Mad Reviews: Godzilla (2014)

There’s this new term floating around cinema these days, it’s called “Nolanizing”

Nolanizing: “To reinvent a classic franchise by making a film adaptation that’s more appealing to either a modern or adult audience, these adaptations tend to have a dark and mature tone. Term is inspired by director Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight Trilogy, a modern and grounded incarnation on Batman.”

Some successful examples of Nolanizing include Nolan himself with the Dark Knight trilogy; JJ Abrams with his re-imagining of Star Trek; and Martin Campbell, Sam Mendes & Daniel Craig with the latest James Bond films.

Unsuccessful attempts include Zack Snyder’s Man of Steel (although that one was ok, but could’ve been way better), the Amazing Spider-Man movies, and that joke of a Robocop remake… Fuck that movie!

Anyways, a promising director named Gareth Edwards is making the latest attempt at Nolanizing by rebooting the classic Toho monster, Godzilla. Was this a successful attempt? Or was it a massive, Phantom Menace-esque letdown? Well, for me, after watching this movie, I would call it a terrific success! Now let’s get on with this review…

Last year, when I first heard that there would be a new Godzilla movie coming out, my reaction was something like this…

 

And who could blame me? The ’98 turdzilla left a bitter taste in everyone’s mouth, including the real Godzilla himself (who would eventually get revenge on that movie). Since then, many fans including myself have been waiting patiently for an actual good Hollywood adaptation of this monster… and we finally got it!

The movie begins with a few dramatic scenes and a slow pace, and you don’t actually see Godzilla until an hour in at least. It instead decides to take a page from the book of Jaws and focus on the characters. We are introduced to the Brody family in 1999, living in Japan with Joe working at a nuclear power plant with his wife Sandra. After what seemed like an earthquake, the power plant gets completely destroyed, killing Sandra. 15 years later, we begin with their son Ford, a soldier returning from over a year of duty. After a short reunion with his family, he is forced to fly to Japan to help with Joe, who was arrested near the now quarantined plant. After being released and trying to convince Ford of some wild conspiracies, they decide to go to the quarantined zone again. After they’re both arrested, they soon discover that there is a creature living there… absorbing radiation like it’s a source of food. This creature awakens and destroys the whole freaking area, including Joe (RIP Heisenberg).

 And that’s pretty much the build up before you see the first Muto monster. Godzilla shows up about half an hour later when the Muto decides to attack Hawaii, and it’s only for a few seconds… and the fight they have is montaged on a TV screen. To me, this is a strong point of the movie, it does a very good job of building tension and suspense, giving you more and more of the big G every time he shows up, ultimately concluding in one of the greatest monster fights in movie history.

That leads me to talk about this movie’s climax… my god! The final 25-30 minutes of film has to be one of the greatest pieces of cinema I’ve ever seen! The fight between Godzilla and the 2 Mutos is relentless. The final blows to both Mutos are fucking sick! Big G kills off the flying Muto by using his tail as a baseball bat and flinging that motherfucker face first into a building. Then with the Crawling Muto… Fuck… I… Just… I’m fucking speechless because no words I use can describe how fucking badass that was… He spreads that bug’s mouth open with his bare hands and breathes atomic breath down his god damn throat… and then rips his head off! Just… FUCK THAT WAS SO AWESOME! EAT MY BLUE FIRE, BITCH!

 

I need a few minutes to calm down from such awesomeness!!! Here… enjoy these roars…

 

 

Okay, I’ve had time to breathe and I’m good now… sooo…

What else did I like about this movie? Well for starters, Godzilla is actually Godzilla! I know I wrote an article earlier about how making changes to the source material can be okay, but it’s only okay if the changes make sense… In the ’98 movie, it didn’t, simple as that. It was refreshing to see the actual Toho monster in his true form. There are slight changes to the original design (he’s way more massive, for example) but they fit well here. The roar might be the greatest roar in film history, I’d put it right up there with the T-Rex from Jurassic Park… seriously… that roar! Words can’t describe how awe-inspiring it is. Godzilla is so fucking badass in this movie! Edwards totally nailed it there!

