Five years ago today, I got a very nice surprise when our cinema trip to Godzilla took us to the IMAX, and what followed was a two hour decent into a euphoria the likes of which my miserable existence has rarely offered me. Ok, so that was a bit over the top, but you get my point, clearly my Mum thought that seeing Godzilla was a massive deal for me, so she booked us seats for the IMAX, and because she was dead right about how much that meant to me, the IMAX ticket is currently sat on my computer desk in a photo frame. It's since been five years, and while I've devolved from a happy-ish, moderately cynical, cubby college student to a completely miserable, massively cynical, cubby warehouse worker, Godzilla has returned from his slumber and become a titan of the film industry once again, literally evolving into the critical and box office phenomenon that was Shin Godzilla, spawning a cinematic universe state-side, as well as an anime trilogy that we can just pretend doesn't exist for now. And five years after the film that started it all, we finally get a sequel, one that will thrust three of cinema's most iconic kaiju into the mainstream, hopefully. But two years ago today, I posted an in-depth review of Godzilla, a film that I said then was almost nearly a masterpiece, and surprise, surprise, my mind hasn't changed, so in celebration of Godzilla: King of the Monsters, here is that Redux Review, revamped and reposted with better grammar and better wording, because there's always room for improvement. Also, as this is an in-depth review, I'll be spoiling the entire film, which makes telling you what it's about pointless, but there's an order to these things, and somewhere in that order is the obligatory synopsis, so...
Here's what you need to know; Joe Brody has long suspected that the cause of the nuclear disaster that killed his wife was covered up, but when he and his son Ford return to the site in search of answers, they learn the terrifying truth. Something huge is about to be revealed, as forces far older and more powerful than they could possibly imagine emerge from the depths of the Earth, forces humanity is powerless to stop.
Godzilla makes an impression in its opening titles; as the nuke tears up the islands and the camera is swallowed by an atomic shockwave, the title fades in slowly, particles fall from the top of screen, as if to invoke the image of ash or debris, and the distant, echoed sound of screaming people can be heard, these few seconds says so much about the film, the suggestion of ash or debris is reminiscent of natural disasters; Volcanoes, Earthquakes, which is aided by the people screaming, conveyed a sense of terror and tragedy that would come from such a disaster. It's an incredibly subtle touch, but it's one I noticed even back in the IMAX, and it does a fantastic job of setting up the film's tone. Plus, that intro reel with the archive footage and the awesome music was great and sets up the Monarch story line in the film, showing Godzilla being nuked in 1954. It's then that we get the first of a few homages to other films, this time it's Jurassic Park, as a helicopter flies over a dense jungle, only accompanied by ominous and foreboding music. It's at this point that we are introduced to one of the film's major themes, and it's something that can be easily missed; the detail that the miners dug up the MUTOs thinking they'd found Uranium. In a broader sense, it was Man that woke up the MUTO; two of the film's major themes are the Arrogance of Man and the Insignificance of Man, Man waking up the MUTOs is down to his Arrogance, the miners disturbing their spores caused the male MUTO to wake up and start burrowing for Janjira, otherwise it's safe to assume that they'd have stayed dormant.
The Insignificance is also something that can be observed here, as they walk through the cave among the enormous bones, bones that belonged to a creature that no doubt completely dwarfed humans, which is something that comes up a lot in this film. Joe Brody serves to give the events of the film emotional weight, as we see him so committed to his job at the plant that he forgets it's his birthday, informing us of his obsessive nature, which will be important later. The Janjira plant is destroyed and he is forced to seal the door, before saying a crushing goodbye to his doomed wife. This is a heavy scene, you can't help but feel that immense sadness as Joe sees his wife on the other side of the door. She's two feet from him but he's completely powerless to save her, and the film excellently conveys that hopelessness. The film then jumps forward a decade and a half and we now see Joe living alone in an apartment littered with books and newspapers, the walls are covered in newspaper clippings and posters, the only thing missing is red string to tie it all together. Over the years Joe has clearly let his grief, guilt and obsession drive him insane, but at the same time his situation is entirely understandable, he wants to find any reason his wife is dead that doesn't fall to him. What makes Joe such a great character is that motivation, he's a crazy truth seeker, but at the heart of his crusade is a simple desire to understand why his wife is dead, while the only other thing he has in his life, his son, now has his own family, and doesn't want to drag them into his crazy conspiracies. These are two characters that handled an incredible loss in two different, but entirely understandable ways, one trying to forget it and leave that pain behind, while the other has let that pain consume him and drive him insane.
