An affection for the iconic monster

As early as February of this year, I already had a glimpse of the teaser poster, saw the teaser trailer and read a little bit about "Godzilla", Gareth Edwards' take on Japanese cinema's most iconic giant monster. Three months after, the film finally makes its way to our local screens. And now the big question:Is it worth the wait and the hype? It's a hit-and-miss affair. The film is maybe not the most definitive and awesome version, but it's still a fantastic entertainment. Compared to the Roland Emmerich version back in 1998 (starring Matthew Broderick, Sarah Jessica Parker and Jean Reno), which turned Godzilla into a rampaging beast-on-the-loose ala-T-Rex in "Jurassic Park", Gareth Edwards' film is the more superior one. 

It's said that the latest "Godzilla" is a true fanboy output. That would lead us to expect that the film would not just be a mere popcorn, mindless entertainment. All noise, but no sensibility, the kind which Michael Bay and Roland Emmerich have been mostly churning out through all these years, for god's sake. Well, it's pleasant to find out that a fanboy blood does indeed run through the film's veins. Now blessed with a much more bigger budget and much more recognizable actors than those he had for "Monsters", his previous smaller-scale sci-fi/creature flick but no less awesome (it becomes a hindsight now that this film could've been paving the way for "Godzilla"), the director certainly had all the means in putting all his creative fanboy juices to use. And that, he definitely did - with considerably precocious liberty. 

As in the classic 1954 Japanese film by Ishiro Honda, "Gojira", Edwards' "Godzilla" has something nasty to say about the horrific consequences of nuclear weapons and, in effect, man's megalomania. But whereas the former was strictly situated in the present (or that is, about nearly a decade after the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki) and maintained its allegorical tone throughout (which lends its truly unique stature among all the "Godzilla" movies), the latter takes further the time capsule to our own present time to probably suggest that the nuclear horror could endure for a lifetime. But for some strangely amusing reason, the director is able to place in the sidelines whatever political tone that his film may have and instead offers a purely visual and visceral sci-fi spectacle (which could be either good or bad, depending on how one takes his/her political-orientedness by heart;in my own case, I just don't mind for now). And to take his fanboy enthusiasm even further, Edwards doesn't only put the limelight exclusively on Godzilla itself, but also on two equally gigantic and malevolent monsters which, in effect, become the former's nemesis (something which the teaser trailer didn't allude to), giving a nod to all those "Godzilla vs. Other Monster" movies that spawned after the release of the original film. And as suggested beforehand, it's a real good thing that Edwards isn't like Michael Bay or Roland Emmerich - all slam-and-bang, but utterly lacks a sense of visual acuity. As he already displayed in "Monsters", the director possesses a filmmaker's eye for a fantastic and carefully-crafted visual spectacle. He knows how to initially suggest or give a hint, before finally giving a full picture of the mammoth creatures, as in how he first covers Godzilla in smoke or haze, or shows its "minute" profiles, before he eventually lifts the curtain and reveals it in full close-up. And in such instances, one can't help but sense the director's true affection for the monster, staying close to how it actually looked like back in 1954 (even if this time, it's no longer the "man in the rubber suit") and registering at some point how it shows "tenderness" in its eyes or how it actually "smiles". Likewise, his reveal of the approach or aftermath of a disaster is keenly structured, either through slow pan or a sense of foreboding or a panoramic scope. In that sense, he is closer to Peter Jackson and Steven Spielberg. 

Well, almost. And this is where another of the film's "strange" quality lies (which again, may be either good or bad, depending on how one prefers his/her summer popcorn flick). In a spectacle-ridden film like this one, Spielberg and Jackson (or even Emmerich and Bay) may bathe their movies in sweet sentimentality and energetic humor to further pump up the proceedings. But in Edwards' "Godzilla" (as in Honda's "Gojira"), one can sense the director's effort in preventing the film from needlessly crossing over into such territory that it runs the risk of being accused of lacking "heart and humor". The film does have its fair share of drama and comedy, but there's just this uncanny "distancing" effect. That's why this version of Godzilla has its own brand of sensibility, not all vacuous bang-and-crash and tiring kinetic energy (read:"Armageddon" and "2014"). What's even more revealing (and I'm not entirely sure if it was just me) is how the film manages to be "sexual" at various points - the giant creatures' need to "mate" and "hatch", the sticky fluids, the motif of the nuclear weapons, the "unexpected" shot of the male monster's dangling scrotum and that particular scene where the creature inserts inside itself one of the nuclear weapons. Sleazy beasts! Aside from this is how the musical score by Jacques Audiard-and-Wes Anderson collaborator Alexandre Desplat manages to lend an air of trippiness to some scenes (listen for example to his work on that particular scene where the soldiers do a skydive in preparation for an attack on Godzilla;it's very much like hearing a trippy track from "2001:A Space Odyssey"!). 

Lastly - and this could probably become a major contention in the film, depending again on one's own preferences - is how the total personality of Edwards' Godzilla manages to leave an impression in the end. This is an outright departure from how Honda's Gojira came across by the time his film reached its conclusion. From the way the director and the screenwriters have envisioned it, Godzilla is not a totally malevolent beast that one may initially think of it. This could probably be their ultimate show of affection for the iconic monster.

A dramatic portrait of Godzilla:Gareth Edwards surely loves the beast