King Kong vs. Godzilla (1962)

This Godzilla movie from 1962 is undeniably a hell of a lot of fun, yet it is not quite the clash of the titans that fans of both King Kong and Godzilla might have hoped for.

I’ve probably seen King Kong vs. Godzilla ten times since I was five years old, and I certainly love it for nostalgic reasons, if not for its quality.

To wit, the film today seems a little superficial and shallow, and a bit like a missed opportunity. Specifically, Godzilla’s screen time seems unnecessarily abbreviated, and the Great Lizard doesn’t get to express much in terms of character or personality.  

Meanwhile, King Kong obligingly relives all the well-known moments of his particular mythology, with a baffling new power -- electricity eating! -- thrown in for good measure.

The nail in the coffin is the film’s anemic final battle, which doesn’t rate all that highly in terms of Godzilla franchise history. It’s a brief affair, and mostly lacking in tension, perhaps in an effort to keep it fair.

I mean, I love King Kong as much as anyone, but who really believes that Godzilla wouldn’t completely smoke the giant ape (literally) with his atomic fire breath?

Intriguingly, King Kong vs. Godzilla’s relatively inconclusive ending -- which occurs near water -- does seem to forecast, after a fashion, the closing moments of Freddy vs. Jason (2004).  

In that film, as you may recall, Jason emerges from the water with Freddy’s head…but Freddy winks at the camera, letting you know he may be down, but he isn’t out.  I remember thinking at the time that there was no way on Earth Jason would ever beat Freddy.

In King Kong vs. Godzilla, King Kong emerges (apparently…) triumphant and starts trudging it out for Faro Island, while Godzilla is MIA.  

He’s not visible, but you know he ain’t dead, either…

At this point, I should probably note a bit about my own biases. The Godzilla movies that I tend to love the most -- and admire most as works of art -- are those that are about, essentially, man’s stewardship of the Earth. 

Accordingly, two of my favorites in the cycle are the original Godzilla (1954), a searing document that has lost none of its power today, and Godzilla vs. Hedorah (1972), which replaces the terror of nuclear power with the terror of unrestrained pollution. 

In both the 1950s and the 1970s, there is this pervasive fear in the Godzilla franchise of man ruining life on Earth, spiraling out control…creating ever more destructive “monsters” from his own lack of wisdom.

King Kong vs. Godzilla boasts little such overt meaning or deep sub-text, although its commentary on big business and Pacific Pharmaceutical’s avarice appears to set the tone for John Guillermin’s 1976 King Kong.  

In both films, Kong is seen not as a natural force of nature, but rather as a “tool” that can be used in terms of marketing a product to the public.  

I note this leitmotif with appropriate appreciation, but also suggest it is much more expertly featured in Godzilla’s next outing, the superior Godzilla vs. The Thing, a film which pits him against Mothra.  

In fact, that (very good…) film plays very much like a superior remake of King Kong vs. Godzilla, only with all the wrinkles here ironed out.

“We must bring them together!”

Eric Carter (Michael Keith), a news anchor for the United Nations, reports about a new environmental problem plaguing Japan.  A group of icebergs are breaking up in Japan’s sea. 

When a U.S. submarine, the Sea Hawk investigates, it discovers that the bergs are radioactive.  The sub is soon lost, and presumed destroyed.

Later, a helicopter exploring the same territory sees Godzilla burst out of an iceberg, bringing terror to the world.  The giant radioactive lizard -- apparently a cross between a tyrannosaurus rex and a stegosaurus  -- heads immediately and instinctively for Japan…

At the same time, however, an exploratory team from Pacific Pharmaceuticals visits isolated Faro Island in hopes of bringing back more narcoleptic “soma berries,” and the legendary Faro Island Monster as a TV mascot as well.  

The natives on the island worship a giant ape, King Kong, and when Kong saves them all from a giant, carnivorous octopus, it is easy to see why.  

King Kong is brought back to civilization at precisely the same time that Godzilla makes his deadly march towards Tokyo.

The two titans meet, and King Kong gets the worst of it in the first battle.  

But after dining on some electrical wire, the giant ape is ready for the final battle at Mount Fuji, as the world watches…

“I hope we’ve seen the last of them for a long time…”

King Kong vs. Godzilla is basically a lightning-quick reiteration of two famous monster myths, and then a half-hearted climactic battle between goliaths.

In terms of Kong and his story, this film showcases his island home and the exploitation of the natives there by modern civilization. 

At one point, Pacific Pharmaceutical employees give children and women cigarettes to assure their cooperation. 

But more to the point, the film reveals the great wall separating Kong from the village, as well as the capture of Kong so that he can be brought to the First World as, essentially “a show-piece.”  