I have to touch on the camera work here. It is absolutely gorgeous! It was awesome to be able to actually watch Godzilla and the Mutos throw down in the climax without any of that shaky-cam crap that Hollywood seems to be in love with. The shot where Godzilla stands up over the horizon awaiting a Muto beautifully shows how huge this lizard is. Another beautiful shot shows the fins on his tail beginning to glow, followed slowly by the rest of the fins on his back, and then followed by his oh so fucking badass atomic breath! That is my favourite display of camera work in this whole movie, and that’s saying a lot given how amazingly well shot this movie is.

The film is very well cast and the characters are solid. Bryan Cranston does an amazing job with the very few scenes he’s given. Ken Watanabe’s performance is good and he gives the movie an authoritative presence. Aaron Taylor-Johnson does a fine job in the lead role, even if his character is a little too stoic at times… Then again, he’s playing a soldier, they have a tendency to be very low on the emotional scale. You’re definitely rooting for him by the end of the movie though… So I guess he made an emotional connection with the audience somehow.

Oh, and I also liked seeing San Francisco getting completely obliterated by these monsters. That was unbelievably satisfying to me, being a Packers fan and all…

Now, with all the praises I have, this movie does have some major flaws. The problems lie mostly in the film’s tone. For example, I did feel at times that the movie didn’t know whether it wanted to be a character driven story, or a full-blown monster movie, or a disaster epic. The shifts in tone are very frequent and can get pretty wearisome. I think that has most to do with the story and writing than it did with the direction. I think it would’ve been better if Frank Darabont wrote all of the human elements instead of just collaborating. You can clearly see which parts were written by him, and that can expose some inconsistencies with the characters. So yeah, the awkward tonal changes are definitely something to be worked on for the sequel (which WILL happen, who are we kidding?)

Another problem lies with the character development. While these characters are solid and well acted, you don’t know that much about them. We know that Ford is soldier who diffuses bombs, we know that his wife Elle is a nurse, and we know that Dr. Seriwaza’s father died in Hiroshima… but that’s about it. Once again, that’s something to improve on in the sequel (It’s happening, get over it). The lack of development didn’t really bug me that much though, as these characters are well acted, especially for the material they’re given. I hope this cast returns in the next movie (You know it’s coming).

So yeah, Godzilla does have some big problems. But honestly, with all of the awesomeness that’s packed into this movie, I can let the issues slide here. Godzilla is a terrific movie, it’s filled with suspense, has some great action, the visuals are breathtaking, and the climactic battle might go down as one of the greatest movie battles of all time! To put it in NSFW terms… the movie slowly masturbates for an hour and a half, building massive tension within its nads, and then it spends almost thirty minutes blowing its load all over the audience’s fucking face! Fuck yeah!

I’m going to give it 9 atomic breaths out of 10… Yes, I changed my rating system, and it’s just to piss you people off… Don’t like it? Blow me.

As per the usual, you can use the comment section to either agree with me or tell me to get out of my parents’ basement… Whatever you want...

 

- Mad Mike of Metal

Mad Talk: Just Shut Up and Enjoy the Movie!

Okay, so I've had this on my mind for quite a long time, I was just waiting until this topic became relevant. Since there are 3 major Hollywood adaptations coming out this month (The Amazing Spider Man 2, Godzilla, and X Men: Days of Future Past, respectively) I feel this is the right time to talk about this.

Every time a comic book movie (or just any movie adaptation in general, be it from a TV show, historical event, novel, short story, etc) hits the big screen, one thing is for sure to happen: You will always get purists ripping the movie apart for liberties taken with the source material, characters names pronounced incorrectly, and just any inaccuracies the movie will have. We've all heard the complaints... "Oh they left out this part of the book, this movie sucks!" Or "They pronounced Joey jojo jr Shabadoo's name wrong, fucking bastards!" Or "Wah wah they totally ruined the Mandarin, I hate this movie!"

