Godzilla 2014: A Blown Opportunity
Written by: Michael Barnaud
I will never forget the first time I saw this movie nor the moment I realized it was going to be a massive disappointment. Bryan Cranston’s character had just taken a hard fall after his confrontation with the male MUTO and was in critical condition aboard the aircraft carrier. As I watched the body bag start covering Bryan Cranston’s face, the camera panned up to Aaron Taylor Johnson (ATJ) and I got this horrible but familiar realization. It was like that moment you’re cheering for a football team and the star quarterback goes down, in comes the backup and our hearts collectively sink. You know your team is screwed but you watch anyway. That was me in that movie theater. My quarterback was Cranston, this Godzilla movie was my team and that scene was the moment I realized the game was over and I was officially watching a bad movie.
This was not easy for me to take; I’m a Godzilla fan at heart. I grew up with the character and the kid in me had been waiting for a true blockbuster Godzilla film since 1995 so I held out hope for as long as possible but the death of Cranston’s character sealed the deal.
It didn’t have to be this way. The filmmakers had options. My personal suggestion for the plot would have followed Bryan Cranston finding clue after clue on a vengeful plot against the monsters that killed his wife (think Harrison Ford’s Fugitive character), leading up to a reveal about the monsters themselves. That sounds like a hell of a lot more fun than what we got and THAT movie would have been re-watchable. This is not hindsight; it was entirely predictable that it would crash as it did. Cranston has the acting firepower to create a memorable character that we care about and want to root for, as he effectively did in the first 30 minutes of the Godzilla movie. His was not the only great character to be axed from the series. This Monsterverse has an annoying habit of killing its best characters; a trend that continued with the death of Ken Watanabe in King of the Monsters. If it is possible for Godzilla fans to care about a character outside of the G-man himself, Cranston could have done it and that is what makes this movie so frustrating.
Making a modern Godzilla movie successful means creating (or casting) human characters compelling enough that we, as the audience, do not care if the monsters are on screen or not. This was paramount to the success of the Dark Knight trilogy by Christopher Nolan where the writers said in no uncertain terms that making Bruce Wayne likable outside of the suit was paramount to the success of the franchise. This is essential because Godzilla and Batman fans, as much as they like watching their respective heroes in action, would prefer not to be bored when those characters are off-screen.
Godzilla had a strong opening thanks to a solid advertising campaign that excited the dormant Godzilla fan base. The film’s strong opening was followed by a steep drop-off in ticket sales after fans learned that 2014 Godzilla was less centered on Cranston or Godzilla himself and more focused on the wooden acting of ATJ and his quest to save his superficial family. It’s not that Johnson could not be in the movie, it’s that he and his family should not have been at the forefront. It would have been helpful also if they did not introduce a monster fight and the second it is about to begin, cut away to ATJ and the fam.
It’s hard to say what the filmmakers were going for with the casting of ATJ in the lead and centering a movie around such a genuinely uninteresting character. Were his looks supposed to draw love—struck women into a series made for Comic-con super fans? Move makers are constantly in the business of trying to get their movie to appeal to as many viewers as possible, but casting the movie how they did alienated regular moviegoers and Godzilla fans alike.
It’s worth mentioning that the movie didn’t get everything wrong. The monsters look amazing and the action sequences were enjoyable but Godzilla will always represent a promising film that forgot who its best characters were and who its fans are.
-Michael Barnaud