In this case, Kong won’t play on Broadway, but on TV instead.  The new wrinkle here is that Kong is downed not by gas grenades, but by a berry narcotic drink which he enjoys…and which makes him very sleepy.

Once in Japan, Kong goes through more of his familiar routine. He is curious about an urban train, and up-ends it…much to the chagrin of the passengers.  And the climbs to the top of a building -- an Empire State Building surrogate -- clutching a woman.  In this case, it’s not Fay Wray but unlucky (and gorgeous…) Fumiko (Mie Hama). 

Godzilla, meanwhile, must reckon with the same set of challenges he already faced in his 1954 film: a ring of electric towers forming a barricade around Tokyo.  

Similarly, King Kong vs. Godzilla features approximately a dozen mentions of the atomic bomb, and whether or not it is appropriate for use in this circumstance.  The bombs are described as being ready, but they are never deployed, for the obvious reason that they would cause considerable destruction.

Perhaps the most interesting facet of King Kong vs. Godzilla today is the vastly expanded role of the U.N.  In this film, it has its own TV network, for instance, not to mention its own highly-advanced satellite.  

Indeed, the U.N. seems to be the hub of the civilized world here, which is something that would no doubt send Glenn Beck screaming under his bed.  But, apparently in 1962 there was a lot less cynicism about the organization than there is in 2014…

In terms of visuals, it’s fair to state that they are a mixed bag. The Faro Island wall looks completely amazing, for instance.  It’s a different design than the one we saw in the 1933 Kong, but nonetheless quite impressive.

But on the other hand, the Kong suit itself is really, really dreadful. King Kong looks ridiculous in this film.  He isn’t helped, either by a script which requires him to be the Kaiju equivalent of a heavy drinker.

King Kong vs. Godzilla also sees the regal ape carried from scene to scene by a clutch of over-sized balloons…

My greatest disappointment, though, is that Godzilla at this early relatively early stage in his career doesn’t showcase some of his best ticks and behaviors: the flapping of his arms in triumph after a successful blow, the occasional victory dance, and other expressive acts that mark the big guy as something more than your average radioactive dinosaur.

Also, I feel very strongly that the U.N. scientist here gets it all wrong when he notes that the battle in the film is brute force (Godzilla) vs intelligence (King Kong).  

As we all know, Godzilla demonstrates cunning and intelligence throughout the film series.  Even so – and as I wrote above – it’s clear that if the filmmakers were being completely fair about this, King Kong wouldn’t survive the first round.

Later monsters -- like Mothra, Megalon, and Rodan, for instance -- are capable of countering Godzilla’s atomic fire breath with weaponry of their own.  The filmmakers endow Kong with the power to re-charge from chewing electrical wires, but let’s face it…you can’t re-charge when you’re dead.  

Godzilla would set fire to Kong’s furry countenance with one good shot, and that would be it.

King Kong vs. Godzilla also quickly turns its corporate goon, Mr. Tako, into a buffoon or figure of fun.  The accent on humor absolutely undercuts the social critique about out-of-control business interests.  I mean, who can really be mad at a guy who almost accidentally detonates the dynamite on Kong’s raft?

I hope that no one perceives me as being too hard on this movie, because or all its flaws, it is eminently watchable and never dull. For me, watching the movie is like spending time with an old friend.

And yet, I also feel that King Kong vs. Godzilla could have been so much more, and that other entries -- like the aforementioned Godzilla vs. The Thing -- are so much stronger. 

Kong: Skull Island (2017)

For an almost-summertime blockbuster, Kong: Skull Island (2017) sure has a lot on its mind, and that’s a good thing in this age of message-free movie entertainment. 

On a very basic, literal level, much of this film concerns cinematic universe-building. The adventures here, on Skull Island, reveal the back-story of Monarch, a monster hunting organization that audiences first encountered in 2014’s Godzilla.  The film’s post-credit sequence sets up Godzilla 2: King of Monsters (2019), and likely, Kong vs. Godzilla (2021), as well.

So there’s plenty of continuity-building for the avid kaiju fan, if that’s what you’re most excited about.

It would be disturbing, however, to report that the entirety of the film is designed exclusively for exposition and fan service, and paving the way for more hype-laden sequels. 

Fortunately, Kong: Skull Island features deeper themes, and subtext too, even as it moves the King Kong myth some distance away from its previous and historical obsessions (namely a beauty-and-the-beast romance, and a statement about mankind “caging” nature, and thus destroying nature).  

In all likelihood, you’ve seen the Apocalypse Now (1979)-styled Kong posters, and this allusion is a key piece of understanding the new film.  

