[TWO STARS]
Beginning a trailer with skydiving is so engaging. First the Amazing Spiderman 2 trailer did it, and now the first Godzilla trailer does it. Something about a perilous fall sucks you right in. And boy, this fall is really perilous. These military guys are jumping through some apocalyptic clouds and then toward a devastated cityscape and then right into the face of the mighty Godzilla. That’d be enough to turn anyone off skydiving.
Godzilla must be one of the most revamped characters in cinema history. Mostly those revamps have been Japanese, but Hollywood did try its hand at Godzilla way back in 1998 (All we really got out of that one though was a thorough understanding that Mathew Broderick is not an action star). So this is the second American attempt at Godzilla and with it, we have what appears to be the franchise’s Dark Knightification (i.e. a previously existing genre rebooted to be darker and grittier, and therefore more believable, because apparently, this day and age we all believe reality is dark and gritty).
So what can we expect from this film? It’s hard to say. The trailer is a little short on substance. It looks like they’ve captured the basics—giant dinosaur-like creature attacks city. But beyond that it’s hard to know what the story is, or rather if there is more of a story. All we can say for certain about the film is that there will be a lot of explosions and Bryan Cranston is in it.
That’s why, in spite of a strong opening skydive, I’m giving Godzilla two stars.
I’m a little short on faith when it comes to big monster movies. You need to have a whole lot of character development to make a story like this be more than a masturbatory exercise in special effects. A monster simply destroying things does not a good movie make. It has to destroy characters that matter to us.
Trailerbites 