Godzilla

This is actually probably a good time for a Godzilla film – more so than the forgettable 1998 attempt at Americanisation, which I remember primarily for its soundtrack. We are at a time when it’s fashionable to revere the source material rather than reinvent it – largely thanks to rabid fans of book series – and the kaiju film is in with American audiences, though really there’s just Pacific Rim to base that on.

And this version has gone down well. Respectful to the ideas of the original, keenly aware of the original’s connection with ideas about The Bomb and incorporating the new nuclear anxiety of Fukushima, and featuring top-of-the-range special effects, it does a whole lot right. Gojira himself in all his glory is magnificent – ridiculously huge and ridiculously powerful and far beyond what military power can stand against, the decision to pit Godzilla not against man but against other kaiju was a wise one. It’s unarguable that the climactic battle scenes are what the film is all about, and it’s all a lot of absurd fun with buildings falling over and bridges being torn apart and no less than three immense monsters brawling. Perfect popcorn entertainment.

If, that is, the rest of the film has deftly built up to it. And if there has been a plot with characters we really care about, this could be a very strong action film indeed. Sadly, this is where Godzilla falls short – and indeed, the attempt is what really shoots everything else in the foot. If a bombastic action film is hard to stay awake through, something is very wrong.

But sadly, that was decidedly the case here. I didn’t mind the way the film teased and teased Godzilla himself – it was quite a good idea to have him largely just spines under the water until finally he is revealed with that signature roar. But for that to work, you need something else that’s interesting to take its place.

What Godzilla tried to interest us in was some of the flattest, least likeable human characters I’ve ever seen. They make the cast of World War Z seem as endearing as that of Friends. First we follow Hal from Malcolm in the Middle, now a very serious actor thanks to Breaking Bad, mangling Japanese as a nuclear plant worker with a young son, who faces terrible tragedy as his co-worker wife is lost in a disaster resulting from an unexplained seismic event. Years later, he is convinced that the seismic event was more than, y’know, Japan being Japan, and keeps getting caught going into the quarantine zone and meeting with conspiracy theorists. His estranged son, now in the army, has to come to bail him out. The two return to the quarantine zone at just the right time to witness the newest monster release the same seismic signals – to vindicate his being a crackpot – and a strange giant insect ten times scarier than Mothra emerges to wreak havoc. Hal doesn’t make it, but his son, John Lennon from Nowhere Boy (who I probably met at Jackie Palmer, come to think of it) trying way, way too hard to be Joseph Gordon-Levitt and having none of the boyish charm, takes up the baton to put a stop to the destructive monsters. Which of course, is the job for another mysterious force, Godzilla, who awakens and fights to ‘restore balance’ when similarly enormous monsters make an appearance.

The film is full of coincidence. Hal and John Lennon happen to be at the scene just when the monster awakens – and though this has a little to do with seismic activity, it’s not as though the seismic activity led to an awakening the last time. Lennon then manages to be in the same place as the monster by coincidence over and over and over again. The premise of the three monsters triangulating and Godzilla knowing where they’re going to clash, rather than, y’know, a hunter moving behind one of the beasts it’s hunting, is ridiculous. The film’s use of character shields is far too much, and Godzilla’s weird playing possum at the end just doesn’t get signposted adequately and seems tacked-on for a bit of fake emotion.

But the bigger problem is simply the unlikeable nature of these characters. The sub-Spielberg absent father line never works, Ken Watanabe just looks faintly embarrassed, the mother and young son characters are basically non-existence and nobody gains the audience’s sympathy in any way.

This was a near-miss, admittedly, and I am curious to know what Japanese audiences make of it and its Western leads. The monster part was done right. It’s just time to treat the human part as just as important.