Like Coppola’s film, Kong: Skull Island is set in the Age of Vietnam. 

Apocalypse Now is set in 1969; Kong in 1973. In both cases, the war is known (by all but a few) to be a lost cause, Richard Nixon is President, and America is in the midst of some serious soul searching about the purpose of the war, the prosecution of the war, and, finally, the impact of the war on the national psyche.

Apocalypse Now, of course, is a very loose adaptation of Joseph Conrad’s 1899 literary work, Heart of Darkness, whose theme can be summed up, broadly-speaking, by the following phrase: colonialism (or imperialism, if you prefer) causes insanity. 

Specifically, the novel’s madman, Kurtz, separates from his own world (Europe of the 19^th century), and in goes off the rails as a kind of (crazy) God figure in Africa, treating the indigenous people like they are mere things to be exterminated. This is also Kurtz’s function, incidentally, in Apocalypse Now, though the story there is relocated from the Congo Free State in the 19^th century to Cambodia during the Vietnam Era.

Kong: Skull Island, modifies the theme just a bit. 

Although war may be considered a form of imperialism I suppose, I would state the 2017 monster film’s theme in this way: a failed war creates insanity in men, particularly in men like Packard (Samuel L. Jackson), and leaders in Washington D.C. 

Having lost this particular war -- a war of uncertain purpose and limited support -- such men have lost their moral compass and, indeed, their grip on sanity. This viewpoint is purposefully countered in the film by the presence of a morally-centered veteran from a “just” or “noble” war, World War II.

To ground this discussion in the film’s details a bit more, Kong: Skull Island’s primary antagonist is a Kurtz-like figure (Packard), who decides to make war against a being -- Kong -- that he comes to hate. Packard is not able to look at the larger picture, and understand how Kong protects the status quo on his island home; protecting indigenous peoples from the fierce Skull Crawlers.  

Instead, Packard wishes to interfere on the island and destroy this enemy, simply to prove his own superiority. If the island should fall to other monsters, then Packard will return with the “cavalry” and kill them too. To Packard, might can make right. America didn’t lose in Vietnam, he reports, the powers that be made his soldiers “cut and run.”

With Kong, he doesn’t want to make that mistake again. He is committed until the bloody, self-destructive end, and if he takes his loyal men with him, well, so be it.

Kong: Skull Island features terrific special effects, and at least one great character (Marlow, portrayed by John C. Reilly), but it achieves greatness primarily on the basis of its deeper meaning, so don't believe the superficial reviews that tell you the movie is just dumb fun.

Kong is a monster, and a danger to man under the right circumstances, yes, but he is one who also serves a purpose on Skull Island. Remove him, and a whole island is de-stabilized.  As intimidating and “monstrous” as he is,  Kong remains a bulwark.

Reading a bit further into this analogy, it’s clear that this idea doesn’t belong in the distant past. A decade ago, America chose to take out a “monster” in the Middle East, and the result, once that bulwark was gone, was great chaos and uncertainty; and the creation of new, even more deadly enemies.

That’s exactly what could happen on Skull Island, should Packard succeed in his mission.

Through powerful imagery (of Washington D.C. at the start of the film, and of a President Nixon bobble-head), Kong: Skull Island conveys well its theme, a warning about imperialism and war. One soldier notes -- and I paraphrase -- that if you bring guns to a new land, you’re going to find new enemies to fight, and new battles to wage. 

In this -- the second Kong film of the 21^st century -- the old script is flipped. The mighty ape is a great hero dedicated to balance and the custodianship of his home. This Kong is thoughtful and intelligent (capable of using tools, we see in the climax), and man is actually the destructive “monster.”  

“Is that a monkey?”

In 1973, a man from a secretive company called Monrach, Bill Randa (John Goodman) wrangles a military escort to explore a newly-discovered land mass he calls Skull Island.

Leading that escort is Colonel Preston Packard (Samuel L. Jackson), a solider still upset about the end of the war in Vietnam, and America’s failure to stay and fight what he perceives as a winnable conflict. 

Also along for the ride are Captain James Conrad (Tom Hiddleston), an ex-soldier turned mercenary, and war photographer Mason Weaver (Brie Larson).

The team reaches Skull Island and after navigating a wall of storms, begins a mapping mission that requires the detonation of bombs.  After several explosions on the surface, however, a force of nature -- a giant ape named Kong -- strikes back.  

With his helicopters destroyed and his forces decimated, Packard plans a counter-attack to kill Kong.

Conrad, and Weaver, meanwhile, encounter a World War II pilot, Marlow (John C. Reilly), who explains to them how Kong protects the people of the island from colossal, subterranean lizard creatures he calls Skull Crawlers. Kill Kong, as Packer wishes, and the island’s natives will be endangered and quite likely destroyed.

