GODZILLA

US, 2014, 115 minutes, Colour.
Aaron Taylor Johnson, Bryan Cranston, Ken Watanabe, Elizabeth Olsen, Juliet Binoche, David Strathairn,
Directed by Gareth Edwards.


‘Gojiya’, says veteran scientist, Ken Watanabe.

And he is entitled to say this because Godzilla is actually a Japanese creation. and, in 2014, Godzilla is 60 years old. He has appeared in many Japanese Cinema and television productions. He also appeared in 1998 in a film of the same name, directed by Roland Emmerich, which received negative reviews and failed at the box office. On his 60th anniversary, Godzilla has been well honoured by this version.

Within the first 15 minutes, we are very much impressed by the production designl, excavation sequences in the Philippines, with giant skeletal bones, then a move to Japan with a nuclear station, quite an elaborate plant. We are introduced to an American scientist, Bryan Cranston, his wife, Juliet Binoche, also a scientist, and the young son who is at school on a fatal day when the nuclear power plant is threatened, collapses and the whole area is sealed off. And that’s just the beginning.

The screenplay moves on 15 years, the young boy has grown up and is now Aaron Taylor Johnson (not the most charismatic of movie leads, his performances becoming woodener and woodener).he is married to Elizabeth Olsen and they have a son. He is also in the army and has been working on weapons.

He gets a call from the police in Japan to say that they have interned his father. He has been living in Japan since the disaster, obsessed with what happened with the collapse of the plant, certain that it was not a fault within the plant and now relying on communication with various scientists who posit some kind of disturbance in the ocean. It should be noted that the film indicates that there were the nuclear tests in the 1940s and 50s but that was not just to test the weapons but rather to destroy Godzilla! Big cover-up.

Yes, Godzilla is certainly on the move again, but initially overshadowed by two enormous mutant creatures, with wings, who are hellbent on destruction and who are determined to meet and to mate. While this begins in Japan, it moves over the Pacific Ocean, to locations in Nevada and finally to San Francisco. The mutations are to do with nuclear energy, this being absorbed by the creatures, and Godzilla himself thriving on this kind of energy.

There have been suggestions and brief of glimpses of Godzilla but, finally, he emerges, huge and scaly, leaving a fair amount of destruction in his wake as well, but Godzilla has good intentions, to destroy the mutants, which, spectacularly, he does.

In the meantime, there is more than enough destruction to fill several disaster movies, with Honolulu, Las Vegas and, finally, San Francisco experiencing vast destruction.

The military keep Godzilla and the mutants under surveillance, have a variety of plans for destruction, including nuclear warheads.

So, plenty of action, less on character, plenty of special effects, plenty of stunts, enough to keep most audiences entertained.

Some of the critics after the film remarked that it was an impossible plot, especially with the danger of nuclear weapons in San Francisco harbour. That should have been the least of their worries. The whole idea of Godzilla himself goes far beyond the possible and we accept that, so what about bombs and explosions, especially when so much of San Francisco is already destroyed!

Director, Gareth Edwards, made the small budget film, Monster, an entertaining chase film to destroy a powerfully special effects monster. He obviously impressed powers-that-be in Hollywood who offered him this film to direct. He shouldn’t have much difficulty in getting another job.

If you are ever going to make a film about Godzilla, all stops out, then this is how it would turn out.


1. 60 years of the history of Godzilla? In Japan, internationally? 20th century – and now for the 21st century?

2. The mythology, the background of the monster, in the sea, the nuclear explosions of the 1950s, consequences? Destruction? Creating new creatures? Creating mutants? Government reactions? Explosions trying to destroy the creatures?

3. 21st century summer blockbuster? Action, aspects of the disaster films, issues of ecology, the international interest, heroics?

4. The production values, the design, vastness, the Philippines and the skeletons, Japan and the plant? The explosions? And experience of the 1990s?

5. Action, disaster, 21st century style, the MUTO, their destruction, Godzilla and the pursuit, the destruction of the cities? Musical score?

6. The opening, travel to the Philippines, the excavations, fast, the skeletal remains, the speculations? The two scientists and their research? Japanese and British?

7. The transition to Japan, the nuclear power plant? The tremors, radioactivity, the scientists and their work? Joe Brodie, his presence in Japan, speaking Japanese? The family home? Love the central, for Ford? Forget his birthday, Ford going to school? Sing the plant from the school window, the collapse? Sandra and her team, going into the reactor, the explosion, the attempt to escape, in contact with Joe, the door shouting, the group being cut off, their deaths? The eruption and the collapse? The site being closed down?

8. 15 years passing, the area completely closed off? The announcement that it was radioactive? Joe Brodie still in Japan, obsessed, his range of contacts, fisherman, studying the ocean, their various theories, the readings? The parallel to 15 years earlier? His wanting to prove that the plant was not effective at that there was an outside course? His arrest?

9. Ford and Elle, their son Sam, living in San Francisco, Ford in the military, expertise with bombs? The message from Japan, is going, his attitude towards his father, a new with him, thinking him obsessed mad? In prison, his getting out, going to the plant, the masks? The birds, Joe realising that the care was saying, going to the house, the photo, the disks, the police arriving in taking them? The issue of the readings?

10. The Japanese professor, his research of the Dickens? His British associate? Is giving the history of Godzilla? His concern, the repetition of the findings, listening to Joe, Joe and his being interrogated, the disruptions?

11. The Japanese professor, wanting Joe to work with him, the eruption and Joe’s death?

12. Ford, caught in the eruption, trying to get home, going to the airport, Hawaii, the child in the transit carriage, the emergency, his saving the child, taking its to the enquiry Centre? Reunited with his family?

13. San Francisco, Elle and Sam, and school, Elle and her work, contact with her husband?

14. The creation of the mutants, the visual impact, they wings, flying, this speed? Male and female? Wanting to meet and to meet Western Mark the Adml, the military tracking the mutants? The Japanese professor? The theories?

15. The military, Ford in Hawaii, the rampage, destruction, getting back to the United States? Going into military action? The train, the bomb, the obstruction on the bridge, the bridge collapsing, the train falling, the mutants, Ford and his falling into the water, surviving, is being rescued?

16. The mutants, going to Las Vegas, the destruction and the irony of people enjoying themselves?

17. Godzilla himself, the glimpses, his size, the scales, his mouth and eyes? Finally appearing fully? The result of the nuclear tests? His nuclear energy? Godzilla and the realisation that he was keeping a balanced and had to destroy the mutants? His journey?

18. The meeting, the effect, the mutants and the pursuit, evading pursuit, to San Francisco, their destruction? Godzilla, confronting them, breathing into them and destroying them? The radioactive energy?

19. San Francisco, the destruction, people taking refuge in the subway, Elle and her work, separated from her son? The workers in offices, the rampage through the city?

20. Godzilla, in San Francisco, causing destruction, confronting the mutants, saving the city – or at least what was left of it?

21. The team, the bomb, the theory of it being on the boat, pushed out to sea? The squad, searching the ruins, finding the bomb, going to the boat, the mutants and the deaths? Ford, the extent of his heroics, to defuse the bomb?

22. The aftermath, the city acknowledging what Godzilla had done, Elle and heard searching for her son, finding him, seeing forward?

23. Godzilla and 60 years, a symbol for nuclear issues, environmental issues, mutations, monsters, destruction? Humans and nature resilient?