GODZILLA (2014) MOVIE NEWS & REVIEW

godzilla (2014) movie

Genre              |   Science Fiction

Classification   |   M

Running time   |   133 minutes

Released         |   16 May 2014

cast

Aaron Taylor-Johnson ... Ford Brody
Bryan Cranston ... Joe Brody
Elizabeth Olsen ... Elle Brody
Ken Watanabe ... Dr. Ishiro Serizawa
Juliette Binoche ... Sandra Brody
Sally Hawkins ... Vivienne Graham
​David Strathairn ... Admiral William Stenz

director

Gareth Edwards

writer

​Max Borenstein ... (screenplay)
 
Dave Callaham ... (story) (as David Callaham)
 
Ishirô Honda ... (based on the character created by) (as Toho Co. Ltd.) &
Takeo Murata ... (based on the character created by) (as Toho Co. Ltd.) &
Shigeru Kayama ... (based on the character created by) (as Toho Co. Ltd.)
 
Frank Darabont ... (additional writing) (uncredited)
David S. Goyer ... (additional writing) (uncredited)

cinematographer

​Seamus McGarvey ... director of photography

music

​Alexandre Desplat ​

film editor

​Bob Ducsay

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box office result

Worldwide               $529,076,069 ​

Australia                 $​13,108,581

North America        $​​​​​​200,676,069

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movie minutiae

While shooting this film, Cinematographer Seamus McGarvey accidentally went to a lakeside set of DAWN OF THE PLANET OF THE APES (2014), which was shooting nearby and looked very similar to the set for this film. He described walking around with his light meter, not recognizing anyone, as a "surreal, dreamlike experience" until he realized his mistake.

Aaron Taylor-Johnson and Elizabeth Olsen play husband and wife. They play brother and sister in AVENGERS: AGE OF ULTRON (2015).

​The news report at the end of the film, "King of The Monsters", is not only a reference to the name of the 1954 U.S. release "Godzilla: King of the Monsters", but will also be the name of the sequel, which is to be released in 2019...

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sequels

GODZILLA: KING OF THE MONSTERS (2019)

GODZILLA (2014) MOVIE IMAGES

Images

Posters

Images

Posters

GODZILLA (2014) STORY SYNOPSIS

​Ford Brody (Aaron Taylor-Johnson), a Navy bomb expert, has just reunited with his family in San Francisco when he is forced to go to Japan to help his estranged father, Joe (Bryan Cranston). Soon, both men are swept up in an escalating crisis when Godzilla, King of the Monsters, arises from the sea to combat malevolent adversaries that threaten the survival of humanity. The creatures leave colossal destruction in their wake, as they make their way toward their final battleground: San Francisco.

GODZILLA (2014) MOVIE REVIEW

Reviewed by Mark Geraghty   |   Review date 15 May 2014

​Pop ​Movee Rating

The 2014 version of GODZILLA is a film of entertaining large-scale vignettes that are missing important pieces of connective story-tissue that could have made for a much better movie. Gareth Edwards’ re-imagination of ‘Godzilla’, this being the big monster’s 28th big screen outing, works hard to provide the context for the story he unleashes in the second half of his film, but it always feels like there is a vital ingredient missing from Max Borenstein’s screenplay.

The story opens in 1999 when workers at a Philippines mine site discover the fossilised remains of something very large and call in Dr. Ichchiro Serizawa, played by Ken Watanabe, who works for a secret scientific agency supported by all the world’s governments. Unfortunately, the discovery unleashes a large-scale parasitic beast, referred to throughout the film as a MUTO – Massive Unidentified Terrestrial Organism. While the beast isn’t shown in the opening sequence, the devastating results of its actions are; culminating in the destruction of a Japanese nuclear power plant where husband & wife Joe & Sandra Brody work. The disaster happens on Joe’s Birthday, but he is too consumed by the unusual seismic readings he has detected to notice that his young son Ford has made him a ‘Happy Birthday’ banner.

Joe, played by Bryan Cranston, has been warning his colleagues at the power plant that they should shut down because of the unusual seismic readings, but his warnings are acknowledged too late and he barely makes it out alive. Unfortunately, his wife, played by Juliette Binoche, is not so fortunate. She is trapped inside the nuclear reactor of the power plant and, in some extremely clichéd story-telling, is left on one side of the glass while her husband is forced to bid a tearful goodbye from the other side. Her death leaves Joe heartbroken, angry and in search of answers about what destroyed the power station.

The story jumps ahead fifteen years, to the present, where the story finds Ford Brody, played by Aaron Taylor-Johnson, now grown-up with a family of his own. Arriving home in San Francisco from an eighteen monthly military posting as a Bomb-defusing expert, he is all set to enjoy some much-needed time with his wife Elle, played by Elizabeth Olsen, and son Sam, played by Carson Bolde.

Almost immediately, Ford receives a call to go to Japan and get his father, who has been caught trying to enter the radioactive restricted area where he used to work, out of jail. Upon meeting up with his father, it doesn’t take Ford too long to be convinced that his father may have been right about a post-accident cover-up. The pair embark upon a journey back to their old home to get vital records to prove Joe’s theory that something big is about to happen again. His suspicions are confirmed when he & Ford discover no radiation where there should be lethally high amounts should still remain.

