Misunderstood Godzilla

Godzilla versus the Movie Cliches

WARNING! Contains spoilers: big, scaly, thundering, shouty, atomic, fire-breathing spoilers.

Here's my top tip for seeing 'Godzilla'. Buy your ticket, go to the bar and then make sure you sit down to watch the film, but only a good full hour after the film has started.

What will you miss?

blah blah blah ...scientist gobbledigook speak... blah blah blah...is that really Juliette Binoche?...blah blah blah...running around corridors...getting chased by a cloud....nuclear power station gets it...blah blah meet the Hollywood family....blah blah blah....father and son stuff....blah blah blah...I'm in the army now....let's go to the contaminated zone...blah blah blah...it's not really contaminated...blah blah blah...big war room stuff...wise Japanese man...more scientist gobbledigook speek....and FINALLY a monster!!!

That's it. That's what you'll miss. I'm not sure why the film takes so long to set up the premise, after all it's not high concept: Godzilla comes out of the sea and twats stuff. It's pretty much what happens in every Godzilla movie ever. At least 'Pacific Rim' has the decency to hit the ground running with that sort of stuff.

I know, I know... the slow burn beginning is there to set up the characters and the situation and it builds the tension to an unbearable pitch. Except it doesn't.

Meet the characters:

Cranky scientist type that nobody believes. Okay I guess we've got to have this guy in a Godzilla movie but this guy is such a dufus that he can't even remember that it's his own birthday. He's caught up in his work. He hasn't got time for his son. Nobody believes him. Oh spare me, please! That's just the laziest of lazy characterisations. Oh, but we're expected to feel his loss and pain because he has to watch his wife die on the other side of a containment door. No, you know what would have packed a real emotional punch? If he'd stepped inside the door to die with her. That would have been a better gut punch than the big emotional surprise that the film has in store for this character later on down line. I warned you about spoilers, didn't I? Well here's a big one: Brian Cranston is in this film for less screen time than Godzilla. Yep, that's right, we're expected to invest in this off the peg character, see him watch his wife die, see him try to bond with his son, share his frustration at not being believed, watch him risk his life in the contamination zone etc only to set up a surprise scene where he gets killed off a third of the way through the film. When I say killed off, I don't mean big jaw-dropping WTF type scene along the lines of Samuel L Jackon's demise in 'Deep Blue Sea'. No, I mean a heart attack, zipped up in a body bag and move it along quickly scene. Rubbish. The girl in the row in front of me had to ask her friend what had happened to him five minutes later. That's how well done it was. That's the emotional power it had.

Grown up son who has one specialist skill that might just save the day. Cranky scientist's son is all grown up. He's a soldier boy and an explosives expert. An explosives expert? I wonder if that will come into play later on? It might you know. There is nothing to make us root for this guy or even be the slightest bit interested in him. He's nice to a Japanese boy who gets separated from his mother on the subway. He has a wife and a kid. He must therefore be a really nice guy. Really? That's shorthand, it's not character building. It would help if he wasn't played by someone who came  runner up in a Jake Gyllenhall lookalike contest. Ooohh, I've got big eyes. Yes, and you've also got a vaccum where you should have charisma. The actor's name is Aaron Taylor-Johnson. He was in 'Kick Ass'. I hope I never see him on screen again.

The Wife. She answers the phone, she switches off the telly, she likes her husband, she's a nurse, she looks worried in the A&E department, she looks like an Olsen twin, she watches the skies. She's a very well rounded character. Well done.

That's the Brody family. Yeah, a bit like the Brody family in 'Jaws'; as if this film is up there with the greatest monster movie ever made. 'Jaws' had Chief Brody, Hooper, Quint; great characters that you would happily watch even if the film wasn't about a giant shark. This has the standard insipid family that must pull together in a time of crisis and reaffirm their bond. At least it doesn't have a bowl haired moppet in a school bus which gets stranded on the Golden Gate bridge. Oh, no, sorry...forgot...it does indeed have the school bus on the bridge scene.

Godzilla. The King Of Monsters. In this one he's basically Rocky. Not a great fighter. A bit out of shape. but he can take the punches and so can go 12 rounds with big metallic bug monster things. He's big, bloody hell is he big, but he's got a thick neck and a tiny head. His face looks a little bit like a labrador. He staggers around and tires easily. It's hard not to feel sorry for the big guy. He knows it's not his greatest hour.