A desperate mission by river is launched to reach the north side of the island and signal for help, but Packard refuses to leave Skull Island before destroying Kong. 

Meanwhile, Packard’s use of munitions and napalm fighting Kong awaken the largest of the dormant skull crawlers…

“It’s time to show Kong that man is king.”

At its heart, Kong: Skull Island seems to be a tale about what happens to men -- good men -- when they fight a war that they don’t understand, don’t believe in, or feel is somehow unjust.  

Packard loves and honors his men, those he serves with, but he has totally lost his moral barometer, and therefore the ability to understand what is best for them. When many of his soldiers are killed in an attack by Kong -- in an incredibly tense and well-sustained action sequence -- all he can see is the need to kill an enemy. Packard doesn’t see, for example, that what is goon for his team is to get the surviving men out of danger.  That would be, in his eyes, cutting and running, and he is never, ever going to do that again.

Packard’s understanding of Kong, and the situation on Skull Island, is deliberately juxtaposed in the film with the perspective of Marlow (John C. Reilly), a World War II veteran who crashed on the island in 1944, and who has come to not only respect the native people, and Kong, but even his enemy: a downed Japanese pilot. 

Marlow -- named after the protagonist of Heart of Darkness -- perhaps because his war was perceived as just and necessary by his people, and by those who served -- is able to maintain his moral compass in a way that Packard cannot.  He is able to understand Kong’s role on the island, and see the giant ape as something other than a rampaging monster. He respects Kong’s role as guardian of the people, and furthermore can explain Kong’s violent behavior towards Packard’s team.  

Packard’s men came to the island and began dropping bombs, with no warning, no prologue. These bombs not only threaten the wild-life on the surface, as we see in several sequences of deer-like animals running from the explosions, but also threaten to awake Big Daddy Skull Crawler from his subterranean slumber.  This monster killed Kong’s parents, but is now quiescent. Packard’s actions are not only harming innocents, but threatening to awake a sleeping giant. 

Marlow says it well, himself: “Kong’s a pretty good king. Keeps to himself, mostly. But you don’t go into someone’s house and start dropping bombs, unless you’re picking a fight.”

Packard has been itching for just such a fight. To prove to himself, and others, that he didn't lose in Vietnam. 

Again, consider these two men in balance. One is able to see the incursion on the island as a provocative move that demands Kong’s response (as king). The other, Packard, believes he is king, and that it is his prerogative to choose the fate of the island.  

And one man comes from a war of honor; the other from a war without any clear overriding moral purpose.  

When there is no clear overriding purpose in war (except to win), any technique, any strategy that keeps one alive, or in control -- napalm, automatic weapons, what-have-you -- becomes justified.

We see Packard’s jaundiced, and unstable view on full display in his arrogant response to photographer, Mason Weaver (Brie Larson) when he first meets her. She takes photographs in war, documenting fact. Yet Packard sees her (and the press, by extension) as a threat to him, and to the American people. If only she took photos that supported his viewpoint, maybe the people at home would have supported the Vietnam War better. That’s what he believes. 

Yet it’s not Mason’s job (or the press’s, actually) to be PR agents supporting a war, or supporting a particular political agenda. It’s the press’s job to question power, and show people the truth. Only fools and failures blame the press for their own shortcomings. 

America's failure in Vietnam is also played with, intriguingly, in the first approach to Skull Island, by helicopter convoy.  

There is a storm front of catastrophic proportions surrounding the island.  Yet Randa (John Goodman) and Packard make the call to fly through it; to brave the whirlwind without knowing, without understanding, the conditions they’ll face on the other side. Essentially, they are flying blind into a world they don’t understand.  

As the helicopters pierce the veil of gray clouds and lightning, we see a Nixon bobble-head on the dash of a chopper start to spin and shake. Later, when faced with Kong, it spins even more madly, as if experiencing a seizure. It’s as though Nixon, from the vantage point of 2017, is warning the team not to engage, not to go forward into a war that cannot be won.

The film’s social commentary also involves politics, and Washington, D.C. One of the first lines of dialogue in the film is Bill Randa’s assertion that “there’ll never be a more screwed-up time in Washington.”  

Historically, we know this is not a statement of fact. Since 1973, we’ve had the debacle of the Iraq War, (remember when we were going to be greeted as liberators?) and even the sinister foreign influences entangling many in the Trump Administration’s cabinet In the film, however, we see the error of 1973 decision-making. The mission to Skull Island is green-lit, only because Russia might get to the island first. 