Joe and Ford are captured by the local Japanese authorities and taken to the remains of the power plant where Joe used to work. It’s at this point that GODZILLA starts to veer into questionable story-telling. On the previous occasion when Joe had been caught in the restricted area he had been taken back to Tokyo and placed in a holding cell until Ford’s arrival. The second time around, he and Ford are taken to the heart of the operation for questioning. Given the nature of what is happening at the power plant, it felt contrived and lazy for the pair to be ferried into the setting for the film’s first big set-action piece. Their presence is also an enabler for a meeting with Ken Watanabe’s character, who recognises that Joe’s theories about what is happening are correct.

Story contrivances aside, the large-scale set piece with the first MUTO is handled extremely well. Unleashing the beast may create expectation for mass destruction, buildings in ruins and high levels of fatalities, but Edwards contains the mayhem to its immediate surroundings. In this early part of the film, the destruction is localised to the immediate setting and is quite slow in pace. This appears to be a deliberate action in homage to the original ‘Gojira’ movies, where the man in the rubber monster suit was a lumbering, awkward presence. The aftermath of the MUTO’s escape sees the introduction of David Strathairn’s character, Admiral William Stenz. Stenz enlists Dr. Serizawa who, in turn, enlists both Joe and Ford Brody to join him in the hunt for the monster. This is yet another example of the contrived writing on display in GODZILLA that forces the story forward. Neither Brody is necessary in the set-up for the next set-piece, but the absence of a real star in the film does require the story to have a sympathetic character throughout to give the audience some kind of real-life point-of-reference.

The action heads to Hawaii and, finally, after almost sixty minutes the audience get to see Godzilla in action. The introduction of the film’s “star” is problematic because it’s difficult through any normal means of exposition to explain Godzilla’s motivation. He’s certainly not going to tell anyone what he’s doing, so it’s necessary for actions to speak louder than words. The action in this part of the movie successfully establishes the direction for the rest of it and manages to pull-off a piece of trickery that maintains the suspension of disbelief in the concept of “Monsters”. In only his second feature film, Edwards’ takes a play out of the Spielberg ‘Jurassic Park’ playbook and makes his monsters both awe-inspiring and terrifying. He nowhere near as skilful in his execution, but the fact he’s even tried this approach demonstrates that he cares about his audience and how they willing be processing and assessing the movie as it unfolds before their eyes.

The introduction of Godzilla also sees the story set sail for home, as the scale of interactions between Godzilla and the MUTO threat increases in intensity. There are more set pieces, with one especially effective action sequence taking place on a rail bridge. As the film moves toward its climax, set on the streets of San Francisco, the “destruction porn” that seems like a mandatory ingredient in today’s blockbuster movies increases in intensity. In a movie like GODZILLA, destruction of buildings is necessary to create the scale and impact of the monster on its surroundings; so there’s a propensity by the audience to give the film-makers some latitude to tell their story. Gareth Edwards’ does a good job of balancing the mayhem and walks the fine line well enough for the audience to come out of the cinema not feeling brutalised by the movie they’ve just seen. The downside of the film’s Third Act is the complete absence of any of the story’s main characters other than Ford Brody. Elizabeth Olsen, Ken Watanabe and David Strathairn have very little screen time as events focus on Godzilla and a secondary plot-point that requires Ford Brody’s previously mentioned bomb-defusing expertise. It’s unfortunate that Edwards and screenwriter Borenstein didn’t take another play out of the Spielberg handbook and introduce a resourceful female character into the story to provide a little more balance to the film’s Third Act action. Elizabeth Olsen all but fades into the mass of hysterical San Franciscans trying to avoid the monster-induced destruction and it would certainly have given the Third Act more emotional resonance had the plight of her and her son received more screen time.

Technically, GODZILLA is to the standard audiences expect of a blockbuster. The rendering of Godzilla is fantastic and the MUTO creature designs are a cross between a lizard and a spider and look quite unique compared to anything that has been seen before. The film is well worth watching in 3-D, as Seamus McGarvey’s cinematography holds up better in this film than it did on THE AVENGERS. Even though it was post-converted to 3-D, ‘Godzilla’ is one of the better examples as the depth-of-field created provides great scale for Godzilla’s exploits. Australia’s Owen Paterson headed up Production Design on the film and has ticked all the boxes on bringing another large-scale film to life.

GODZILLA is not a perfect film. The screenplay has characters that seem redundant, it is slow when it could be fast and it tries too hard to sympathise with the Monsters. Could it be improved? Sure. It is, however, reasonably entertaining and is a solid effort from Director Gareth Edwards, who, at least, appears to have managed to utilise the film $160 million budget to reasonable effect. ​

GODZILLA (2014) USEFUL LINKS

Godzilla (2014 film) - Wikipedia
​Godzilla (2014) - IMDb
​Godzilla (2014) - Rotten Tomatoes​

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