To be honest, you can probably stay in the bar for a bit longer if you want to. The middle bit has monsters in it, but not that much of Godzilla;  I guess he asked for too much money. Instead we concentrate on the MUTOs. What's a MUTO? Apparently it's a Massive Unidentified Terrestial Organism. Gulp. What does one of those look like? In this instance it looks like the bastard offspring of a praying mantis and a staple remover. I suspect they were made using Cylon technology because they have that Battlestar Galactica pulsing red light thing going on. 'Starship Troopers' had better monsters. I'm not quite sure why the Special Effects people had to make them look like big robot insects. Are metallic insects easier to animate than anything remotely organic looking? Probably. The strange thing is when they try so hard to digitally realise Godzilla. At times you still think that it looks like a man in a suit.

So we have nuclear power plants getting destroyed, man interfering with nature and America under threat from unknowable and seemingly unassailable forces. Wow, I bet this film is thematically strong and deals with complex ecological themes in a populist but thought provoking way. Nah, no at all. This film has nothing much to say at all. The original 1954 film is is a cultural mourning for Hiroshima and Nagasaki where Godzilla stands in for our shame and our punishment. He is awakened as a result of our nuclear activity. In this version the American military have just been trying to secretly bomb the poor bastard for the past sixty years. Nothing much is made of it. Nothing much is made of the ecology theme. There's no real exploration of the reaping what you sow theme. At best you might come away thinking, I hope they don't start fracking in my area - they might unleash some big nasty moths.

Now look, don't just think I'm a hater, I get it. This is a Godzilla film. It's a multi million stupid monster movie, a very well crafted one granted, but still a stupid monster movie. It doesn't have to be strong on characters or plot or theme. It doesn't even need to be all that good. That's not what we're paying for. We just want to see some monsters having a wrestling smackdown. In that sense the final act of the film really delivers. Watching monsters fight is the money shot. But if that's all it is, then don't waste so much of my time on instantly forgettable characters and don't pretend you're saying something important. I like Japanese monster movies, I really do but the thing I love about them is the cheesiness. I love the model cities, the men in rubber suits and the absurd plots. I love the surreal quality they have, I love the new mythology and fantasy worlds of men and monsters they create. As soon as you start making them more realistic the fun evaporates for me. Everything is obscured in dust and darkness. Godzilla is not The Dark Knight. Let's see him in daylight.

The best scenes in the movie don't involve any monsters at all. There is a skydive sequence that is a truly wonderful piece of cinema. It has the tension and excitement missing elsewhere in the film and it creates an almost overpowering feeling of awe. It's just some blokes jumping out of a plane but if the film can find poetry and brilliance in that scene why can't it find it elsewhere? The film should have started in the contaminated zone. It would have been an eerie and unsettling opening. Everything we learn about the characters could have then been revealed in a more interesting way and we could have got to the action quicker. Instead we have the slow build up, the tease and quite frankly a lot of irritation and boredom.

So the final fight in the city is well done and has lots of mayhem and destruction porn but I saw all of that in last years blockbuster 'Man Of Steel'. At least Godzilla is more heroic in this movie than Superman was in his. The big lizard makes a bit less mess as well.

The soundtrack is terrible, one of the worst in recent years. I take it as a given that all the monsters will screech and roar but you don't have to sonically assault me the rest of the time too. There's no real score as such, just lots of jarring big BAwwwaaaMMM base notes until the credits. Isn't Godzilla supposed to have his own march theme?

Godzilla 2014. That's 123 minutes of boredom, noise, military breast beating, cliche and  frustration. 123 minutes for a story about a big lizard swatting a couple of bugs. It's already the highest grossing film so far this year and a sequel has been announced that will no doubt be Godzilla versus massive robots, or Godzilla versus a superhero team, or Godzilla versus some fart jokes. Maybe they should just call it 'Godzilla vs Aliens vs Predators vs Superman Vs Batman Vs Smurfs'. At least the resulting explosion of fanboy jism could power our planet's energy needs for the next ten years.

Goodbye to Hans Rudolf Giger 1940 - 2014.

I was obsessed with 'Alien' long before I ever saw a frame of it.

The first encounter for me was in the newsagents concession of a supermarket. Imagine a little boy browsing anything that had Star Wars on the cover. My memory doesn't recall exactly which magazine I picked up (I suspect it was the impossibly-beyond-the-reach-of-my-pocket money 'Starlog) but this is the image that jolted me there and then:

I couldn't make sense of it. Was that the doctor guy's hand? Was he trying to drill into someone's head with his other hand? What was wrong with his weird hand? Oh, maybe it's not his hand. Is that some guy's face? What is this? Something called 'Alien'. Wow.

I was into monsters anyway, but the thought of a film about an alien monster on a spaceship was just too exciting to comprehend. I was still several years off being allowed to see an X rater and this was also in the pre-video era. There was no chance I was ever going to see it so I had to make do with reading about it.

