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Review: Godzilla (2014)

By Christine Petralia

Image courtesy of Warner Bros Pictures

May 17, 2014

 

I probably should have watched a few of the Godzilla films before heading to watch the latest version of it. And then I would have realized that in some instances Godzilla is seen as a savior rather than a monster looking to destroy civilization. And that’s just what this 2014 film was. While there were two ‘monsters’ out to mate and maybe take over, it wasn’t a nuclear weapon or humans who destroyed them, it was Godzilla.

 

The film starts with footage from 1954 when all you really see are fins of Godzilla and a nuclear blast. Then it’s 1999 in the Philippines where scientists Ishiro Serizawa and Vivienne Graham (Ken Watanabe and Sally Hawkins) are called to a site where fossils have been found with two egg-shaped pods.  They realize that one of the pods has hatched and within days, a nuclear plant in Japan suffers an explosion and radiation leak. In that plant works Joe Brody (Bryan Cranston) and his wife. He has been feeling ‘tremors’ for days, but no one has listened to him. He sends his wife down to inspect, and her team is killed in the radiation leak before the plant itself explodes. The city chalks it up to an earthquake and quarantines the area.

 

Fifteen years later, Brody’s son Ford (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) works as an EOD specialist in the Navy. Just as he comes home to his wife Elle (Elizabeth Olsen) and son in San Francisco, he gets a call that his father has been arrested in Japan for trespassing in the quarantined area. He heads to Japan to get his father and bring him home, however, he sees that his father is obsessed with the explosion years earlier. Brody is convinced the government is covering up what actually happened, and he’s been tracking ‘sounds’ in the ocean that are similar patterns from 15 years earlier. He wants to get his data from his old home. Seeing how determined his father is, Ford goes with him. They get the data and realize that the area is not filled with radiation as previously thought. They are then arrested and brought to a plant near the old nuclear plant.

 

At this plant are Ishiro and Vivienne, where they are studying a massive chrysalis. However, the pod hatches and destroys the facility. Just before it sucks up all of the radiation and power, it then flies away. Ford manages to survive, but his father dies after they are rescued. Ishiro informs the Navy and Ford that the creature they saw was a MUTO, which they had been studying. It feeds off of radiation and radioactive material. Ishiro also informs them that another bigger creature has been tracking the MUTO since 1954. It is then that Ford informs the crew that his father had heard the sounds in the water and Ishiro realizes that a third creature, most likely female, is alive and getting ready to mate. That is where the first MUTO is headed – to the U.S. to find the second creature.  The second was being held at the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository.  However, it has, of course, hatched and is wrecking havoc through Las Vegas as it heads to the coast to meet up with her mate in … San Francisco.

 

As they devise a plan to lure the creatures with a nuclear weapon into the ocean to kill all three, Ford manages to get a chopper to Hawaii, where he will catch a flight home to his wife and kids. But of course, that’s where the MUTO is headed first, feeding off a Russian nuclear submarine. Ford convinces someone in the military that he can manage to arm and disarm an old nuclear weapon manually, as they can’t use the automatic ones because the creatures emit signals that suck all the energy. His ulterior motive is to get home.

 

The MUTOs manage to get to San Francisco first, as does Godzilla. And then madness ensues and the monsters all fight each other, with Godzilla shooting energy/fire to destroy the MUTOs. Godzilla even manages to ‘save’ Ford from the female MUTO. Godzilla seems to have been killed as well. However, as cleanup begins and families reunite, including Ford and his family, Godzilla wakes up and goes back into the ocean. Ready to perhaps save the world from more monsters.

 

I was a little disappointed in the lack of big names in the film, but it managed OK on its own. There was a lot of plot development. However, once the destruction began, boy, did buildings and cities get destroyed. I did find it ironic that the monsters were converging on San Francisco, as opposed to, Los Angeles, since that’s really a straight shot from Vegas. But then there wouldn’t have been conflict with Ford’s family and there wouldn’t have been that amazing Golden Gate Bridge scene where the hero bus driver just decides to drive through barricades (and the monsters) to safety. Smart driver, as the bridge quickly gets destroyed as he makes it across.

 

I thought for a disaster movie with one central theme of monsters it ran a little long. And it was a little homage to previous Godzilla films with him being the hero. Don’t know if 3D IMAX is worth it, but I saw it in RPX and my chair was shaking. Since it’s really the only disaster film out besides super hero films, it’s worth it. But if you’re not into the story of Godzilla or disaster films, skip it and wait until it’s on cable.

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