Godzilla (2014)

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It is often said that things need to stop taking their cues from the MCU in an effort to start self-contained movie universes. More often than not, it's not meant to be (I'm looking at you, Dark Universe) or slips by with some ups and downs because it has a big enough fan base to support it (DCEU). But there is the rare exception, and while the "Monster Universe" 'Godzilla' establishes isn't entirely perfect, it is nevertheless entertaining, a far cry from the 1998 Americanization attempt, and starts things like it should.

The idea of forming a cinematic universe in the first place often fails for the same dumb reason of leading us to believe that things are more or less planned out, which they often aren't. Therefore, the first film of something leaves us with some impression that things will pick back up, failing to gauge audiences and critics as well as performance at the box office. The best thing 'Godzilla' here did was simply exist on its own at the time, and have a solid ending. There are no stingers in this to suggest that the Monster Universe was something in the making. At the time, this was just new and improved Americanization of things.

The film opens in 1999, in the Philippenes, where a uranium mine has collapsed, revealing the skeleton of some giant creature. Two Monarch scientists, Ishiro Serizawa (Ken Watanabe) and Vivienne Graham (Sally Hawkins) are sent to investigate the skeleton, and stumble on two giant spores, one of which has hatched, and left a trail heading out to sea. Soon after, at the Janjira Nuclear Power Plant in Japan, seismic activity occurs, eventually destroying the plant, leaving plant supervisor Joe Brody (Bryan Cranston) with some very difficult questions as to what happened for years to come.

Fifteen years pass, and Joe's and his wife Sandra's (Juliette Binoche) son, a U.S. Navy EOD officer named Ford (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) comes home to his wife, Elle (Elizabeth Olsen), and son, Sam (Carson Bolde), only to have to go back to Japan immediately to bail his Dad out of jail for trespassing in Janjira's quarantine zone. Upon his arrival to bail his Dad out, Ford is convinced to go with Joe to investigate their old house and find some answers, only to be detained all over again and taken to an underground facility, which is holding a massive chrysalis which feeds off nuclear energy.

Eventually, said chrysalis hatches, and a giant insect-like creature emerges, very reminsicent, in my opinion, of the Cloverfield monster. The creature is referred to as a MUTO (Massive Unidentified Terrestrial Organism), and to try and keep this short, eventually, Godzilla finally comes into the mix and the big monster fight ensues while mankind wonderds if the enemy of their enemy is their friend, or indeed, another enemy. And in case you haven't picked it up quite yet, perhaps the biggest complaint anyone could have about this movie is how little Godzilla is actually in it.

Looking at the grand scheme of things now, it's a little more forgivable that the big focus here was more about what the random MUTO is and how to stop it. Using Godzilla, himself, as their defensive strategy for the first time, it's understandable now that this was meant to be a movie that riskily established things for more potential movies to come, but again, without being crazy obvious about it. As a standalone movie with the title of 'Godzilla', it left a lot to be desired at the time. But as time has gone on (I can't believe 2024 marks ten years already), for better or for worse, the MonsterVerse has been pretty successful.

The nice thing to takeaway from the MonsterVerse is that, despite a lot of dramatic things happening throughout, it doesn't take itself too seriously and remembers that audiences are there to see a couple of giant monsters have a wrestling match. The only real problems here being that the match takes a long time to get to, and in the meantime, there's just a lot to do with the people involved in researching the other monster we didn't come to see while explaining what Monarch is etc. It's pretty great once things get going for the fans of this stuff, but it does take a while to get there.

3/5

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