At the heart of Godzilla's first act is that personal story, one that starts with Joe's wife dying, and ends with Ford being reunited with his wife at the end, through this personal drama we are shown an apocalyptic scenario, and that emotional anchor adds a huge amount of realism to that apocalyptic scenario. It's a bit of a waste that Joe dies so early on in the film, dying from his injuries after the MUTO's suspenseful escape, because without him as an emotional anchor, the film loses a lot of its emotional weight, and with Ford being a much colder and more reserved character than Joe, there isn't really anything to replace that loss. But he is also a catalyst for the film's story, and in many ways, this film is a thriller, with mysteries and twists that build to the big moment, which we'll get to. As much as I adore this film, I will admit that killing Joe off in the first act was a mistake, as he is, from an emotional aspect, easily the film's strongest character. Before being a drama or even a thriller however, this film is a philosophical tackling of the conflict between Man and Nature, and that becomes very evident in the Janjira quarantine zone. The city is eerie; devoid of humans, and slowly being retaken by the land, overgrown with plants, and inhabited only with animals like wolves, a subtle signifier that Nature is going to win in this battle with Man, not very original, but it's where the film goes. Meanwhile in the plant Man continues to meddle with Nature, studying the MUTO as it grows, inadvertently letting it become a threat to humanity's existence, because of not just scientific curiosity, but arrogance, a misguided belief that the situation was under control when it so very wasn't.
And when we get our first really good look of the MUTO, the theme of insignificance is perfectly encapsulated as Ford looks up in amazement at the massive creature climbing up out of the pit, and its true size is revealed. The film has several of these shots; with humans in the foreground and the Kaiju in the background, to show the audience how small they are in comparison to the kaiju. This is also the scene where Joe dies, and in my last posting of this Redux Review, I tried to justify his premature death. While I still think what I said was at least kind of true; that in the film's themes of human insignificance, a loved one dying makes sense, with Ford having his dad prematurely taken from him by a force of nature outside of his control, just as a hurricane or earthquake would, that doesn't really change the fact that the second and third acts of the film lack the emotional weight of the first. The film establishes a conflict between Joe and Ford, that being Ford's distancing from Joe after his mum died, and that could have made for a compelling ark for the two of them as they reconcile in the midst of this apocalypse, but that's never allowed to happen, and I'll finally be honest about it, it's a waste. And in Joe's place, we have a reserved soldier, which is undeniably a downgrade, as good as you feel Ford may or may not be as a character. On one hand, his calm and level headed demeanour is beneficial to the film's grander scenes, as he serves as the audience's eyes in many of these scenes, but on the other hand, he's a bit boring, which is probably a factor in why this film is so divisive, outside of the obvious.
Let's jump ahead to Hawaii and check out a visual metaphor, a close up of a lizard with soldiers in the background not paying it any attention. It's a clever reversal, as now we see a creature that is tiny and insignificant to us, just as we are tiny and insignificant to the Kaiju, and that tiny creature is a lizard, how very poetic. The Hawaii sequence is a masterclass in building suspense, from the missing submarine in the jungle, all the way up to the Airport, this scene builds and builds the dread and anticipation, as the MUTO causes chaos on the island and the sea recedes. A second creature appears on radar, and Serizawa rushes to the flight deck, believing, almost hoping that it's Godzilla, for whom he has an immense amount of respect, even adoration. On the flight deck, he peers through his binoculars as three rows of spines emerge from the sea and thunder towards the ship. It's fitting that Godzilla arrival is heralded by a tsunami, given the film's themes of Man vs Nature, but as the camera pans up from the flooded street, up the building, as the flares illuminate a massive creature and the crowd stares up at it in shock and awe, the tension is replaced with that same awe as an impossibly large creature strolls past, apathetic to the chaos it's causing. This brief sequence shows off very little of the creature's appearance, showing us little more than a huge, reptilian hand, some serious thunderthighs, and a long, spine covered tail as it sweeps around a building. We already know what this creature is, but even so, Gareth Edwards teases and teases, giving us only tiny glimpses to build the suspense and anticipation. This culminates at the Airport, where the power coming back on illuminates the MUTO looming over Ford's train and we get that beautiful shot from inside the terminal as an impossibly massive foot thuds into frame, silencing the screaming crowd inside as they watch in awe.
