Godzilla: In Defense of the Big Guy.

I spend a lot of time listening to people (I’m not a creep, I’m a writer). And yesterday, I heard one coworker tell a small gaggle of other coworkers his lament over the waste of good $$ on the newest incarnation of Godzilla.

I will admit it has flaws. I will also admit some of those flaws are things I loved.

This version of Godzilla felt like an attempt at a geek love letter, but after it was written, someone got their hands on it and tried to edit that love letter to force more commercial viability, and that was never going to work.

Chiefly, CWs complaints were that it was cheesy, and he was annoyed that Bryan Cranston died so soon in the plot.

Maybe it’s because I love actually cheesy movies, but I don’t know why he called it cheesy. He did mention that part of it was in the way Ken Watanabe delivers the initial instance of “Gojira.” Which, sure, some of the dialogue left a bit to be desired, but I for one was incredibly happy that the first time the big guy’s name is mentioned it’s in the original Japanese.

As for Bryan Cranston biting it in the first 1/4 of the movie, this was another thing I didn’t have a problem with. Part of that might be because I’m not a huge fan of the actor. I’ve seen him in things here and there – Madmen is still in my queue of things I need to watch – and he’s a good actor, but I felt no tie to him. His character’s purpose was fulfilled, and it really wouldn’t have made sense for him to continue on in the plot. But I was surprised that he died – don’t get me wrong. I expected his character to be carried on and through, for sure.

One of the reasons I’m okay with Cranston’s deathon the big screen, is because I never felt like there was a specific human character who was the protagonist.

Let me explain. After watching this film, I can say unequivocally that Godzilla is the protagonist, and that the humans really were just trying to clean up the messes they made for themselves. The movie would have been a lot shorter, but the best thing those involved could have done was a massive and immediate evacuation of San Francisco, and then let Godzilla take over from there. Did they? No. Should they have based on the information they had? No. But in the end, it did come out looking like we spent a whole heck of a lot of time shooting ourselves in the foot.

Sure Aaron Taylor-Johnson was there to be our human ears and eyes for a large portion of it, but I still don’t consider his character to be the protagonist (even though I’m sure he’s supposed to be).

The MUTO was the first bit of this movie that threw me for a loop. Mostly because I wasn’t expecting to spend so much time with the bad monsters right off the bat. I did love the addition of the second MUTO, it made sense, and the scene where they find that it’s escaped from where they buried it is kind of spectacular. But there was one spectacular moment, when the first MUTO is crawling its way out of the pit-that-was-a-nuclear reactor… where I got very worried that my adamant statement that “It can’t be worse than the Broderick version” was about to be proven horribly wrong.

Overall, I think the movie was wonderful. It had some flow issues, sure, but I think the nod it gave to those of us who love the progression of this monster, from bad guy in a foam-rubber suit, to digitally designed hero (who still spits radioactive beams!), is a wonderful thing.

(In actually talking to CW later, I found out he’s never seen any other version of Godzilla – not even the bad Broderick one. So maybe I’ll give him a pass. This time.)