Godzilla

Art & Culture

It's a big step up from a $1 million movie to one costing $160 million, but that's what Welsh director Gareth Edwards has done in one bold move. Somewhat surprisingly, it's more of a success than a failure.

I'd be lying if I pretended that I'm a fan of big bonkbuster box office movies, but if you've got to have them, then at least let's have one where you can see where all the money's gone, and in that respect Godzilla does a great job. It may not be epic in the way that Lawrence of Arabia is, but it feels epic in sheer scale of the monsters (there's more than one) and the impact on the human race.

The back story is nothing to take very seriously, with a suggestion that the nuclear tests post WW2 were designed to eliminate a prehistoric monster, but instead pumped it full of radiation that made it a zillion times bigger. Cut to 1999, and a big hole opens up under The Philippines, where scientists find evidence of some vast long ead creature, but also one that has left town recently. It heads for Japan, and disrupts a nuclear power station (always looking for radiation), before going underground for 15 years, taking us all the way to the present.

Obsessive Bryan Cranston is warning people that there's something nasty out there, but he's written off as a crank. Even his son (a lieutenant)wants him to give up his delusions. But guess what? Dad was was right, there is something big and nasty out there, and before too long there's three of them, the male and female of one species (MUTOs, which is actually an acronym for Massive Unidentified Terrestrial Objects, not a Japanese word), and a single gender non-specific Godzilla. These things are huge. Forget every other movie monster you've seen, add them together and multiply by 500. And then bigger.

These are the most fun parts of the film, the way ships and planes and tanks and trains are tossed about like matchsticks, while humans either run away or pointlessly point pop guns at them. These creatures are somewhere beyond indestructible. In this context, it's a little churlish to complain about the lack of credible human dimension (as some critics have). Edwards has at least hired some decent actors to do their best (Julette Binoche, Elizabeth Olsen, Sally Hawkins and David Strathairn) but we're not looking for complex emotional relationships in this kind of movie.

What Edwards does do well is to marshal the visual effects, which is not damning with faint praise. It's true that the narrative isn't crystal clear, but even if it was, it wouldn't make any sense, and who cares anyway. It's a monster movie, and the monsters are monstrous, and it's an awful lot better than the previous Godzilla film over 15 years go.

6/10