight, and the two leave after a lengthy battle.

        The next day, Serizawa and Graham deduct that the MUTO's call lured out Godzilla, who began to hunt the MUTO. The call was intended for a second MUTO, which broke out of the dormant spore found in the 90's. The spore itself was placed into a nuclear repository miles outside of Las Vegas, and the MUTO that broke out rampages through the streets of Vegas. This second MUTO is larger and wingless, signifying that it's a female, while the winged one is the male. The communication between the two was a mating call, and the two will find a place to reproduce, with all signs pointing to San Francisco. The Navy then plans to use nuclear weapons to draw out both the MUTOs and Godzilla and kill all three. However, Serizawa and Graham protest this, as it won't work, due to the fact that all three creatures feed on radiation. 

       An attempt is made to use a nuclear missile, refitted with an analog detonator, to kill the creatures, but to no avail. Instead, the city of San Francisco is evacuated, with those not out of the city taking shelter in underground BART station. By the way, for those who don't live in the San Francisco Bay Area, BART is a transit system, similar to the Subway in New York or the London Underground. BART stands for "Bay Area Rapid Transit." Anyway, so, with enough people out of harm's way, Godzilla and the MUTOs clash in battle within the city, while Ford, who was on the train with the missile refitted with the analog detonator, and survived a MUTO attack, joins in a HALO jump into the city to recover and deactivate the missile. The device is recovered, but is damaged an cannot be deactivated, so the soldiers take it to the harbor to put the missile onto a boat to detonate safely away from the city. Ford destroys the MUTO nest, Godzilla kills the MUTOs, and passed out from exhaustion, while Ford is picked up by a helicopter, and taken to the shelter at the Oakland Coliseum, where he is reunited with Sam and Elle. Godzilla then returns to the ocean, with the news media referring to him as the "King of the Monsters." 

       So after the disastrous 1998 Godzilla film by Roland Emmerich and Dean Devlin, the Japanese studio Toho was a bit reluctant to allow another American studio to produce a Godzilla film. However, a deal was eventually struck between Toho and Legendary Pictures, who at the time we're set up at Warner Bros. This allowed for the second attempt to make an American Godzilla film. British filmmaker Gareth Edwards, fresh off the success of his own film Monsters, was hired to direct the film, and set about to make the monsters seem larger, using perspective framing to do so. Admittedly, this is one of the film's strong points, as the camera is placed at a human perspective, making the monsters seem larger than they were. Motion capture was also uses in animating both the MUTOs and Godzilla, adding an additional sense of realism to the creatures. Unfortunately, however, the monster fights are very few and far between, always in the background, and seem to get cut off just as things start to get interesting. Kinda disappointing, but whatever. 

        The cast of the film, including the likes of Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Elizabeth Olsen, Ken Watanabe, Sally Hawkins, David Strathairn, and Bryan Cranston, were all passable. They weren't terrible, but they didn't stand out either. Much like the human actors in a Japanese Godzilla movie, they were just there to service the story. In fact, this movie is the very definition of an American Godzilla movie. It plays out like the Japanese Godzilla movies, and it works within its premise. Overall a decent movie, I'm giving Godzilla 2014 a rating of 4.5/5. If you haven't seen this movie yet, I highly recommend it, as it lays down the foundation of the MonsterVerse. 

        This is Chuck signing off. Join me on Wednesday, as we take a look at the second film of the MonsterVerse, Kong: Skull Island.