The reason to visit the island is not exploration. It is not discovery. It is not entertainment (Kong 1933).  It is not the harnessing of resources (Kong 1976). It is the quest to win, to get ahead in a global cold war. Consequences and preparations be damned. 

Lives be damned too.  It's a race!

Against this injudicious madness, Kong: Skull Island gives us two approaches.  

One man, Marlow, seems crazy on the surface (having been away from “civilization” for 30 years), but he is actually quite sane. 

And then we have Packard, who on the surface seems reasonable, but is the opposite; he is as mad as Kurtz ever was.

The other characters -- and there’s a fellow here named Conrad, after the author of Heart of Darkness -- are little more than ciphers, in comparison. 

I'll go further. Marlow is the real heart of the film. He is never over-the-top, or cartoon-like. Instead, we relate to his wisdom, and his yearning to see home, and his family, again. Kong: Skull Island's final pre-end credit sequence is emotionally powerful because Marlow is the film’s heart and soul; a soldier who understands his cause, but also understands his place in the world. He has been judicious for years, turning enemies into friends and learning to respect the rules of the island. And now, as he returns home for a long-delayed reunion, his faith is rewarded.

The film’s central theme, that war causes insanity, is a key strength of the film, but there are others worth noting.  

For one thing, Kong: Skull Island features a terrific sound-design and sound-track, recalling for us the age of Vietnam both through popular music, and the whirring hum of the Bell Huey copter.  The film is an incredible auditory experience, and the sound design dovetail perfectly with the chaotic imagery.Again, Kong’s unexpected, surprise attack on the copter squadron is a dramatic high-point, a show of American force instantly out-matched by an enemy no one saw coming.  

And that idea, of course, is a perfect metaphor for the Vietnam Age.

In terms of the Kong cinematic myth, a number of historical images are here re-purposed.  The Native Wall re-appears here, though is put to new use We learn it was not built to keep Kong out (as it was in in all other editions of the myth), but rather to protect the people behind the walls from the monstrous skull crawlers.  

Another standby, a visual composition I call “in the hands of the beast” (in which a character -- most often female -- is carried in Kong’s enormous fist), also appears here, but greatly reduced in importance from previous iterations of the myth.  Mason is picked up by Kong, after having nearly drown, and held for only one sequence. Again, Kong doesn’t hold this woman throughout the film.  Instead, the moment is reserved for just one powerful moment.  The beauty-and-the-beast aspect suggested by this shot is negligible in this film.

Kong does climb mountains in Kong: Skull Island, but he doesn’t fight a battle on a man-made summit (Empire State Building, Tokyo Tower, or World Trade Center). This deletion makes sense for a couple of reasons.  Kong is no-longer an anti-hero or tragic hero, but rather a full-fledged hero. 

Secondly, he doesn’t die in this film, but lives to fight another day. The writers have thus saved themselves the trouble of figuring out some bizarre, byzantine way of resurrecting him for Kong vs. Godzilla.  

Frankly, I’m relieved.

As in all previous Kong films, the giant ape does face a “contender for the throne" here, some monster that challenges his supremacy on the island.  In 1933 and 2005, he went up against a T-Rex (or pack of them, as in the Jackson edition). In 1976, he fought an over-sized snake.  Here, Kong battles a whole family of skull crawlers, but the cause is more personal.  We learn that Kong's entire family was murdered by the Big Daddy Skull Crawler, and that now he is a lone sentinel on the island, protecting the people.

As a life-long Godzilla fan, I also found it intriguing that some aspects of Toho Kong made it into this re-imagination. Kong fights an octopus here (as he does in King Kong vs. Godzilla), and I swear Kumonga makes a guest appearance too.

I have read some reviews that don’t appreciate these modifications, or that suggest the movie gets Kong “wrong.” 

I’ll be honest about this: I did not need a fourth version of the original King Kong story, and I certainly did not need to see the character fall off a tall building and die for a fourth time.  I believe it was the right call to keep many of the ingredients of the myth, but change up the details and practical application of some story elements.  This movie feels fresh in a way that, perhaps, the Jackson film did not.

After 85 years, it’s about time. 

And since Kong: Skull Island intelligently rewrites the Kong myth to include the theme about war, and madness, I would say it does not lack for vital or relevant meaning.  

On the contrary, this king-sized monster movie deals with a re-thought and re-considered Kong, rather than just reviving a monster from a “bygone era” of movies.

Godzilla (2014)

The 2014 Godzilla treats the sturdy old creature and his franchise with abundant respect, and perhaps more importantly, with a sense of ingenuity and even love.

