The God, the Zilla, and the MUTOs.

Okay, the title is a lie, because neither God nor Zilla showed up. I say that because, while Godzilla was awesome in this movie, he seemed to be very toned down, at least compared to his original glory. That said he still is a god compared to Zilla, but the fact that he wasn’t as godlike as his original incarnation might get a few hard core fans fired up for the wrong reasons and thus setting others on metaphorical fire. MASSIVE, HEAVY SPOILERS AHEAD! YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED! I usually don’t care too much about spoilers, but this is Godzilla we’re talking about; he deserves the preferential treatment. SO GO NO FURTHER IF YOU DON’T WANT SPOILERS!

We start with Bryan Cranston. His part as Joseph Brody in the trailers gave the impression that he’s be a very important character in the trailers. He is, except that he died less than quarter way into the movie. Not much false advertising here ladies and gentlemen; the trailer just left that impression but most of what you see in the trailers actually shows up in the film. Except for four bits. Four exact bits. Others had more, non-memorable bits, but many obvious ones, but this had only four, memorable or not. But since it’s still not in the movie, let’s identify them. Number one, form the trailer where the soldiers HALO jump from the plane. That did happen, but the commander’s speech in the background didn’t. Then, as we go into one of the soldier’s point of view, we see a dark figure in the midst of a dark, burning city. In the actual movie Godzilla was clearly visible, facing off with one of the MUTOs, but since this is the first trailer meant to check anticipation levels of the film, I’ll let it slide. So second again. The bit where a silhouette is barely visible behind the smoke and is finally revealed to be Godzilla. That didn’t happen in the movie. Moving on to the second trailer, one scene where Ford Brody ask someone “can you kill it?” That didn’t’ happen at any point in the movie. And lastly the bit where Elle and Sam Brody are looking at Godzilla, roaring in their direction as doors between them close. Sam wasn’t there and Godzilla was already fighting when the doors start to close.

Now that we’ve gotten the trailer inaccuracies out of the way, let’s move on to the kaiju designs. Of course, we start with the main character himself. HE LOOKS GREAT! Many say he looks to be on the fat side this time around, and they’re quite right. But that only applies to when you look at him from the side, though it has something to do with the fact that he is leaning forward instead of standing straight up like an obvious man in a suit. There’s a big gap between both legs like a proper reptile, instead of having them close together, again, like an obvious man in a suit, so from the back it gives the impression that his legs are all fat and no muscle. Look at him from the front and you will see a very square chest, kind of like a human bodybuilder’s, except less disproportionate. He has his proper, stegosaurus-esque, maple leaf shaped spines going on the back, albeit slightly smaller than the original. And, probably less apparent, he has gills, probably to explain how he stays underwater forever, never surfacing until needed. And the Atomic Breath is back. As for his character role in the show, he’s the anti-hero-ish good guy. Which is good and bad at the same time for the movie, for reasons I will explain later.

Moving on to the MUTOs, they are called that as an acronym to Massive Unidentified Terrestrial Organisms (M.U.T.O). Now if you notice in the title referencing the Good, the Bad and the Ugly, the MUTOs are actually very beautiful, contrary to where I place them in the title. They were co-created by Legendary Pictures and Toho, and it shows. Well, they are beautiful to me at least. I find this to be worth mentioning because I have some very peculiar tastes, such as preferring the look of Predators without their masks on unlike others, among others. Design aside, as actual animals they are very well made too. They communicate with each other with clicks, grunts and roars, in a pattern of behaviour very similar to birds. The ways the male and female MUTOs interact with each other makes them feel so real and with emotion, like how they look into each other’s eyes and rub their noses together upon meeting. You could almost feel the love between them. Since I’ve mentioned the male and female, the former is much smaller, at less than half the size of the female, but can fly. The latter, while almost as large as Godzilla, has no wings.

There’s also a backstory explaining how these creatures lived during times when the Earth was very highly radioactive. Some, like Godzilla and MUTO, have evolved in a way that allowed them to feed on radiation, instead of/in addition to conventional food. And now in modern times, the survivors live much further underground to feed on radiation off the Earth’s core. I think it’s a nice reference to the Godzillasaurus origin story. Godzillasaurus, while not named directly, was identified as the apex predator of the time, hunting all but hunted by none. “A god in all respects,” as Vivienne Graham, Dr. Serizawa’s assistant, described.