Do you remember how I said earlier that there was an obvious thing that makes this film divisive, well, here it is; Edwards builds and builds and builds this reveal, creating so much excitement as we get our first look at the Big G, with the camera slowly panning up his body, from the toy planes at his feet to his vicious, animalistic face, as he revs up and lets out an earthshattering roar. This is now peak excitement; this scene has reached its climax and the audience is craving what is bound the follow, a throw down. So what does Edwards to as the audience twitches and trembles with a need for that sweet, sweet release, he cuts away, cutting to Ford's wife and kid seeing the Honolulu fight on the news. This might be the worst blue-balling in movie history, and I can not only see why this rubbed a lot of people the wrong way, I can kind of understand it. The previous scene was so, so effective at building the anticipation, the final shot of the scene is a about as awesome as it is possible to comprehend, only for it all to be a massive tease. The film does this once or twice more before the finale, but none of them are as bad as this one; Edwards may have intended for this scene to be frustrating, but he did that a little too effectively, and it turned a lot of people off this film, not me, mind you, though I can't exactly say they're wrong for being pissed off by this scene. Last time I posted this Redux, I also tried to explain it away as the film sticking to the representation of the kaiju as forces of nature, like earthquakes, and how most people never see the earthquake itself, only the wreckage and rubble left behind on the news, and like my justifying of Joe's early death, it is true, but it's not very satisfying for the audience. This is a problem that's been getting more prevalent in the last couple of years in entertainment; writers and directors subverting the audience's expectations and failing to substitute that expectation with something satisfying, with the excuse being that no one saw it coming and therefore it was good. But while it's usually the result of writers and directors being morons, it feels very deliberate in Godzilla, making me wonder if Gareth Edwards, whose previous and at the time only other film; Monsters was also very understated and restrained, struggles with knowing not how much is too much, but in a twist, a subversion if you will, how much is too little.
There is another scene where Edwards builds the tension, that being the scene where the female MUTO attacks the train. This scene is less effective than the airport scene, as it more hastily builds up to the attack, with the MUTO apparently being a ninja with a knack for dramatic timing. But the scene does effectively convey the uselessness of the military against the MUTO; first with the river full of wrecked, burning Tanks, then with the sequence with Ford and the other guy on the bridge as the MUTO gets unnervingly close. This scene makes good use of the unseen, with the MUTO first destroying the defences, then wiping out the train itself, all either off screen or concealed by darkness, with the only clue of what's going on being distant screams and the crackle of gunfire. This use of the unseen serves two purposes, the serve the film's theme of the insignificance of Man, and to create dread around the female MUTO, as she does something to the train, we don't know what, but when we next see it, it's on fire, we don't see what happens to the Tanks, we just know that they end up in the river, completely wrecked. It also highlights the flaw in this plan to nuke the Kaiju, again rolling with the notion that Man's meddling with Nature and attempts to fight it will always do more harm than good. The nukes will not work, Serizawa knows it and so do we, nothing we can do will work, Man just has to get out of the way while Nature does its thing and Godzilla restores balance. Even on a purely visual level however, the scene still conveys this theme, just as the Airport scene did through that shot in the terminal, both that shot and this scene show humans in the shadow of the kaiju, showing off their immense size and our comparatively tiny and insignificant presence. The soldiers on the roof were useless, Godzilla didn't even notice them, just as Tanks were useless against the female MUTO, Man's meddling is annoying at best, self-destructive at worst, and in keeping with this theme of Man vs Nature, we get one of my favourite scenes in the film, the Golden Gate bridge scene.
The scene starts out somewhat foreboding, with the bridge partially obscured by rain and cloud, but everything appears fine with the police aiding people along the bridge and the kids on the bus getting all excited by the military presence, but like the foot in the airport, everything comes to a stop with a single noise, a distant roar. The suspense builds as the birds all start flying inland, as if they're flying away from something, Godzilla's spines emerge from the fog, ploughing towards the warships around the bridge, but they stop before impact. Godzilla's spines already look big in this scene, but then it's quite excellently revealed that that's just his tail, as the much larger spines on his back start lifting the Warships out of the water like toys. In the ensuing panic, several ships fire their missiles and end up hitting the Golden Gate bridge, but before the bridge takes more fire, Godzilla rises, blocking the stray missiles and casting a literal and metaphorical shadow over the people on the bridge with his sheer size. When I think of the Lovecraftian horror of this film, I always think of this scene, because there is no better example in the film of this almost cosmic horror. Godzilla may be simply an animal, but to Man, he might as well be a God, a creature that casts humanity into complete insignificance with his very existence. When Godzilla attacks the bridge, it's just one great shot after another after another, as the people on the bridge, and by extension the audience, bear witness to the enormity of Godzilla; taking missiles and tank shells to the face and only being mildly annoyed by them. The camera is always kept at ground level with extreme low angles, and Edwards deliberately keeps Godzilla's entire form out of the shot to impose a sense of scale upon the audience, one similar to his first appearance in Honolulu, which enforces the horror of the scene.
