Review: Godzilla (2014)

We all know about this franchise, right? Just in case you’re a hermit I’ll briefly discuss it. Godzilla is the American name for the fictional Japanese giant monster Gojira, star of a huge film series popular in both Japan and the United States (probably significantly more so in Japan) produced by the company Toho. Godzilla originally appeared in the self-titled film from 1954 where the creature was a metaphor for reckless use of nuclear weapons (this was a post-World War II Japan so nuclear destruction was a pretty terrifying concept). Since then Godzilla has appeared in a ton of films. The Japanese movies are split into three distinctive eras: the original Showa Era (where things were goofy and more often than not Godzilla is basically a superhero), the Heisei Era (which supposedly to be more serious yet still produced a film called Godzilla vs. SpaceGodzilla with a straight face) and the Millennium Era, which I know nothing about because I somehow managed not to see a single film in that series. Interestingly all eras seem to use the original 1954 as a starting point for their continuity.

In 1998 Hollywood made its first attempt to make their own fully American version of a Godzilla film directed by Roland Emmerich, who has pretty much never directed anything anyone has considered art ever, and while it did well financially it was a critical disaster that seemed to wipe it’s ass with everything that made Godzilla what it was in favor of, I dunno, a weird giant iguana thing that no one could possibly like (and thinly veiled potshots at Roger Ebert and Gene Siskel). The film to this day is considered one of the most hated movies of the 90s and a huge betrayal of the Godzilla franchise that even Toho openly mocks in their own movies.

Now let’s fast forward to 2014 and Hollywood is at it again. That’s what we’ll be looking at today. This time, with Gareth Edwards as director, they have sworn up and down that they had learned from their blunder from sixteen years ago. The marketing has at least proven that, yes, that’s totally Godzilla in that poster. So far so good.

I love Godzilla. My father was a huge Godzilla fan when he was a boy so when I was a little kid and expressed interest in it he gleefully fueled the fire by getting me access to lots of those old kaiju films from the 1960s and 1970s. This would lead to me having a casual Godzilla addiction during the mid-nineties. For the record my favorite film of the franchise is Godzilla on Monster Island, actually titled “Godzilla vs. Gigan”, which is goofy as hell (the villains turn out to be human size cockroaches and I’m pretty sure Godzilla and Anguirus have a conversation at some point) but I still have a lot of nostalgic fondness for it. But my point is that I’m a pretty big Godzilla fan and I, like all of the other Godzilla fans, hold a generous amount skepticism about this flick. Can Hollywood succeed where those before them (also Hollywood) failed to do; to create a good adaptation of a classic Japanese franchise? Or am I just a fanboy who will never be satisfied? OR WILL IT BE BOTH?!?!?

Yeah, this movie wasn't great

Full review after the jump.
Read More

Share this post