Because of Edwards’ meticulous care and devoted attention, Godzilla likely qualifies as one of the best Hollywood blockbusters made last decade. Furthermore, Godzilla is constructed with an eye towards character and human-sized thrills rather than CGI special effects or monumental set-pieces. And commendably, the film’s narrative actually makes sense…a factor one can’t actually take for granted in the age of turgid, over-stuffed, “synergistic” summer blockbusters.

One critic, Salon's Andrew O'Hehir termed Godzilla the best action movie since Jaws (1975). He writes of Godzilla: "This is a movie of tremendous visual daring, magnificent special-effects work and surprising moral gravity."

That comparison to Jaws may be a bit of an over-statement, but there are points of comparison worth making, and O'Hehir's description of Godzilla's virtues are right on the money.

Jaws, of course, was the very first “summer” blockbuster, but the connection between films run deeper than that, and deeper, even than the fact that both film feature protagonists named “Brody.” 

This Godzilla thoroughly impresses based, to a great degree, on its careful generation of suspense, and Edwards’ insistence on providing a “human eye” perspective to the kaiju-sized action.  One might make the same statement regarding Spielberg’s classic. There, the human story about Brody, Hooper and Quint was just as captivating as the death scenes with the great white shark, if not more so when one considers the power of the Indianapolis sequence aboard the Orca.

And just as in Jaws you don’t see the great white shark for long spells there are times in Godzilla wherein the story moves along quite nicely without giant monsters wrecking national monuments on screen.  

The film’s prologue in Japan is absolutely riveting by itself, even outside the giant monster milieu. And this has precisely nothing to do with scale, special effects or disaster movie clichés, but rather the fact that the scene involves two people the audience cares for trapped in a terrifying and tragic situation.

In total, there are likely four crucial factors that come into play when considering the success or failure of any Godzilla film, and Edwards’ 2014 fresh take on the material absolutely runs the table.  It aces the checklist.  

I’ll discuss each of the four factors in turn -- and in detail -- after the synopsis below.

In the year 1999, Dr. Serizawa (Ken Watanabe) makes a strange discovery in the Philippines: the egg-sac of some giant, unknown and apparently recently-dormant creature.  Unfortunately, the prehistoric being is now awake but gone…having escaped to the sea.

Soon after this unique discovery, something strange occurs at the Janjira Nuclear Facility in Japan. An engineer, Joe Brody (Bryan Cranston) has detected strange readings emanating from the plant, and he sends his wife, a scientist (Juliette Binoche), to discover their source.  Disaster strikes however, and Janjira is evacuated as the nuclear reactor apparently goes into meltdown.  

In 2014, Joe’s grown son, Ford (Aaron Taylor-Johnson), a U.S. soldier and expert in explosives, is called to Japan to bail his Dad out of prison.  Unable to put down his obsession with the 1999 incident, Joe is convinced that the government and nuclear plant company are hiding something dangerous inside the Janjira facility.

Joe’s suspicions prove correct, and at the facility, Ford and Joe witness the awakening of a horrible creature: a giant creature called MUTO (Massive Unidentified Terrestrial Organism).  It destroys most of the plant, kills several people, and flies away. Joe is injured during the incident.

Later, Ford teams up with Dr. Serizawa aboard the air-craft carrier U.S.S. Saratoga, a vessel which is attempting to pursue the monster.  Serizawa reveals that this creature is not alone, however. 

In fact, another beast -- which Serizawa dubs “Godzilla” -- was awakened by nuclear testing in 1954 and is now pursuing the MUTO.  Serizawa believes Godzilla, nature’s alpha predator, is hunting the newly-awakened monster, and attempting to restore the Earth’s sense of balance.

Before long, another MUTO rears its head in Nevada, near Yucca Mountain, and the U.S. military is faced with the possibility of three giant monsters on its soil.  Worse, the MUTOs are preparing to reproduce…  

In my introduction above, I mentioned a checklist consisting of four boxes, and noted that Godzilla marks each one successfully.  I want to discuss these four qualities in detail now.

First, does the film feature -- and successfully express -- a viewpoint about Godzilla?  

This is the arena where the 1998 version of the material failed most egregiously.  

The Roland Emmerich film had no notion about why Godzilla is special, or why people should care about him or his story.  

Was he a villain? A mere animal? A hero?  

The film never decided.  In fact, the 1998 film never even gave serious thought about answering the question.

Ultimately, it doesn’t matter much if Godzilla is portrayed as Terror Personified (as was the case in the Ishiro Honda original of 1954) or as a stalwart friend to mankind (as in Godzilla vs. Hedorah [1972] for instance.) 

Instead, what matters is that the filmmakers possess a clear concept of and opinion about Godzilla, so they can capably transmit it to audiences.