See this poster here:

I had (still have) the Alan dean Foster novelisation, The Photonovel (they were the new thing then) and the comic novelisation. Maybe a bit weird to be obsessional about it before I'd even seen it but there you are.

So it's safe to say that I knew the story before I saw the film, but even so, when I did finally see it, I was still unprepared for the full visceral impact of it. It turned up surprisingly quickly on terrestrial television (in those days you generally had to wait five years before any new film would get a broadcast) and I guess I saw it sometime in 1982. For some reason that I can't quite figure out, I know that the house was empty and I know that I saw it on my own. That first viewing was terrifying but electrifying, as only the films encountered in those formative years can be. Knowing what would happen didn't diminish any of the power for me. Lord only knows how I would have reacted if I'd gone in blind.

It won't surprise you therefore that 'Alien' is still one of the fixed constants in my all time top ten films. 'Assault On Precinct 13' and 'The Good, The Bad and The Ugly' are another two. Everything else is in flux and up for debate.

Anyway, all of this is just setting context for saying what a big deal it is that H.R. Giger has died today. He was a true artist whose work was instantly recognisable. There are few precursors to his dark imagination and he was impossible to imitate without it coming off as blatant plagiarism. He turned subconscious fears into biomechanical flesh; fusing death, sex and horror into an unsettling brew.  I'd like to thank Ridley Scott for interpreting his work for the big screen and I'd like to thank H.R. Giger for dragging horror and sci-fi into new realms and for being the perverted, uncompromising wonder that he was.

Apocalypse Noah!

And, lo, the day came when The Creator said unto Darren Aronofsky, "Dazza, I want you to tell the story of 'Noah' with Russell Crowe in the lead role and I want you to make it popular so that even the multiplex heathens can understand it, and I want you to direct it. Get to it!"

And, Darren Aronofsky did spit upon his bagel and sayeth unto The Creator, "But God, why hast thou chosen me ?"

And the sky did darken and the voice said,

"Well, I've always been an admirer of your work ever since 'Pi'. That was a great film! Can't say I understood it all, and you lost me with some of that kabbalah stuff, but even so, great film for a first effort.  Great soundtrack too; work with Clint Mansell again - that's a must. 'Requiem For A Dream'. Not a popcorn movie it has to be said, but a near perfect work of art. Easily one of the ten best films of that decade. I'm a big fan of 'Black Swan' too, I like a good psychological horror, me. It's not all been good though has it? I couldn't get into 'The Wrestler' at all. I had to switch that one off after ten minutes. Don't use Mickey Rourke again, whatever you do. But the real reason I chose you Daz is that I saw 'The Fountain' and said to myself - I like the look of this - I like the visual splendour, I like the spirituality of it, I like the big themes, I like the multiple layers and parallel stories, I love the allusions to alchemy and transcendence - but it's all over the place. If only Darren could tell a simple story really well. It would be amazing! That's when I thought of Noah and that's when I thought of you. Also, Michael Bay wasn't available....and JJ Abrams was working on that Star Wars thing...but after them...it was always you. Or James Cameron."

And Darren looked at the ground and wept with the enormity of the task and again he heard the voice, and the voice said: "Think big Darren. Think big".

And Darren lifted his head and said, "But I want to make a Wolverine movie. I didn't get the chance to make the definitive Batman movie, so I just want a shot at making .."

"No!!!!", the voice boomed and shook the heavens, "I have spoken and I say 'Noah - The Movie' shall come to pass!" And then the voice grew softer, more like Alan Partridge and said,"Anyway, Noah is a sort of superhero. This will be your superhero movie."

And Darren trembled and hurled himself into a ball, but when he lifted his head again the sky was empty and Darren was alone.

And then Darren went to the moneylenders and said, "I want to make a big screen version of Noah and I'm going to need a lot of money. An obscene amount of money."

With that, the moneylenders went to their temple for forty days and forty nights. When they returned they said unto him: "Look, we know you're hot property right now after 'Black Swan' and your Oscar nominations and we want to help you Darren we really do, but 'Noah', really? Come on Darren, you're asking us to green light a biblical epic. We can't do that. The public don't want that. They want superhero movies. Why don't you do a Wolverine movie?"

They began to walk away but Darren stopped them at the temple door and pleaded with them, saying, "But Noah is a kind of superhero! He really is"

"Can he fly?"

"What?"

"Can Noah fly?"

"Well, not really but..."

"Does he have claws? Can he climb walls? Does he have a power suit?"

"It's not about that. It's about how heroic he is. How it takes strength to stick to the one task he has been given even though he knows that the end of everything he loves is nigh".