With all that covered, here are my thoughts about the movie, starting with what I like. And first on the list is the design, which I’ve mentioned. Second is the role of Godzilla in the whole movie. Like I said, he’s the silent observer, guardian angel type anti-hero protagonist. This is good because from the get go – at least when that role is made clear to the audience – we are all rooting for Godzilla. The emotional investment is very rewarding, especially at the end, when Godzilla walks away from the whole affair, with the news headlines reading “King of Monsters, Saviour of our city?” It was a very happy feeling. The downside is it downplays the uncertainty of whether he is a reliable saviour or if he will go on a rampage once he’s done killing the MUTOs. And also, knowing that he’s a good guy makes the very rational decisions of the military seem very stupid. I mean, who would trust a giant radioactive lizard with taking down other monsters that eat nuclear warheads for breakfast? Do you blame the soldiers for firing their cannons at Godzilla at the first sign of provocation? In most situations, it is understandable, maybe even praiseworthy and encouraged. But when you know that they are shooting at their saviour, it’s hard to empathise with their decisions.

We also get an Ichiro Serizawa played by Ken Watanabe, as homage of sorts to the original Daisuke Serizawa. He is in the film to remind everyone that “the arrogance of man is thinking nature is in our control, and not the other way around.” My favourite line from the movie, however, while coming from the same character, is spoken much earlier, when the military is deciding on how to deal with the MUTOs and whether Godzilla is a threat to be dealt with in a similar fashion: “Nature has an order... A power to restore balance. I believe he (Godzilla) is it.” I know this deviates from the original Daisuke Serizawa, but it was at this point that the movie makes quite clear that Godzilla is not a baddie. He also serves as the movie’s anti-nuke messenger, always carrying a pocket watch belonging to his father, which has stopped at precisely 8.15 am, 6th of August 1945. And, of course, like a true Japanese, he calls Godzilla ‘Go Jira’ (ゴジラ), and is the only one in the entire movie to do so.

Things I don’t like: I have the fact that the military decided that the best way to kill 3 creatures that feed on radiation is a nuclear blast. Which leads to a plethora of other problems. In the trailers and earlier in the film they mentioned the nuclear tests at Bikini Atoll were in fact attempts to kill Godzilla that obviously didn’t work. The military’s response? This new nuke had explosive power measured in megatons, not kilotons, and will make the nuke at Bikini Atoll look like a firecracker. Also, since both MUTOs were capable of using EMP, they decided to use an analogue countdown timer on the nuke, send it to the middle of the ocean and detonate it there once all three monsters were lured there. At this point it seems that only Dr. Serizawa was concerned that even in the middle of the ocean, there are other life forms that will be affected by the radiation and that it’s impossible for there to be no wind to carry the fallout landwards, never mind that the three that they were trying to kill with the nuke eat nukes, and might do so before the timer ran out and proceed to head towards land. What happened was worse: the nuke was stolen by the MUTOs to feed the babies the female was carrying, and was left in the MUTO nest along with the spawn. So a team of soldiers had to go steal it back and either disable the timer on the nuke, or if there is enough time, continue with the plan to send it to the middle of the ocean. And they decided to go with the latter because when they got to the bomb there was 26 minutes left, and they needed more time to open the cracked glass panel that was covering the timer.

Another thing I don’t quite like: Godzilla being quite far from godlike. While the usual rockets and cannons do cause him pain, he seems to take no damage from any of them. This looked like a good sign, but was a bit misleading. He was outmatched by both MUTOs in their initial encounter, which I guess was natural, being a 2-on-1 situation, but quite easily kills them when facing them individually. That’s great, but he seems to be really tired after every encounter despite the seemingly easy kills. First was the male MUTO. A very surprisingly quick tail slam knocked the male MUTO into a skyscraper. Unfortunately, the same skyscraper, over three times taller than Godzilla, crashes onto him. It is shown that while he managed to survive and crawl out of that rubble, he did so with great difficulty. And after killing the female MUTO, he was shown to collapse, awaking what looked like hours later before heading back into the sea. Long story short, this fat Godzilla gets tired too easily, and even collapsed out of fatigue, waking up after hours of sleep before heading home, although after taking a massive beating while being ganged up on might justify that. That said if there were to be a Pacific Rim x Godzilla crossover, I hate to say this but Godzilla will not be a clear winner without contest.

So, the final verdict for this movie. A great 60th anniversary reboot in the year 2014. Fans of the movie will have reason to not give this movie a perfect score while on the other hand, the rest who are just looking for a great kaiju flick might. My personal score is a solid 8/10. Definitely watch it on the big screen. Go IMAX big if you can. Only don’t watch it in 3D, as the 3D version looks very 2D still.

And on that bombshell, adieu to y’all.