The children are screaming as Godzilla destroys the bridge, put yourself in that position, a few dozen people at least were just killed by a creature so impossible and monstrous, how scared out of your mind would you be. How oppressive would the feeling of insignificance be as you looked up at this God, you probably would scream. Also notice how ineffective the bridge is at stopping his progress, again feeding into the film's themes of Man vs Nature, or in this case, Godzilla vs an American landmark. Like a hurricane, Man's creations are not safe from Nature's forces. It's at this point that the army arms the bomb that they plan to use to kill Godzilla and the MUTOs, right before the male MUTO arrives and fucks everything up. The boat loses power after an EMP blast comes from somewhere in the clouds above, and Edwards does his thing again, with a beautiful escalation as the lights go out, followed by Ford's wife seeing a parachute descending through the mist, right before it starts raining fighter jets. I really like this scene, like Godzilla and the warships, the MUTO renders the fighter jets completely useless as they fall from the sky like toys. As usual, the MUTO completely ignores the soldiers shooting at it and dive bombs that boat, making off with its nuclear cargo before hooking up with the female, which is made a great scene by how it shows the size difference; even with as huge as the male is, the female makes him look tiny, and the shot of him landing and her emerging from the debris is incredible, establishing her as the primary threat through her size and through the male's submissive nature around her, she's the boss, the big bad.
The next few minutes of the film consist of the soldiers planning out their mission to disarm the live nuke that is now buried under downtown San Francisco. Up until this point in the fight of Man vs Nature, Man has done nothing constructive; we woke up the MUTO, then failed to contain the MUTO, and then failed to stop the MUTO, even with all of our tanks and planes, but why stop there, why not break out the nukes, how could that possibly go wrong. But it's here that Serizawa delivers his most memorable line, though we're not going to focus on the "let them fight" bit, we're focusing on the rest of it. "The arrogance of Man is thinking Nature is in our control, and not the other way around," in this line, Serizawa sums up the film's primary themes perfectly, and in the context of this quote, we can see the decision to use nukes as Man's arrogance. All of Man's toys have proven useless against this new and terrifying threat, but Man still has an ace up his sleeve; the atomic bomb, the crowning achievement of Man bending Nature's power to his will. This is the arrogance part, thinking Nature is in our control, but now not only do we have to deal with monsters that we woke up, we now have to deal with our secret weapon which has not only failed, but is now as much of a threat to human life as the monsters themselves. This is the self-destructive aspect of Man's fight with Nature; relentlessly scrambling to get the upper hand on a foe that cannot be defeated. It's a shame though that people gravitate to the "Let them fight" bit of that quote, especially with now divisive this film is for its lack of fighting, in fact it's the very next scene where the male MUTO and Godzilla square up for a rematch that we never see.
Then there's the infamous HALO jump scene; where the highlight we are treated to is hellish and ominous imagery, intense and unnerving music, and a fantastic point of view shot of the Monsters. This scene maybe visually beautiful, but there isn't that much else to say about it; It's a great sequence to put in a trailer, which is almost certainly why it was in the trailer, but it isn't the most thought provoking scene in the film, nor is it the most suspenseful or beautiful, that still goes to Honolulu. Like Honolulu though, the sequence does know how to build the tension thanks to its great music and cinematography. We also get the amazing POV shot of Godzilla, as well as that even better shot after they land of Godzilla simply walking past, his massive tail sweeping down the street. But this sequence primarily serves to kick off the finale, which kicks off properly in the China town clash. This sequence is also similar to Honolulu as the music calms and the camera pans upwards. This entire finale is complete eye candy, and it starts here, with a tail whipping slowly through the fog and a flash of lightning revealing a godly silhouette. Into view comes Godzilla's face as he revs up again for the most intense roar of the film, a roar that kind of unnerved me when I saw it in the IMAX, not that I minded. This roar is how the final battle is kicked off, as the MUTO charges, opening a window for the soldiers to attack the nest while Godzilla grabs her and drags her through a building. We then get a scene of the soldiers exploring the nest and seeing all the little MUTOs swimming around inside their eggs, which is lovely, but this sequence serves to give the finale a bit more urgency by giving our heroes and Godzilla a time limit; just twenty-seven minutes before the bomb goes off and everyone dies.
