Godzilla

 

Gareth Edwards established a name for himself with the indie hit Monsters, a love story set in a fictional world of extra-terrestrial invaders who resembles giant squids, and here continues his attempt to reinvigorate the monster movie with this reboot of Toho’s iconic kaiju. Written by Max Borenstein, Godzilla may not re-invent the King of the Monsters entirely successfully, but there are traces of brilliance in this otherwise sleep inducing film.

Following the estranged Brody family as they attempt to uncover the conspiracy that claimed one of their own, disgraced scientist Joe (Bryan Cranston) and bomb-disposal expert son Ford (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) soon find that it was not man, but nature to blame. When faced with the wrath of two science experiments gone wrong, the world must turn to an unlikely protector: Godzilla.

 

Edwards’ reboot of Ishiro Honda’s seminal 1954 Godzilla is neither horrendously made, nor excruciatingly dull, but is far from the excellent standard set by previews, and at its worst makes for the most frustrating time at the cinema since The Return of the King refused to end. For Edwards, the largest problem stems from his own aesthetic and visual sensibilities overshadowing the performances and story, although largely excellent (particularly Seamus McGarvey’s bleak cinematography) his bold choices occasionally frustrate and diminish his good work; namely a vein bursting refusal to show a San Fran punch up in full.

 

His orchestration of action when they do come show a director with a deft hand at showcasing destruction, and serves as an interesting counter to last summer’s Man of Steel. There is destruction, carnage and death, but Edwards never takes these lightly. Showing an awareness of the pain and misery natural events cause millions, thematically it may not be as strong as the anti-nuclear message of the original, but this reboot’s vision of man’s arrogance is intelligent enough to stand out amidst its peers. This darkness hangs over ever scene, and whilst bold has a tendency to drain most action set-pieces of fun, meaning that when Godzilla finally rears his head for what should be a tremendous climactic show-down, we instead get a short, enjoyable bout of action that never reaches the heights of Matt Reeves’ Cloverfield.

 

The cast, unfortunately, do not help proceedings, and often threaten to derail the film entirely. The usually reliable Juliette Binoche and Bryan Cranston are left as nothing more than caricatures of genre tropes, with Cranston in particular struggling to register as anything more than a lunatic in a jumpsuit. Taylor-Johnson is the more engaging of the leads, his character may be bland but Taylor-Johnson plays an every-man well enough to make up for the scripts shortcomings. The supporting cast are an assortment of familiar character actors attempting to make the best of a bad situation, with only Ken Watanabe coming out unscathed as an environmentally conscience scientist.

 

Ultimately, Godzilla’s shortcomings stem from a lack of screen time for its titular monster, and a script that gives an exceptional cast little to work with. Gareth Edwards has made one of the most visually arresting blockbusters of recent times, but more often than not fails to excite. King of the monsters this is not, but there is enough here to satisfy fans. Lower your expectations and you might have a good time.

 

Upon reflection of my media diary, I realised that I consume a wide variety of genre, but rarely drift from the medium of television and film. My consumed media spanned across four different decades, but I never watched anything before 1980, this made me realise that I had a reluctance about pre-1970s cinema and my viewing habits should perhaps change in order to watch a wider variety of film. The genres spanned across a wide range, including drama, comedy, action and fantasy and across 3 continents, this shows that my media is not confined to Hollywood.

 

None of the films that I viewed this week featured a female lead, showing that I gravitate towards a more male-lead film, but this could also be put down to the lack of female-lead Hollywood movies. A large majority of my media was also watched at home, both via Netflix and Blu-ray. 3 of the films watched were first time watches, showing that despite my rewatching of television that I manage to branch out into finding new cinema that I haven’t watched. A lot of the media I watched this week were very heavily focused on violence, as shown in Game of Thrones, Skyfall and 13 Assassins. Game of Thrones and 13 Assassins have both been described at some time as “gratuitously violent”, this could possibly represent that I consume a lot of violent media, however, I do not believe that this is out of the ordinary for a normal weekly viewing experience due to the amount of films/television that contain violence. Although I did watch films that were new to me, I did not consume any recently released media at the time, showing that I preferably watch films from the comfort of my own home rather than go to the cinema, though most other weeks I do tend to visit the cinema. I think that the media I consumed this week contained a wide variety of ethnicities when focusing on the leads.

 

In a usual week, I consume a lot more video-game based media than my diary for this week would suggest. A combination of saving for a not-yet-released video game in South Park: The Stick of Truth and boredom lead to me taking a break from video games. In this week, I also did not engage with any comic-books or books in general, I was once an avid reader of comic books but sold my collection and have not read many since, something I would like to pick up again.

 

There are several websites that I visit that I could either use as a template for my own blog, or that I can use to discuss the mediums and genres.. In a typical week, I visit reddit, slashfilm and aintitcool in order to gather a wide range of stories and discussion on the topics that I enjoy.

 

In conclusion, I feel that although I engage with a diverse set of genres, I only really engage with film and television and primarily at home. After this, I plan on making an effort to seek out more pre-1970s cinema that I haven’t seen, as well as more world cinema. As well as this I am going to try and watch more new releases and start to read more comics again.