Monday, February 2, 2015

Go Go Godzilla: An Ode to the Unexpected


WARNING:

The following contains spoilers for the movie Godzilla (2014). If you have any interest in seeing the movie, you'll want to do so before reading this. Go ahead, I'll wait.


Well, I finally saw the recent Godzilla movie.
I say "finally" because I had every intention of seeing it in the theatre but a certain small child refused to see it with me. She was quite keen to see Maleficent, the Boxtrolls, Big Hero 6, and similar fluff, but Godzilla? Nope.

Sigh. Kids these days.

Anyway, I won't bore you with a review; as far as what does or doesn't make it a good movie there really isn't much to say. It's a fairly typical Big Monsters Smashing Stuff film that is a good watch as long as you take it for what it is and don't try to get intellectual about it.

"So what's all this about then?" you might ask.
"Shut up, I'm telling you," I might respond.

I like my movies to have some mystery about them, and trailers never fail to ruin it. Yeah, I get it--they're trying to make it look its best by showing all of the best and most important scenes. The problem is that any good story will have one or two unexpected plot developments and trailers inevitably give away the first one. This means the film is halfway over before there's even a chance of something happening that isn't painfully obvious.

The horror genre is the worst about this. They'll title the movie "Killed to Death by Werewolves" and then make you sit through half an hour of people examining hairy footprints and torn jugulars and reports of howling while the characters gasp, "What could have done something like this?!?"
A werewolf. It's a goddamn werewolf. Just get to the part where stuff happens.

I have the same problem with synopses on the back of books or DVDs (which I've learned never to read). Granted, one will always have a fair idea of what they're getting into (if you grab one from the 'Western' section, expect cowboys) but for God's sake, at least something should be left unrevealed before the film starts.

Which brings us to Godzilla.

It started with the requisite half hour of "What could have done this?!?" and me sitting there saying, "It's Godzilla. Clearly it's Godzilla. Get to the part where people get squished and stuff gets smashed."

And then it wasn't Godzilla.

When 'Muto' (a giant mantis-like critter for those who didn't see the movie and now probably won't bother to) popped out of that hole instead of Godzilla, I was surprised. I honestly didn't see it coming.

I suppose one could argue that I'm just dense and should have known better, but here's the important fact in all of this: not one of the trailers I saw showed any monsters but Godzilla. For that, I am immensely grateful.

This meant that Godzilla being the good guy came as a surprise as well. True, any self-respecting Zillaphile1 knows that Godzilla only was a destroyer in the first few movies. Thereafter he was actually defending Japan from such beasties as Mothra, Rodan, Mechagodzilla, Ghidorah, King Kong, and Gary Busey, but in most American 'Zilla flicks I had seen, it was back to the basics--Godzilla comes in like a wrecking ball (apologies to Miley Cyrus) and is fought off in the end.

I'm a guy who tends to root for the monsters in these sorts of films, so to see Godzilla suddenly in the role of protagonist was refreshing. After all, he's taken a lot of flack about his weight lately, the poor guy.

So thank you, makers of Godzilla, and a further thank you for the spoiler-free trailer. This may not have been the best movie I've ever seen but there's really nothing better than seeing a film that hasn't been pre-spoiled. I can't be the only one that feels that way either. After all, M. Night Shamalamadingdong made millions off of the "crazy plot twist at the end" formula, relying entirely on the element of surprise and the element of your asshole coworkers not ruining it for you before you've seen it.

Try it yourself: the next movie night you have, watch one without knowing what it's about. Have a friend pick something. Grab a random movie off the shelf. Turn to a movie channel and don't read the summary. See what you've been missing.

Mystery--it's not just for mysteries2.


1 - Pretty good, huh? I should trademark that.
2 - That too.

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