Godzilla
2014 · Directed by Gareth Edwards
Original language: English
- action
- drama
- science fiction
The story
Ford Brody, a Navy bomb expert, has just reunited with his family in San Francisco when he is forced to go to Japan to help his estranged father, Joe. Soon, both men are swept up in an escalating crisis when an ancient alpha predator arises from the sea to combat malevolent adversaries that threaten the survival of humanity. The creatures leave colossal destruction in their wake, as they make their way toward their final battleground: San Francisco.
What it’s like
Long, patient shots hold on murky, slate-blue and rust-brown frames, with the camera pulled back so the monsters read as enormous against ordinary skylines, cloud-smothered coastlines and the haze of evacuation-day smoke. Much of the image lives in dim, overcast daylight and the sickly orange glow of emergency lighting, and the sound design is heavy with low sub-bass rumbles, crushing footsteps that travel through the floor, and long swells of Alexandre Desplat's brooding, restrained score that drops out entirely when things get quiet. The vibe is hushed dread tempered by awe, a slow-building disaster movie that lingers on the human scale of a family trying to reach each other while the world tears itself apart. Pacing is deliberate, with the monster largely kept off-screen for its first half hour and then revealed in widening glimpses. Violence is frequent but mostly offscreen or at a distance: city-wide destruction, collapsing buildings, many deaths glimpsed through crowds and dust, and some tense peril, with little close-up gore and no sexual content. It suits a rainy weekend night or a big-screen monster-movie craving, and fits viewers who want grave, awe-struck spectacle with a melancholy father-son story at its center.
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