Upon visiting the movie theater to watch the newest installment to a film franchise that has been around for years, the thoughts of the movie were very limited. With the "King of the Monsters" being shown in only wisp within the trailer, many could not fathom whether or not they would truly get to experience Godzilla in all his glory. Many fans still haven't completely recovered from Roland Emmerich's ridiculous 1998 attempt at bringing the character back in a mainstream blockbuster. But thankfully, to give an honest perspective on the matter: this film gives you what you need and handles it perfectly.
Godzilla follows a chief engineer at the Janjira power plant in Japan named Joe Brody, and husband and father he begins to notice abnormal seismic behavior. As a result of this, the plant suffers a major meltdown, causing severe damage. Five years later, Brody finds himself still looking for answers, obssessed with figuring out what truly caused the accident at Janjira. Once Brody takes things too far and is arrested, his son Ford (A member of the US Navy) most travel to Japan to set his father free. But along his journey, Ford realize's their may be more to his father Joe's theories than anyone originally believed.
To begin touching upon the acting, Bryan Cranston as Joe Brody was not bad, at times it seemed that his emotional concern did not necessarily touch the audience, for example: "You guys are hiding something and I have the right to know" was a moment that should have emotionally hit the audience, yet it was simply blown over due to the lack of character importance. Yet other than that he served as a good introduction to the film and the worlds perspective on Godzilla. Aaron Taylor-Johnson in the film felt emotionally dull, in certain situations where he should have been freaking out or leaving streaks within his pants, he simply seemed immune to the situation occurring around him. After a while I found myself asking whether or not he was Batman because despite him being a veteran in the field for 14 months, nothing can really prepare you for seeing enormous monsters clashing across various towns.
Probably my favorite actor of the film was Elizabeth Olsen, who provided the most emotional scenes. A mother in the wake of destruction looking for her husband and trying to make the right decisions in order to keep her son safe as well, she is showing amazing range as a actor. Ken Wantanabe as Dr. Ichiro Serizawa was questionable, at times he felt under used and could have provided more emotional depth if they placed him in the wake of the destruction, but he was still good along with the rest of the cast. Only problem with the cast that was the age of Aaron Taylor-Johnson and Elizabeth Olsen. As believable parents, it was somewhat tough to swallow, they seemed more of the young couple just getting married type, not married with kids type, therefore it will be interesting to see how well they are used in Avengers: Age of Ultron.
But what was truly the stand out of this film, hands down, no complaints at all, was the cinematography. Many people feel as though we should have seen more of the fights between Godzilla and M.U.T.O Spoiler ahead (There is one male that can fly and one larger female) end spoiler, yet this was handled perfectly. Instead of consistently showing you these fights every second, we receive the destruction around them either through news broadcasting or distance first person views. What this then does is raise your anticipation levels, which in turn delivers majorly in the film at the end. IT IS MANDATORY (by Turbo Exp standards) that you view this film in order to get the full effect.
The sounds and sights in this film are breathtaking, to put in a short amount of words. There are multiple scenes that can be touched upon, yet those shall be covered later on in the article. One scene shown in the trailer that truly made the audience go insane was a scene in which the entire theater becomes mute, all sounds are removed, we see a tale move through the mist, and then Godzilla releases a roar that will leave you in ah. In terms of visual scale of the beast, it is perfection, giving you not a just large monster running around a city, but a massive beast that crashes into buildings and steps on all things that lie beneath it, just as it logically should.
The score was fitting and made the film seem more monumental in terms of all the actions that occurs, and Alexandre Desplat takes many ques from John Williams' score for Jaws with how he builds up the film's action. Rather than going for a louder theme for the film like many of it's fellow blockbusters have, Desplat decides to go with a much more eerie and mysterious sound to his take. Also auditory sounds of the film were handled almost to perfection, yet for the visual aid it is nearly a automatic Oscar nomination for this film.
To conclude, Godzilla is a film that has rejuvenated the franchise and deserves a sequel (Possibly with Mothra, King Ghidora, and Maybe even a varied incarnation of Godzilla. Destroyah should be used if the film decides to continue , being that he is the most menacing looking Godzilla villain, and he comes at a key point in the life of Godzilla. Other than that Godzilla is worth the IMAX 3D price, a freakishly long review, as well as a buy on Blu-Ray and two thumbs up.