"Sounds like a schmuck. Goodbye"

And with that the temple door was closed.

But Darren did not waver and he beat his fists upon the door until they bled. And he did scream, "I can make it a bit like The Lord Of The Rings!!!"

And the door opened just a little.

"I can have lots of big battles going on! But also, ...I can make it a bit like... 'Titanic'. It's a bit like 'Gravity' ...but... at sea!"

The door opened wider.

"It's got animals in it. Kids love animals. Everyone loves animals!"

No movement.

"I can make the middle bit, a bit like...um...a horror movie. Yeah, I'll make the middle bit...the bit on the boat like a slasher flick. A bit like 'The Shining' at sea."

The door begins to move again.

"I can make the ending a bit like....um ....a bit like 'Planet Of The Apes'....lots of soul searching about the fate of mankind... on a beach."

The door starts to close again.

"I've got Hermione Granger! I've got Percy Jackson!"

And with that the door was blasted off its hinges and the Moneylender did say: "Right, we want all of that....and we want big giant robots in it too. Have you got big giant robots?"

And Darren said, "I've got this bit with fallen angels early on that I suppose I could turn into giant robots. If you're okay with them being giant robots made of rock?"

"Yeah, we can do that. Just make sure they're in it and and hit things a lot. Deal?"

"Deal!"

And with that the moneylenders did give Aronofsky a blank cheque and sent him into the wilderness.

This was when the real work began.

First he went to Russell Crowe and said, "I want you to play Noah. I see him as a burly gladiator type. I think you'd be perfect."

Mr. Crowe stroked his beard and said, "I see him as a drunken poet. Can I play him like that?"

"Well, a bit...maybe near the end. In the middle you've got to play it dark. Become tormented. Become the villain of the piece."

"A bit like Lear?"

"?"

"He's a bit like King Lear, isn't he? A bit like King Lear with a boat. I think I'd make a great King Lear, don't you?"

"Well, yes, I suppose..."

"I want to sing in it."

"I don't think he sings."

"He sings or I'm not in.  I want to sing. I want to read poetry. And I want to be King Lear."

"Okay", sighed Darren, "Noah is a singing poet/gladiator type who descends into madness and becomes a bit of a drunken tramp on a beach."

"Perfect. What accent shall I do?"

"Any of them. All of them. I don't know"

And with that  Russell Crowe was cast as Noah.

But before he left, Mr. Crowe had one final piece of advice for Aronofsky.

"I think my old drinking pal, Anthony Hopkins should be in it. He should be my mentor or something. Someone very wise and very clever. Hopkins is the best there is at that sort of thing. Get Hopkins."

And so Darren went to the visit the estate of Mr Hopkins and found him watching reruns of old cartoons.

"Mr Hopkins?"

"Yes, young man. What do you want?"

"Russell Crowe sent me. He said that he thought you might like to be in my new film 'Noah'"

"Noah", said Hopkins in his golden Welsh voice. "Noah. Noah. Is Russell playing Noah?"

"Yes. Yes he is."

"And who do you have playing Nelly?"

"Nelly?"

"Yes, Nelly. For how can one have Noah without his Nelly. All aboard the skylark! I do so love cartoons from the seventies and eighties don't you?"

"Well, I quite liked the superhero ones.  But I came here to.."

"Which is your favourite?"

"Huh?"

"Cartoon boy! Cartoon! Which of the vast array of colourful cartoon concoctions is your favourite?"

"I quite like the X-men. At one time I was going to do this Wolverine movie but.."

"Did Russell mention King Lear?"

"He did yes"

"I've played Lear many times. It is the prize to which we thespians all aspire. The jewel in the crown. 'Come not between the dragon and his wrath'.  You do know Russell will want to play Noah as King Lear, don't you?"

"Yes"

"Very good he will be too. There is always one part to which we all aspire. There is one part that has eluded even me. I have failed to play him even though I have tried to bring him to the screen many times. I would trade my Lear, my Lecter and my Oscar for a chance to portray the greatest fictional character of all time."

"I don't know who you...?"

"I have two words for you. Two words. I want you to think about them....and I want you to think about what character you might want me to play in this film".

"Okay"

"Those two words are 'Dungeon' and 'Master'."

There was a pause. A long pause. Both men just stared at each other for what felt like an eternity.

"Mr. Hopkins. I would like to ask if you would be gracious enough to honour me by joining the cast of 'Noah'. I specifically want you for the part of Dungeon Master."

"Dungeon Master. You mean .... like  the Dungeon Master from the cartoon serial of 'Dungeons and Dragons?'".

