Godzilla: Creature classic’s supersized reboot

Oscar nominee Ken Watanabe practices a tired, bewildered look for two straight hours as a scientist who consults to the US military on things of a giant, lizardy nature.

Oscar winner Juliette Binoche has only a small, relatively inconsequential part. Oscar nominee Sally Hawkins gawps a lot, and is given nothing else to do and the only nod towards fellow Oscar nominee David Strathairn’s status is the slow turn his character, a Navy admiral, is allowed to do the first time he appears on screen. Ooh, the drama.

Breaking Bad’s Bryan Cranston, is expected to do little more than wear a beard and be outraged (the two are linked – when he’s really angry, there are flecks of spittle in his beard), and even promising newcomer Elizabeth Olsen needs only to sob near a phone or look fearfully up at the sky to fulfill her contract.

Aaron Taylor-Johnson and Elizabeth Olsen have their lives turned upside down in ‘Godzilla’. Picture: Supplied.

The only winner in screen-time terms is Aaron Taylor-Johnson as a special Marine who happens to be in the wrong place at the right time when all the huge creature-related stuff kicks off. His is the only character involved in more than one or two narrative threads, and he does a solid job of being the human focus of the film.

But all the piece’s strong moments are the work of the back-room monster-makers and all the other special effects staff. Their Godzilla gives a visual nod to the simple stop-action figurines used in the earliest cinematic stories of the character (a head that seems too small for its body; lines of fins on its back), but makes the creature mind-bogglingly massive, which makes it easier to be afraid of.

A 1-metre tall statue of Godzilla is displayed at a Godzilla art exhibition in Tokyo on May 2, 2014. Japanese fans of Godzilla say the newly-unveiled monster, set to star in a Hollywood reboot of the post-war classic, is too fat and has been “super-sized” by a country used to large portions. The latest version of the giant amphibian will hit 3D screens in the United States on May 16 and in Japan two months later as the fire-breathing Japanese lizard marks its 60th anniversary this year. AFP PHOTO / Yoshikazu TSUNO

The fight scenes between Godzilla and its similarly gargantuan prehistoric enemies are epic, and gleefully dismissive of the loss of human life that would occur should real skyscrapers be toppled with the abandon they are on screen. Incidentally, it’s San Francisco that gets it in the neck this time – New York and Los Angeles have the day off.

At just over two hours, there’s probably half an hour the filmmakers could have trimmed off this story without losing any impetus, and anyone who’s seen a Transformer film or any of the

Jurassic Park series will have a clear idea of what’s likely to unfold here. As a big, brash blockbuster (literally, in the eponymous creature’s case) Godzilla will indeed fill a gap.