Review: Many years ago I have seen the original Godzilla which was shot in 1954 in Black & White, looks cheap and overplayed, but has something interesting to it. No wonder it is the father of all monster movies. Since then I have seen the latest of the Japanese Godzilla movies entitled Final Wars (2004). It was nice to watch but stupid and cheap, trying to use partly American cast. Two years ago I watched again the Godzilla by Roland Emmerich (1998). I find it OK but too much adapted to the American taste, with its mix of Action and Comedy, not really paying homage to its creature. Even the design of it looks "friendly", like if it had a smile on its face.
The director of this new non-Japanese Godzilla was undoubtedly chosen because of his excellent Monsters in which he was showing how to produce a good monsters movie for a low budget by giving a great importance to his characters. The decision to produce Godzilla movie was also motivated by the recent release of Pacific Rim.
After this long introduction, what do I think about the new Godzilla? Well I think it is much much closer to the original spirit of the Godzilla series than the 1998 version was. The comparison can be made with the King Kong movies: The story of the original (1933) was largely changed for the 1978 version, but Peter Jackson made in 2005 a true homage.
You can recognize in this Godzilla the style of Gareth Edwards Monsters, i.e. you stay very close to the characters and see the creatures only progressively, often they fight off-screen, and only in the end you get to see them in all their splendor. While this is an interesting choice, it can be frustrating, but unlike in Pacific Rim where you had several monsters, here you cannot show Godzilla fighting the same enemy several times., that would have been too redundant.
The side story suffers from the World War Z syndrome, i.e. the hero happens to be every time at the right location where shit happens. In order to show something more than just a movie in which creatures fight, there is a family story which seems forced and suffers from many ellipses. Although I liked the editing of the creature scenes, I disliked the one of the family scenes (except for the introductory one which was good).
To conclude on a positive note, I have to say that I loved the design of Godzilla looking exactly like he did back in 1954, except that the digital effects gave a lot of character to the beast where a man in a rubber suit couldn't really. |