The build-up is now over, let the throw down begin, and Pacific Rim this is not; the fighting is not intelligent, it's animalistic, it's swiping of claws and thudding of insectoid limbs, nor is the fighting flashy, its vicious and impactful. This is the act of the film that will appease people looking for Monster Mayhem, and appease them it will as Godzilla and the MUTOs kick the ever-loving shit out of each other. The MUTOs get the upper hand in this fight, with Godzilla unable to keep up with two targets as they work together to turn him black and blue. But this stops when Ford tries to be a hero, having stayed behind to destroy the nest while the rest of the team try to extract the bomb. This scene manages to turn the MUTOs into more sympathetic creatures as the female MUTO cries about her dead babies, after all, they are just animals, all they wanted to do was hook up. When some debris falls on Ford, the MUTO looks up and stares right at him. She gets real close, but is distracted from getting her revenge when a mysterious blue glow lights up behind her. I've got a few favourite moments in this film, but the one that hit me hardest, so hard in fact that I was literally crying in the IMAX, it was this moment; as Godzilla's tail emerges from the darkness, a blue glow running up its length, the shot cuts to a wide as the glow travels up Godzilla's back and he revs up again before letting her have it. This scene is just so cool, from how deliberately slowly he charges the shot for dramatic effect, to the intense, elemental hum of the beam, to the MUTO's reaction of just dropping to the floor. This is one of only two times in the film that he uses the atomic breath, and it's not the cooler of the two, but its execution is so effective and so, so cool.
While the female MUTO sits there in abject shock, the fight carries on with the male swooping in for a sucker punch, but the female's rage is reignited when she hears the soldiers trying to escape with the nuke, which makes for some of the film's most visually horrifying shots as the female MUTO charges towards the boat. Meanwhile, Godzilla and the male are still scrapping, with Godzilla landing a killing blow when he tail slams the MUTO into the side of a building, which is awesome, it sounds awesome too, turn up your volume for that tail slam. But what's even more awesome is that we now get a little moment of humanisation with Godzilla as he stops to catch his breath. This is very subtle, but it shows us that Godzilla in this film is not just an unstoppable engine of destruction, he needs to stop and breathe for a minute because he's tired. And the face he pulls when he looks up to see the building coming down, doesn't it just scream "are you fucking kidding." The humanisation continues as Ford and Godzilla come face to face and share a respectful glance. Ford doesn't look scared, just as Godzilla doesn't look angry or disgusted, there's an incredibly understated sense of understanding here, suggesting that Godzilla may not be purely apathetic to humans and has no direct interest in hurting them, while Ford's lack of fear suggests that humans don't need to be scared of Godzilla and that the two can coexist, which is something the sequel is very clearly going to be playing with. In this scene, Godzilla is not the ancient alpha predator, he's a tired, old hero, like Ford, he's a soldier with the mission of making wrong things right.
Ford makes it to the boat just in time to see the rest of the team get either eaten or swatted by the MUTO, taking the opportunity to take off in the boat. But before he can get far, the boat dies as a massive, insectoid foot falls into frame. This film really knows how to make its monsters look huge and menacing, as the get a very menacing wide of the MUTO looming over the boat and staring down at Ford, who, in a somewhat comedic final stand, draws his pistol after seeing her be only slightly annoyed by rockets just seconds earlier. But before the MUTO can get her revenge, she stops, and the camera pans to reveal the Big G sinking his teeth into her shoulder. We then get a beautiful wide of Godzilla wrestling with the MUTO, grabbing her mouth and yanking it open, giving us what probably isn't the coolest death of any monster in Godzilla's long and colourful history, but who cares, it's so cool. Godzilla pulls her mouth open, charges up his atomic breath and fires it down her throat, killing her instantly and burning away her neck. Something that always sticks out to me in this shot is how her arms are wrapped around Godzilla and clawing at him, and how when he fires his breath down her throat, those swiping, clawing limbs all go limp. Let's face it though, that's not what you're really looking at in this shot, you're looking at the absolute savagery as Godzilla gives the MUTO the meanest kiss in the history of history. with the MUTOs vanquished, Godzilla lets out a triumphant roar, throws the MUTO's severed head into the bay, and then does something very ungodly, he staggers ashore and faints.
