Film Review: Godzilla

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 60^th 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.