Leviathan

Something scaly this way comes in Godzilla.

«« Godzilla. Written by Max Borenstein & Dave Callaham. Directed by Gareth Edwards. At area theaters.

Godzilla is no purple dinosaur. He has a very particular set of skills, which includes trampling, roaring, and spewing his atomic breath. Since his first appearance (Godzilla, 1954), he's done some evolving, from a rampaging symbol of nuclear technology run amok, to planetary guardian, to eco-warrior, back to rampaging monster (e.g. Roland Emmerich's much-maligned 1998 reboot). As the fandom has collectively decided that Emmerich didn't do the big green guy justice, he's been awoken from his slumbers once again in Gareth Edward's Godzilla.

          Full disclosure: after seeing the trailers for this movie I wanted to like it. First, because it stars Bryan Cranston, who still dwells in the afterglow of Breaking Bad. The trailer also showed a canny awareness that the less we see of the mega-reptile, the more he teases us from the smoke and rubble, the less a joke he seems. As Edwards' special forces guys free-fall on the wrecked shell of San Francisco to the otherworldly tones of György Ligeti's  Requiem (famously used in 2001: A Space Odyssey), there was a refreshing lack of irony to be seen or heard. There seemed the possibility that Edwards—a director on his sophomore outing—might actually make some unexpected choices.

          Turns out there are unexpected developments in Godzilla, but not always of the best kind. In the interest of not spoiling it, suffice it to say that neither Cranston nor Juliette Binoche are as much of a presence in the film as the previews would suggest. The real hero turns out to be Aaron Taylor-Johnson, otherwise known from the Kick-Ass movies. Nor is Godzilla necessarily the villain.

          Edwards indeed does keep Godzilla under wraps for much of the film, sometimes as a mere bump in the ocean, sometimes with his bony crest splitting the water like a Kraken-sized shark. Other times the film just seems to lose track of him—which is a neat trick, given that he's a 400-foot behemoth. Coming so soon after Guillermo Del Toro's gonzo Pacific Rim, this Godzilla just seems like less—as in less action, less involvement, lower stakes. It's as if Del Toro managed to get the parody of a movie out before the original got a chance to raise its scaly head.

          Maybe the most interesting thing about this Godzilla is he's not so much a monster as the Hobbesian Leviathan, the only force powerful enough to overshadow the state of nature that is "a war of all against all". In this, writers Max Borenstein and Dave (not "David") Callaham are inspired by the evolution of the Toho Studios Godzilla, whose meaning has, over the decades, acquired as many layers (plague, hero, father, outcast, monarch, equalizer) as there are hues of "beckoning cats" in Japanese souvenir shops. As in virtually every superhero opus, there are colossal forces at work in the world, and humans can only scurry out of the way.

          Construing humans as mere spectators is tempting because it lets us off the hook. Climate science denialists place their faith in that very idea, that the collective acts of seven billion human beings "couldn't possibly" have consequences on a planetary scale. ("Jesus won't let it happen," some declare.) Alas, that bump in the ocean isn't Godzilla coming, but something far worse.

© 2014 Nicholas Nicastro