So here we are another year, another attempt to further a cinematic universe. And yet another attempt by Hollywood to make a Godzilla film. Things seemed to be on the right track when Kong: Skull Island injecting a much improved boost of visual clarity and style to the proceedings, and despite some dud performances it had a lot of character in all the other places that mattered. By combing the sense of scale brought to table by Gareth Edwards with the kind of monster mayhem Jordan Vogt-Roberts confidently delivered, surely this had to be a winner? Well there are certainly more creatures in the roster, but whether any of it comes together to be compelling is another question.
A peek behind the curtain - I listen to a lot of Akira Ifukube's music when writing all this nonsense. It's bombastic and grandiose but like any number of classical or instrumental themes it's good for concentration. My favourite is probably the score for Rodan, although a lot of his military marches are great too. So after learning that the new movie would use some of the classic Toho motifs I was excited to see and hear what else would be done with the old staples. A big scale American remake of Ghidorah, The Three-Headed Monster was surely impossible to get wrong after all. But I guess in the end my ideas of how a science fiction story full of giant monsters should play out isn't what the US studio wanted.
For one thing the music is used pretty sparingly and the new score, like the rest of the film, is taken far too seriously. Which is strange since it's pretty far removed from the 1954 film's theme of (American) nuclear weapons creating new horrors for the citizens of Japan, and it has none of the present day disaster parallels seen in Shin Godzilla. So in a way the stage was set for a pure fantasy adventure. But instead of Skull Island's playful tone and colourful visual palette this is a dark and sombre affair. Which doesn't sit well with the silly nature of the plot which decides that these creatures are not man-made but are of gods and demons of the ancient world. There are some moments of levity throughout but as a whole the story is a very dreary affair.
This extends to the visual look of the action, and the film as a whole. It's all drenched in an overly graded layer of dark blue and orange, regardless of whether scenes are set deep underground, underwater or on board the aircraft of of shady research organisation Monarch. If the driving idea behind the production was 'more monsters' then I would have liked to be able to see them. Instead there's an overabundance of messy, swirling CG effects depicting snow, rain and volcanic ash. Any sense of scale is lost in a series of murky set pieces drowning in clouds and smoke, and the frenetic editing spoils what might have been some of the best monster showdowns in a film of this kind. It fails to match Skull Island and it doesn't even come close to Pacific Rim, which is kind of baffling.
Similarly the human storyline of the film is muddled and tonally inconsistent. I'd have thought that a light hearted Indiana Jones style adventure would be perfect for a story about ancient civilisations, and that so much science fiction techno-babble would also be a good fit with cheesy acting and scenery chewing. The director made Krampus after all, which got all this right. However the same drab feeling of the plot extends to all the trite exposition dump characters, and they waste Sally Hawkins, Ken Watanabe and Charles Dance. There are brief attempts at comic relief side-kicks but they come across as forced, and the storyline about saving the Earth from human greed is never really explored in a way that feels meaningful.
Elsewhere they try to give the main characters something to do, but it feels like yet another divorce drama complete with a child in peril who can never be trampled by ancient titans because the rules of the plot demand it. No number of extreme close-ups, sudden zooms and camera whip pans can make this storyline exciting even if Millie Bobby Brown does her best. Kyle Chandler and Vera Farmiga are adequate as her grieving parents, but it's just not compelling in the face of potentially world ending events. Worse still there are just too many slide show presentation style moments that grind the pacing to a halt whenever more plot information is needed to explain what Godzilla and in pals are supposedly doing. It should all have been so much simpler and cleaner, in terms of character motivation and monster spectacle scenes.
Godzilla as both hero and destroyer was always a problem in the older Showa period films, but they at least took time with each instalment to let new ideas grow. He still battled with the military during his bouts with King Kong and Mothra, and he wasn't anything resembling a protective force until later when things had moved on. Here it feels like another Justice League style effort to have all the toys all at once, even when the next movie on the production line is smaller in scale. Which wouldn't be that much of a problem if the gigantic smack down sequences weren't so grey and messy looking. But these stand out much more in a story that is packed with half baked ideas, and so many monsters that the film forgets that most of them exist until the closing shots.
Tonally I guess they were going for something like the 1984 version of Godzilla where he was an animal that wanted to eat nuclear fuel, or even Godzilla, Mothra and King Ghidorah where the title creatures were re-imagined as ancient spirits that protect the planet. But in this case the tone required to achieve any sort of gravitas is always one step away from being undermined by Roland Emmerich style dialogue and erratic camera movements. The creatures all get something interesting to do whether it's Rodan's emergence or Mothra's intervention in the finale. But when it's not totally covered in smog the VFX artists are too quick to cut between sequences just to suddenly zoom in on humans on the ground, who are somehow still alive.
It's a weird film as a result, one that even I assumed was just too big to fail. There are ideas about radioactive creatures healing the planet, eco-terrorists who want to save the world, giant animals battling for territory and a few brief scenes depicting scientists clashing with military think tanks. But like all the strange fan service involving original film's oxygen destroyer, Mothra's 'twins' or Rodan's volcanic resting place... it all feels like one big overpacked migraine machine. It's too much and yet not enough all at once. The simple charm of Ishiro Honda's best work is missing whether it's the hand crafted spectacle or the upbeat messages about international co-operation. The 2014 had many problems that should have been ironed out, but this sequel is a let down for a variety of confusing new reasons.
2/5
