Once again, dear readers, I have to begin a column by apologizing for an unplanned absence. I’ve been very busy with work and family stuff lately, and I didn’t have the time to deliver the quality columns you’ve come to expect and deserve. But on a much happier note, this week’s much-delayed edition of Trailer Trashin’ takes another look at my most anticipated film of the year, Godzilla.
Premise: An epic rebirth of Toho’s iconic Godzilla, this spectacular adventure pits the world’s most famous monster against malevolent creatures who, bolstered by humanity’s scientific arrogance, threaten our very existence.
We’ve got more information on the human cast, and much of the focus is clearly on a family called the Brodys. Our main characters are Aaron Taylor-Johnson as Lieutenant Ford Brody and Elizabeth Olsen as his wife Elle Brody. These two have proven their acting chops in smaller films, and it’s great that they’re finally in something big. And I still find it kind of amusing that Taylor-Johnson and Olsen are playing a couple here and will be playing siblings in The Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015). The voice we hear giving the impassioned speech at the beginning is Bryan Cranston as Joe Brody, a nuclear physicist and Ford’s father. As we all know by this point, Cranston is an amazing actor, and I really look forward to seeing what he gets to do here. Ken Watanabe, who gets that great line about “the arrogance of man,” is on hand as Daisuke Serizawa, and I’m curious to see how similar he is to the character of the same name in the original Godzilla (1954). Juliette Binoche plays Sandra Brody, Joe’s wife and Ford’s mother, and given that every trailer has shown that image of her in the radiation suit behind the glass, I’m convinced she’s not going to survive the film. And the always-reliable David Strathairn is on hand as Admiral Stenz.
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As you would expect from a Godzilla film with a reported production budget of $160 million, the visuals on display here look really impressive. Early in the international trailer, we see the partially-destroyed remains of what looks like the Hilton Hawaiian Village Beach Resort and Spa in Honolulu. The brief shot of Godzilla silhouetted against the sky shows a line of red lanterns along the bottom of the frame, which seems to indicate that Godzilla passes through Chinatown when he comes to San Francisco. For anyone who got trauma flashbacks to the 1998 Emmerich film from seeing the Statue of Liberty, that’s actually the half-size replica of Lady Liberty at the New York-New York Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas. I believe this would be the first time in the Godzilla series where we’ve seen monsters in a desert environment, so that’s kind of cool. Considering how almost every big disaster/attack movie set in America takes place mainly in either New York or Los Angeles, I’m glad the filmmakers went with some lesser-used locations here.
The more I see of Godzilla himself in this movie, the more I feel that the approach the filmmakers have taken is a good one. I love this new design for the creature; it manages to be both instantly recognizable as Godzilla and clearly distinct from any previous version of the character. Now, when are we going to see the atomic breath? These trailers also finally show us some of the arthropod-like enemy monsters, which are known as “Mutos.” Both trailers show brief glimpses of a flying Muto – which has a silhouette very reminiscent of Rodan – which we see knocking planes out of the sky and diving into the waters of San Francisco Bay. The domestic trailer also shows us the leg of a gigantic spider-like Muto which has been revealed through leaked toy pictures. This beast will presumably be Godzilla’s main opponent in the final battle. The only thing I feel let down by is that they’re still holding back so much on showing us the monsters. At this point, the new design for Godzilla has been revealed in full through magazine covers, artwork, and toy images, so why play coy with it here?
Bryan Cranston and Aaron Taylor-Johnson in “Godzilla” (2014).
Photo by Kimberley French – © 2013 – Legendary Pictures Productions LLC & Warner Bros Entertainment Inc.
As should be abundantly clear by this point, I’m ridiculously excited for this film. With a great cast, an intriguing story, epic visuals, a great redesign of the Big G, and cool new enemy monsters, this looks like it could be everything I hoped for in a Hollywood take on the King of Monsters. Last year’s Pacific Rim whet my appetite for how awesome a Japanese-style monster movie could be on a Hollywood scale, and I’m chomping at the bit for more. The only potential problem I see is that I might be overhyping the film in my mind and setting myself up for a possible letdown. But at this point, there is absolutely no doubt that I’ll be seeing Godzilla at my local theater when it comes out in May.
Starring: Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Elizabeth Olsen, Bryan Cranston, Ken Watanabe, Juliette Binoche, David Strathairn, Richard T. Jones, Victor Rasuk, Sally Hawkins, CJ Adams, Garry Chalk, Jared Keeso, Patrick Sabongui, Al Sapienza, Brian Markinson, Carson Bolde, Christian Tessier, and Akira Takarada
Director: Gareth Edwards
Writers: Max Borenstein and David Callaham
Timothy Monforton