Let's ignore the little detail that there is no way in hell that the boat made it far enough away in time, given that it was still in the bay with five minutes on the timer, but I've seen this film eight times now and I can assure that the magic teleporting nuke is only the tip of an iceberg of illogic and inconsistencies. I can ignore them though because that fight was fucking awesome, and any will I may or may not have had to criticise this film's illogic melted away like the female MUTO's neck. But carrying on the unusual parallel with Godzilla and Ford, as Ford falls and begins to lose consciousness, he watches Godzilla collapse, and when we next see him, he's still lying motionless in the ruins of San Francisco, trying his hardest to make the audience think he's dead. It's very bizarre that the film would show Godzilla like this, but it is consistent with how the film portrays Godzilla and the MUTOs as animals. Godzilla's massive, seemingly lifeless corpse looms over the scene of chaos he and the MUTOs created, with firefighters and soldiers digging around in the rubble looking for survivors, a scene very reminiscent of disasters and tragedies that have happened in our world. And in a final, rather poetic spin on the arrogance of Man theme, as Godzilla wakes up from his nap and makes his way out of the city, we see news coverage of him branding him the "King of the Monsters - Savour of Our City?" As Ford and his family make a tearful reunion, the crowd around them cheer for their hero, the King of the Monsters. Never mind that Godzilla levelled two cities and probably killed tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of people, Godzilla saved the city, he's a hero. This is quite the bittersweet ending, one that serves the films themes deliciously.
On the one hand, the survivors hailing the Big G as a hero only shows that Man is still arrogant, even in the shadow of a God, we see the actions of said God as an act of heroism, as that God saving us rather than just cleaning up our mess. But on the other hand, it's a somewhat hopeful ending as now we have Godzilla, a creature that will emerge when he's needed to restore the balance of nature, in a way, he is a guardian, one who we can rely on to put things right, even if he's not doing it for us. There is a brilliant idea for a sequel here, one I wanted Godzilla: King of the Monsters to explore and said as much in my previous posting of this review. It does appear that the sequel will be addressing it however; I wanted to see a post-Godzilla world, one still in confusion and fear after San Francisco, maybe one where entire religions have sprung up around Godzilla, where politicians ponder on the implications of a major city being flattened in hours by a creature that we cannot stop. It all sounds a little Batman V Superman-ish, doesn't it, but it's something I think would be cool; seeing just how the world reacts to the events of this film and to the revelation that monsters exist. King of the Monsters however looks a bit too straight forward for that, which I don't mind at all, but it does make me think; what would Godzilla: King of the Monsters look like if Gareth Edwards stayed on, I highly doubt that we'd be getting the same movie, and I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing after Gareth Edwards created a film as thoughtful and compelling as this. And the final shot of Godzilla's spines disappearing beneath the waves is rather symbolic. The world as we understand it is gone forever, but a new peace has been created by the events of this film; sure, three cities are gone now and humanity's true place in the world has forever been cast into uncertainty, but so long as Godzilla lives, there will always be a force to restore balance, there will always be hope so long as we stay out of the way and let them fight.
Nature Has an Order, A Power to Restore Balance, I Believe He is That Power
happy Birthday to my favourite film of 2014, to the Godzilla film I never knew I wanted. In the Blu-ray's special features, director Gareth Edwards talked about wanting to make a film that would stand the test of time, and in my opinion, he completely nailed it. Godzilla isn't the crowd pleasing kaiju clash that I think most of its haters wanted it to be, it's something else entirely and in my opinion, it's all the better for it, even if the Honolulu fight was a piss take. That's not the only problem of course, there's also Joe's premature death, but there's just so much good in this film that I can forgive most of its flaws. Like the best Godzilla films, under the surface is a complex web of ideas and themes that blend together into a genuinely thought provoking monster movie that never fails be hugely entertaining, it's an epic, non-stop thriller that I really can watch again and again and again. Godzilla is brilliant, I genuinely think that, and it's absolutely a must watch.
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