Godzilla. Rated M
(science fiction themes and violence). 123 minutes. Directed by Gareth Edwards.
Screenplay by Max Borenstein.
Verdict: A
triumphant return for our megastar Kaiju.
Since his first
appearance in Ishiro Honda’s Gojira (Godzilla) in 1954, the megastar Kaiju
(strange creature) has starred in 31 films, and returns to the big screen this
year to celebrate his 60th birthday – and what a spectacularly
gob-smacking celebration it is.
Sounding mostly
like a symphonic concert, courtesy of Alexandre Desplat’s (Zero Dark Thirty,
Argo) majestic score, Edwards’ brilliant ode to the monster movie genre (with
particularly obvious references to King Kong and Alien) is an often astonishing
achievement.
One of Borenstein’s
many masterstrokes is the way he incorporates Godzilla into the story, and the
less you know about the reasons for his appearance, the better. The outstanding
cast, afraid no-one will notice them if they don’t take the emotional content
of their performances up to an equally radioactive level, go for broke with the
florid material – with Borenstein unafraid to dispense with them as and when
the story demands it. The early, heart-breaking sequences where Bryan
Cranston’s (Breaking Bad) Joe parts company with his wife Elle (Elizbeth Olsen)
set the ruthlessly efficient tone for all that is to follow.
It is the
screenplay’s brutal lack of sentimentality that powers Edwards’ grand vision of
total annihilation as prehistoric foes go head-to-head for supremacy. On their
battleground, humans don’t matter.
Edwards (who made
the under-rated Monsters in 2010), cinematographer Seamus McGarvey (The Avengers) and Western Australian-born production designer Owen Paterson (The
Matrix, The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert) have created an
entirely absorbing, big-screen experience, which is edited to perfection by Bob
Ducsay (Looper, The Mummy).
Don’t be at all
surprised that as you make your way home from the cinema after this immersive
experience, you’ll be expecting our heroic Kaiju to rise from the ocean to see
you safely home.
This review was
commissioned by the West Australian Newspaper Group.
