Updated ‘Godzilla’ a giant pleaser
Print Edition
NO one can blame Gareth Edwards for admittedly feeling nervous when asked to helm a remake of the biggest monster movie of all time. Sure, the only other film he directed happened to be 2010’s “Monsters.” But this time, it was Godzilla.
Well, the latest iteration of the 60-year-old franchise is in capable hands. Edwards’ “Godzilla” is a pleasingly paced 3D spectacle that pays chilling homage to the artful legacy of the original 1954 film — Ishiro Honda’s “Gojira” — while emerging as its own prodigious monster movie.
Created as a symbol of the nuclear threat following America’s atomic attacks on Japan, Godzilla’s reappearance suggests the nuclear tests conducted by the US in the Pacific after World War II were really meant to hold the radioactive dinosaur back.
This story begins in Japan in 1999 as nuclear physicist Joe Brody (an edgy Bryan Cranston) investigates questionable seismic activity at the Janjira nuclear power plant.
When a team at the plant, including his scientist wife, Sandra (an underused Juliette Binoche), dies in what everyone believes is a natural disaster, Joe dedicates his life to proving that what caused the devastation was anything but natural. His obsession creates a rift between himself and his son, Ford.
Fifteen years later, we catch up with Ford in San Francisco, where he lives with his wife and their son.
Serving in the US Navy, Ford disarms bombs, a skill that later helps him save the planet from MUTOs — “Massive Unidentified Terrestrial Organism” — that emerge from a long dormancy and begin traveling the globe, feeding on radiation.
Screenwriter Max Borenstein, working from a story by Dave Callaham, doesn’t bombard us with multiple narratives or a multitude of characters.
Instead, the film focuses on Ford’s family story.
When we finally see Godzilla — just shy of an hour into the film — the anticipation has built to such a degree that we expect to be awe-struck. And we are.
The tallest of any Godzillas before him, this one stands 355 feet high — about 30 stories — with glistening, scaly skin and dorsal fin spikes down his back. His terrifying yet textured roar shakes the theater.
Aiming for a realistic take on how we might react to an invasion by giant creatures, Edwards makes sure our view of them rarely shifts from the human perspective.
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