On this front, Godzilla (2014) succeeds marvelously. The new film contextualizes the giant beast as a kind of “alpha predator” whose main purpose is to balance out-of-whack nature.

Long-time fans of Godzilla films will recognize this approach as seeming rather Mothra-esque (think: Godzilla vs. Mothra: Battle for the Earth [1992]). Yet it certainly works in terms of Godzilla and our understanding of him. We have seen Godzilla as an Earth defender before, in the aforementioned Hedorah film, and also in efforts such as Godzilla vs. Gigan (1972). Even in Godzilla vs. SpaceGodzilla (1995), Godzilla was our champion (perhaps reluctant…) against more ravenous, horrible monsters.

But this Godzilla of 2014 is a hero, and the filmmakers realize it. They humanize their hero by giving him soulful, old eyes, and letting our human hero, Ford, register them.  This is no mere “wild” animal, no mere berserker.  

No, this Godzilla is not a monster at all…but a God who walks among men.  

And judging by this Godzilla’s gait and lumber, he has seen quite a few fights too.  There is something wise, deliberate and, again, soulful about this creature.  I would even state that at times he seems somewhat gentle (particularly during his evacuation from San Francisco).

And indeed, that’s how the movie understands, recognizes and treats Godzilla for the audience’s benefit.  If Godzilla is an avatar of nature, then he can be both dangerous and beautiful, and Godzilla 2014 nails that duality.

Second on the checklist: Godzilla films function best, universally, when the giant monsters serve as avatars for man’s misuse of the Earth or Earth’s environment.  

In Godzilla (1954), of course, Godzilla represented the bugaboo of atomic bombs, and atomic testing in the Pacific by the United States.

In the aforementioned Godzilla vs. Hedorah, the “smog monster” was an alien who thrived on pollution, and mankind provided more than enough sewage and garbage to allow him to rise up and challenge the human race and the king of monsters.  

And Godzilla 2000 explicitly compared Godzilla to a tornado: a natural force without malice, but with great destructive capability.

Again, Godzilla (2014) satisfies regarding this expectation, or artistic comparison.  Many critics have read the film as an anti-global warming tract, and that seems, at least, a borderline legitimate reading. 

However, the film hits many environmental notes -- and ones across the board -- in terms of modern environmentalism.  To wit, the film opens in 1999 in the Philippines in the aftermath of a mining disaster. It is that mining disaster that leads promptly to a nuclear disaster in Janjira, Japan.  

The MUTO -- a formerly dormant giant monster -- is awakened by man’s destructive hand at this particular mine, and so it is not impossible to see Godzilla as a commentary on fracking.  

That mining technique is the source of many environmental risks, including contamination of the air, noise pollution, and the bringing up of (unhealthy) chemicals to Earth’s surface.  Clearly, the MUTO is comparable in terms of noise pollution (!) and was brought up from beneath the Earth’s surface with very unhealthy consequences for man. The MUTO can thus be interpreted as an avatar for man’s greed in plundering the resources beneath our soil.

Similarly, the anti-nukes metaphor from the original Honda film is updated masterfully here, if that is the aspect of the film one chooses to concentrate on.  Godzilla’s opening scene, about a pseudo-meltdown at the Janjira nuclear plant is frighteningly plausible, and brings back all-too-vivid memories of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster of March 2011.

But in Godzilla, man knowingly nurtures the MUTO at the Janjira facility, nursing it, essentially on a diet of nuclear waste or nuclear energy.  This facet of the MUTO implies that man is a self-destructive organism who courts disaster by continuing to “feed” technologies that are dangerous, and which could radically recreate the environment.

In the movie, fortunately, Mother Nature “summons” Godzilla -- the restorer of balance -- to set things right. 

In real life, we are not so lucky as to have a Godzilla on our side, and it seems we often don’t possess the wisdom to respond well when we create an imbalance. This facet of man’s nature is diagrammed in the film by the U.S. military force, which wants to detonate more nukes in order to stop a creature that actually feeds on nukes…a terribly reckless and poorly-considered notion.

There’s an old saying that man proposes and God disposes.  In a very real way, Godzilla concerns what happens when nature must correct damage that man has created. Regardless if one focuses on the mining aspect or the nuclear aspect of Godzilla’s narrative, it is plain that Gareth Edwards’ film concerns, often deeply, the idea that when man errs catastrophically, nature will respond, and not always in a manner that directly benefits us, or our civilization.

By focusing intently on this subject -- that man is a fool to believe he can control nature -- Edwards’ Godzilla absolutely lives up to the noble and pro-social meaning of Toho’s Godzilla film series.  The very existence of Godzilla reminds one that man is not, necessarily, at the top of the food chain on Earth.

