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Godzilla (2014)

Ugh.

I am not going to claim I am some great Godzilla specialist, or even a big-time fan, but the original Godzilla, King of the Monsters (1956) was an automatic watch whenever it was on Creature Features. Or at any other time. And decades later, when the original Raymond Burr-less Gojira (1954) finally became available in the US, it was awesome to see that giant monster in all his original, indifferent to humanity, "I crush you!" glory.

This rendition isn't even in the same league as the Americanized 1956 version, let alone the 1954 original. Even the generally awful, yet somehow guiltily entertaining, 1998 version, is better.

The irony is that in this film the one who knows all about Godzilla is, again, a Japanese scientist, Dr. Ichiro Serizawa (Ken Watanabe), but the film opts to focus on the American white bread character, Lt. Ford Brody (Aaron Taylor-Johnson). So just as in the original, when that film's Dr. Serizawa (Akihiko Hirata) got to be upstaged by American insert Steve Martin (Raymond Burr), it happens again here.

Which is sad because it's clear that Serizawa has some idea of what is going on, who and what Godzilla is (he names the beast!), and yet he's kept in the back of the bus. The result is that we follow the stumble along exploits of Brody, who just wants to get back home to San Francisco and his wife (Elizabeth Olsen) and son (Carson Bolde).

And that story is awful.

All of the trailers to this film make it seem that Brody's father (Bryan Cranston) is the main character. As you see in the trailer, his wife (Juliette Binoche) dies in a nuclear reactor accident in Japan. Following her death, Brody the Senior remains in Japan on a 15-year obsessive quest to find out what really happened, what actually killed his wife. When he finally hooks up with Serizawa, there's a feeling that the story might be about to take off.

Alas, no. Brody the Junior shows up to bail his father out of jail and becomes the center of attention because he's apparently the only member of the United States military, stationed anywhere in the world, who can both disarm and arm nuclear warheads. In a series of coincidences that made my head ache, he begins his journey from Japan to San Francisco. Along the way, monsters cavort in a distracting manner.

Seriously. The monsters in this monster film are firmly in the background, in the back of the bus behind the part at the back of the bus where Serizawa is. Why Godzilla should give a hoot that a MUTO (massive unknown terrestrial organism) is munching parts of Japan, Hawaii, and my home town is utterly unknown. Yes, Serizawa says the Big G is an "alpha predator" and they should just let him take care of the MUTO, but wouldn't exploring that history have been more interesting than...well, anything that happens in this film?

It doesn't help that Taylor-Johnson is godawful. Keanu Reeves, the original acting 2x4, on his absolute worse day does better than this guy. In the film, he occasionally seems all right because Olsen is even worse. Their acting is bland, their characters are bland, the entire reason for their existence is less than bland. Cranston at least got to chew some scenery and had a (loud and) clear reason for his behavior. Equally clear is that Watanabe has some sort of backstory with all of this, and I don't mean just because he's a Hiroshima survivor.

Yet, we follow Lt. Bland. Lacking a compelling human lead, or a compelling human story, we are left with gaping pauses between monster appearances. There's no build up of suspense because we just don't give a busted Golden Gate Bridge about the very people whose sole purpose is to draw us in and carry us through this story.

That this would happen should have been obvious from the moment Gareth Edwards was brought on board to direct, because the last film he directed, Monsters, had the exact same problem. That film promised monsters and instead we got humans we prayed would be consumed so as to put us out of our misery. (Mind you, I liked the manner in which Monsters was made, guerilla-style, but the end result...awful.)

Not everything in Godzilla is horrible. The MUTO, though it has a horrible acronym instead of a name, is pretty impressive in its own right. This rendition of Godzilla (who strangely has a name while his prey does not) is really impressive. And when (finally) the beasts do fight...awesome!

(Though on a purely personal level, I was a little annoyed. I'm San Francisco bred, born, and raised, and I was thrilled to hear that my beloved City by the Bay was finally going to get the smashed to smithereens treatment. And yet the place was hardly recognizable. For crying out loud, the streets were flat! Hello, filmmakers, San Francisco, as with Rome, is built on hills. It's topography is the very opposite of flat. And aside from the Transamerica Pyramid and a brief glimpse of the Ferry Building, I didn't recognize a single building or street. And now I'm sad...)

But back to the good stuff. Oh wait, I've already covered that, i.e., the monsters and the monster fights. Awesome stuff, especially watching Godzilla's moves. The climatic fight, how it's settled...hot damn, great stuff!

And then the humans putter back into the film and...ugh.

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