"Yes sir, That's exactly what I imagine the wise old sage and learned Methuselah to be like. The Dungeon Master. From the Dungeons and Dragons cartoon."

"Then I accept your invitation.

And with that Anthony Hopkins was cast as The Dungeon Master.

But before he left, Mr Hopkins had one final piece of advice for Aronofsky.

"I think my old drinking pal, Ray Winstone should be in it. He should be a right nasty piece of work. A bit of a hooligan. Bit a gangster. Know what I mean?"

And with that, Ray Winstone was cast as Ray Winstone. In the Sean Bean part.

And Aronofksy did find Hermione Granger and offer her a role. And Aronofsky did find Percy Jackson and offer him a role. And Aronofsky did call in a favour from his old mate Jennifer Connelly and offer her a role.

And when the casting was complete there was much gnashing of teeth, and blowing of hair and showering with rain.

Noah

 Nelly

 Hermione

 Ray

 Percy

 Dungeon Master

And The Creator saw the cast and saw that it was good. And the Moneylenders saw the cast and saw that it was good and the filming began.

And the first part belonged to science fiction and we could have been on Tattooine and the stars burnt bright in the daytime. And it was a bit like 'The Road' and it was a bit like 'Waterworld' without the water  and it was a bit like 'Spacehunter: Adventures in the Forbidden Zone'; which nobody really remembers.

And yes there were giants. Giant rock monsters that moved like Transformers and spoke like Optimus Prime. And it was revealed that they had once been angels and they were trapped in material bodies. And they were quite a bit like Transformers.  And had faces like Marvin the paranoid android. And might have well have said, "It's clobberin' time!"

And the second part belonged to 'The Lord Of The Rings' and the giant rock monsters were like the tree Ents except that they chopped down trees. And men had turned The Garden Of Eden into Mordor. And there was a battle to be fought for the possession of the one boat to rule them all. The Ark.

And the animals did come two by two and they did largely stay in the background to cover up the average digital effects work.

And the deluge did come and nobody was saved except for Noah and his dysfunctional family and Hermione Granger and hard man cockney stowaway Ray Winstone.

And then the third part belonged to horror. And Noah did want to kill Hermione's babies so that there would be no more men to ruin The New Improved Garden Of Eden. And Ray Winstone did want to eat all the animals. And Percy Jackson had the rage because he wasn't allowed to bring any 'wives' on board.

And then there was the final resting of The Ark. And they seemed to be in Ireland or somewhere. And they spent their days on the beach. And Noah had wine from somewhere. And became a drunk. And a tramp. And this was the beginning of a new human race. And Percy Jackson had had enough and went off on his own somewhere. And there was a rainbow. And there was an eco message. And it was done.

And The Moneylenders saw the film and agreed that it was a bit of a shambles but released it anyway. And The Creator saw the film and thought he came out of it quite well so let it pass. And Aronofsky knew he wasn't get any Oscar nominations this time out but was just relieved to have got the thing done to be quite honest.

And then a blogger called shoothescreen saw it and reported:

It's hard to give an impression of what Noah is like to those who haven't seen it because it is simultaneously a wonderful, visionary hallucinogenic trip and irredeemably awful. I liked it when it was at its most stupid and bizarre. I liked the rock angels and the bits that were like a Peter Gabriel video. Whilst I admire the sheer overarching ambition of it I can't forgive the silliness of its worst passages. It needs someone of Crowe's stature to anchor the project, and he's fine,  but I could have done without Hopkins' daft cameo which for all the world is like Rob Brydon doing Tony Hopkins. The all star cast never convince you that they are anything other than an all star cast as they work through lines that could have been scripted in the 1950s. As a silent film it could have been meditative and brilliant but as an earnest, intelligent theological discourse it's as blunt as a billiard ball.  For a spiritual film it's a bit of a downer too. It's entertaining to watch but peculiarly unmoving. I'm glad it was made and I'm glad I saw it. It's great to see effects being used for something other than the destruction of a city. It's great to see Hollywood invest in risky material. It's commendable that it doesn't shy away from some darker turns and it's a wonder that Aronofsky was able to realise his vision at all without studio interference. I personally wish that it had been more provocative, more symbolic and richer in surrealism and mysticism. But maybe that's just my taste. I found this crunched gears every time it settled into standard Hollywood storytelling tropes. It becomes quite ordinary and dull for long stretches of time where it should be crackling with invention and overflowing with images and ideas. It's obvious where it should be oblique. But it is filmmaking on a grand scale. It strives for the impossible and you could say that it both succeeds and fails, on a biblical level. It's wonderful but daft. I can't think how else to describe it.