Thirdly, in terms of the Godzilla movie checklist:  do the human beings who move the story forward do more than merely serve the plot, and actually enhance the film as a narrative and as an experience?

Again, I’d suggest that the answer is strongly affirmative.  

Bryan Cranston and Juliette Binoche vet powerful supporting roles early in the film, and almost instantly establish that there is a strong emotional and human under-current to this Godzilla film. Again, a contrast to the 1998 film seems to be in order.  

There, the characters were one-note jokes (remember Mayor Ebert and the Tatapoulos joke?), and some characters were so unlikable, so disconnected from the experience of being in a world with Godzilla, that you actually found yourself wishing they would get killed by the giant iguana.

Not so here. The new Godzilla not only opens strongly with Cranston and Binoche as a doomed and tragic couple, but features a cerebral Godzilla “advocate” in the form of Dr. Serizawa (Ken Watanabe), a man who has seen precisely how man can imbalance nature through his father’s experience at Hiroshima in 1945.  

This new Dr. Serizawa essentially fulfills the role of Miki Saegusa in the Heisei Era of Godzilla films, feeling and expressing a kind of emotional connection to this “alpha predator.” 

Everyone else sees Godzilla as a monster, but Serizawa see him as something more…something remarkable.

In terms of the action, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, playing Ford, is asked to carry the greatest burden, and he does a fine job of establishing a character who is contending with less-than-ideal circumstances.

Ford encounters the MUTO in close-quarters twice, and sees Godzilla close-up at least once, but Taylor-Johnson doesn’t reach for irony or humor, instead embodying a brand of wide-eyed operational-intelligence, or survival mode instincts.  Dropped into the frying pan, he’s constantly figuring out how not to get burned.  The character need not do more than that, especially since he is also well-defined by the film as a good son, a good father, and a loving husband. 

But importantly, Edwards permits us to see through Ford’s human eyes on multiple occasions. The air jump scene is one example that allows us to experience his point of view in visceral terms.  And when Ford sees Godzilla relatively close-up, as I noted above, we see with him.  We see the “monster’s” eyes through the man’s eyes.

This is Gareth Edwards’ greatest gift as a filmmaker: he is able to keep a strong focus on the human and the individual, even in moments that could seem unbelievable, or far-out.  He grounds everything in the human experience, and the result -- as was also the case with Monsters (2010) -- often proves staggering.

Last but not least vis-à-vis the checklist: any Godzilla movie worth its weight in lizard scales needs to feature great monster fights.  

Here, again, the film does not disappoint.  

Edwards plays against expectations and reveals only glimpses of the first MUTO vs. Godzilla encounter.  He holds his fire as long as possible before showing us the Full Monty, as it were.  This reserved approach works effectively because suspense is generated, and we mustn’t suffer through a continuous orgy of destructive, non-stop special effects.  Man of Steel (2013), j’accuse.  

That film gave up plot, characterization -- everything -- for an hour of city-destroying action that ultimately had no visceral or emotional impact. A lot of CGI doesn’t have tremendously more impact than a little CGI, and Edwards seems to understand that lesson.

Godzilla doesn’t go there, and gives us a great final scene. Had the battle occurred at Honolulu mid-way through, the battle royale would not have succeeded.

Instead, the final battle between monsters in San Francisco proves a wonderful catharsis, and it lasts just long enough so that we don’t have to ask questions about Godzilla’s capabilities (such as: why didn’t he use his atomic fire breath in Hawaii). By keeping that battle largely off-screen, Edwards avoids a lot of questions about how and why things go down.  

The final battle is extraordinary in Godzilla, so much so that the audience I watched the film in the theater with roared, clapped and hollered in joy when the giant green monster powered up and fired his atomic breath for the first time.  

Everyone was waiting for that precise moment -- a moment that Emmerich’s film studiously avoided because it wasn’t “realistic,” I guess -- and the moment here truly plays as cathartic, and if truth be told, rousing.  Godzilla also lands a brilliant death blow on the last MUTO, and one that recalls, nicely, a similar move involving Orga in Godzilla 2000. As a monster, Godzilla has always been a slugger.  He’s not always the strongest monster, and he doesn’t always have the most impressive powers, but he learns from each encounter and devises a strategy to win.  That idea plays out in the film’s climactic encounter.

This Godzilla is truly a king of monsters (and monster films), and it could be the savior not just of the summer box-office, but of a certain style of blockbuster film-making; one where we care about the people and the narrative outcome as much as we do about the special effects, and plugs for upcoming franchise films.