The movies have been plagued by remakes since our grandparents were around. I hear a lot of complaints that Hollywood only does remakes these days, but really they've been doing it since day one. D.W. Griffith did it with Orphans of the Storm in 1921, which was a remake of Herbert Brenon's The Two Orphans (1915). I can't say I am against movies being remade as some of them are done really well. Look at John Carpenter's The Thing or Brian De Palma's Scarface. Very good examples. There have even been some good recent ones (I was a big fan of the recent Evil Dead re-visioning).
Now comes another remake of a classic. The last time North American audiences saw the Godzilla on screen, it left a sour taste in our mouths. Roland Emmerich's take on Godzilla in 1998 was not received well, and it is not surprising that we haven't seen any American takes on it since then. The Japanese have still been pumping out a few (including 2004's Godzilla: Final Wars which saw the original King of Monsters destroying Emmerich's American version in one deft tail whip - so much for Hollywood). Now it's 2014, and the people with the money have decided it's time for a new take on the monster movie that started it all.
 |
| Toho's Gojira in 1954. |
In the last decade we've had a few good punches of giant monster flicks and a few not-so-good flops. In 2005, we had Peter Jackson's epic take on King Kong, which had it's moments but overall was unnecessarily long. 2006 brought us the Korean monster masterpiece, The Host, from director Bong Joon-Ho (one of the few monster films to spark the socio-political commentary since the original 1954 Gojira). We got a taste of vomit-inducing found footage monster destruction from J.J. Abrams and Matt Reeve via Cloverfield, which was an interesting experiment, but ultimately a failure (it enters a whole other genre here, and I may talk about found-footage films in the future). In 2010, we got what I think is maybe the best monster movie I've ever seen, Monsters. This indie flick was made for half a million dollars, and was the directorial debut of Gareth Edwards (who is leading the 2014 Godzilla remake for his sophomore feature). Monsters was a masterful mix of science fiction suspense, political thriller, and human drama, that created a wonderful monster horror ambiance by using Spielberg's Jaws technique of not fully revealing the beast until the final act. The budget was low, but Edwards knew how to work it, creating a beautiful film that could actually be taken seriously as a film. And last year, we received the bone-crunching action epic Pacific Rim from Guillermo Del Toro, a rock n' roll anime-inspired beat-em-up movie that my 10-year-old self would've put on a pillar titled favorite movie ever. It was a lot of fun, but lost a lot of credibility to its senseless dismissal of science and realistic characters. Overall, I still loved it for what it was.
 |
| Gareth Edwards's Monsters |
Finally, we have the new Godzilla. The marketing people have teased us with hints at the film for a while now and we have finally been allowed to see a full trailer. So far, I think it looks amazing. Gareth Edwards was a great choice for director, as I can see his seriousness and attention to visual design that we found in Monsters. This new film obviously has given him a bigger budget to play with, and he is using it to his full potential. The shots of destruction look photo-realistic, and the ambiance plays a huge role in the feel of the film. The use of 2001: A Space Odyssey's score adds a wave of dread to what we are seeing. This doesn't give us much of an idea for what the actual score will be but it certainly sets a mood. The teaser trailer had a snippet of a J. Robert Oppenheimer speech on the horror of the nuclear bomb ("Now I have become Death, the Destroyer of Worlds"). This leads me to believe that they are still holding true to the original 1954 version's commentary on nuclear war and the futility of what we do to each other. Ken Watanabe's character has a quote in the trailer: "The arrogance of man is thinking nature is in our control and not the other way around." This further points in the direction of a serious commentary on society today, especially with all the environmental issues going on. Based on the many shots in the trailer of human faces, I can see that Edwards wants to focus on the human drama side of things. With a cast including Bryan Cranston, you know this isn't going to be some B-movie performance. It seems like there will be some heavy emotions happening among the carnage and horror. Last but not least, we get a great shot of the King himself at the end of the trailer. It's a point of view shot from survivors in a bunker as the doors slowly close, with Godzilla roaring right at us. A great shot, it is very claustrophobic and gives the feeling that this film will follow suit with Monsters, and its inspiration, Jaws, with the monster slowly being revealed throughout the film, and not getting a full shot until the end. The design of the monster itself lends an homage to the original Godzilla design, but making it much more realistic and scary (that last shot is truly terrifying). This is a breath of fresh air compared to the agile but too skinny (and iguana-based) monster from 1998. The original monster wasn't too scary either (it was just a guy in a suit) but using that design and vamping it up, shows the film-makers are aware of the roots and still making it their own.
 |
| Poster for the 2014 Godzilla |
I have to say that I am extremely excited for this film this summer. I grew up watching Godzilla movies. I saw a ton of them, and it established a love for monster movies in general. However none of the recent ones have fully satisfied me since that feeling the original Toho creatures gave me. The Host and Monsters were great films, beautiful works of art even, but they lacked the destruction and intensity I felt when I watched Godzilla fight Rodan as a child. I hope that Gareth Edwards's take on this epic can return me to that nostalgic love of destruction while keeping it a serious film that can teach us something about who we are and the world we live in.
No comments:
Post a Comment