Today’s quick review: Godzilla. In 1999, an American engineer working at a Tokyo nuclear power plant (Bryan Cranston) notes a series of anomalous seismic events before a disaster that leaves the surrounding area uninhabitable. Fifteen years later, his obsessive monitoring of the quarantine zone reveals a similar pattern as before, and he takes his estranged son (Aaron Taylor-Johnson), a soldier specializing in bomb disposal, to explore the quarantine zone and recover the data he left there fifteen years ago. There they discover a military installation built around an enormous monster that has been drawing power from the plant to grow. When it awakens, it leaves a path of destruction behind it, and humanity must scramble to find a way to combat this threat before the death toll grows any higher.
Godzilla reboots the classic monster series with modern CGI and storytelling. The film features excellent progression, with information doled out at a steady pace and plot that hangs together very well. The human characters are all given good reasons to stay near the action, even as it moves across the Pacific to the United States, and their relationships and struggles are relatable and human, enhancing rather than distracting from the disaster elements of the film. The monster CGI looks natural, with a good sense of scale and an appropriate level of destruction.
Godzilla has a couple of moments worth cheering for on both the human and monster sides of the equation. It also builds skillfully to the action scenes later in the movie, using darkness, indirect shots of the monster, and other techniques to heighten the suspense before the all-out action kicks in. However, the dark visuals are a double-edged sword, causing avoidable confusion simply due to a lack of clarity. The same goes for the incremental drip of information, as the audience must piece together key plot points from bits of exposition dropped by the military. These issues contribute to the film’s excellent tone even as they hamper its clarity. While the movie gets the balance between tone and clarity right far more often than it gets it wrong, its particular storytelling style does come with drawbacks.
Godzilla is a very solid film that is worth a watch whenever you are in the mood for a monster movie. The movie balances its human, disaster, and monster elements well, giving it a healthy mixture of emotion, chaos, and action. While it does not distinguish itself strongly from similar movies, Godzilla merges a tight plot with great CGI, a consistent tone, and likable characters for a very satisfying watch.
6.5 out of 10 on IMDB. I give it a 7.5 to 8.0 for solid execution, natural progression, and great special effects.