Whenever I see stuff like this, I wonder why these people can't just calm the fuck down and enjoy what they are watching. So I say this: Just shut up and watch the fucking movie!

My point is, movies like Captain America, Iron Man, The Dark Knight trilogy, TMNT etc are ADAPTATIONS! That means they are BASED off of a true story, BASED off a comic book, BASED off a TV show. That doesn't mean they're going to be the exact same thing! If you want to see X-Men: Days of Future Past stay 100% true to the comic itself, then don't watch the movie, instead just read the comic book you love so much and quit your bitching.

I know of some comic book nerds who despise The Dark Knight trilogy for this very thing. "Oh, it's Raysh al gool! Not raws al gool! How dare they!" Or "The joker didn't fall into a vat of acid or give anyone laughing gas, BLASPHEMY!" Or my personal favourite "Oh wah wah wah Bane wasn't Mexican or had any venom pumping into him goo goo gah gah!"

Listen, you virgins, the whole point of those three movies was to make The Batman story grittier and more realistic. And in the real world, if you fall into a vat of acid, you'll die. If you have venom pumping into you, you'll die. And if your name is pronounced "Raysh" instead of "Raws", people will likely mistake you for an STD. Nolan and company made the changes to make the existence of a Batman, or a Joker, or a Bane on our planet possible. In my opinion, all three movies totally nailed it and the trilogy succeeded in what it set out to do. But of course, it wasn't like the comics, so it sucked, right? Fuck off.

Another thing I want to touch on is the JJ Abrams Star Trek movies. As far as I'm concerned, both Star Trek and Star Trek Into Darkness are amazing movies. They work great as stand-alone films and, dare I say it, they're just as true to Star Trek lore (no pun intended) as everything else in the Trek-o-verse. But of course, Trekkies (or Trekkers? Who gives a fuck what they’re called? Seriously!) all over the world crapped on them for being “fast-paced space operas for the ADD generation” and “making Khan a white guy”... Wow. Now believe me, I want to destroy every argument that Trekkies have made against these movies, but I'll get to those assholes another time.

Now guys, don't get me wrong. I'm not saying you should like every movie regardless of artistic liberties taken, because sometimes movie adaptations will completely miss the mark. But in my opinion, it's not because they "bastardized the source material", it's because the movies themselves were just terrible. The reason why Batman & Robin sucked was not because of Arnold Schwarzenegger being miscast as Mr Freeze or Batgirl being Alfred’s niece instead of Gordon's daughter, the movie sucked because it was horribly acted, horribly paced, horribly directed, and had a script that was littered with dumb, unfunny puns. Iron Man 3 got crapped on because they took liberties with the Mandarin character, but that's not what bugged me about it. What bugged me was that the movie was building up this villain so much (being wonderfully played by Ben Kingsley, no less) only to have him be a drunken pawn when our main hero finally meets him. That to me is not shitting on comics, it's the movie doing something it just shouldn't do. The reason why The Last Airbender sucked was... Well... I'm not going there... Fuck you Shyamalan! Fuck you!

My point is that you should judge a movie by what it is: A movie. Comparing it to a comic book or a TV show will only cloud your judgment of the film and prevent you from enjoying it as much as you could have.

That being said, I'm going to be seeing Days of Future Past in about 3 weeks, and Godzilla the week before that. I'm sure I'm going to love the living shit out of those movies, but I'm also sure I'm going to see comments on the Internet about how Quicksilver should only be in one cinematic universe or how Godzilla's fins don't glow when he breathes fire or some shit... Ugh...

Seriously, if anyone like that is reading this... SLEEP WITH SOMEONE! For your own good!

I'm out

- Mad Mike of Metal

P.S. If you loved my last movie review, then stay tuned next week as I will be reviewing an Arnold Schwarzenegger classic!