Godzilla

Shaula Mae P. Geraldino

2011-18138

It’s probably a sign of how much I’m a nerd that my enjoyment of the film was plagued with awareness of plot holes and scientific inconsistencies, not to mention that Bryan Cranston who top billed the movie (SPOILERS AHEAD) died less than half an hour into the two hour film. Despite all the reasons to dislike it, the Godzilla remake was great fun to watch and everything you’d expect from a Hollywood butchering of a classic pop culture icon.

The story of the giant mutated radioactive lizard goes like this: he was dreamt up as a consequence of the bombings in Hiroshima and Nagasaki first to terrorize and eventually to protect the country, even the world, from harm. I’m sure it’s been analysed inside out and nothing I can say with insufficient research will add to what’s already there, but the bottom line is that it reflects the recovery of Japanese society from the tragedy in a medium that reached the most people in order to encourage them to do the same.

The movie reflects none of this at all. There were laser fights and it was fantastic, but it completely stripped the meaning from Godzilla the monster. There are people fat-shaming it, for god’s sake. Not to mention the inexplicable convenience of it gingerly tiptoeing through the city until it was already evacuated so it wouldn’t destroy anything, surfacing for the sole purpose of killing the Mutous (who would have been useful, by the way, because the amount of radioactive waste we just bury and forget will surprise you). It was branded as an alpha predator set to balance the natural order of things and predator usually connotes that what he’s hunting is prey but he didn’t eat the Mutous when he killed them and balance does not mean kill of your only source of food.

Again, all this ignored by explosions and attractive leads who survive everything against all odds to have a teary reunion in the end. Complete with the potential for a sequel because it wouldn’t be Hollywood without that one thrown in.