Spoilers for Godzilla and Amazing Spider-Man 2 and other movies ahead. Youve been warned. After having a week to mull it over Ive decided what my problem with the new Godzilla movie is. Now, dont get me wrong. I love Godzilla and I enjoyed this movie thoroughly. But the problem I have with this movie is a problem I have with a lot of big action movies. Its the same problem I had with Pacific Rim and The Dark Knight Rises. Its a problem of loss, specifically the complete lack of loss for main characters. To my mind, the simplest way to write a good engaging story has two steps. The scene and the sequel. The scene has a goal (example: Get the thing), a conflict (That guy wants to kill me to stop me from getting the thing), and at the end of the scene a setback (That guy broke my legs because I tried to get the thing). The sequel is what happens immediately after. The character reacts to the setback of the previous scene and forms a new goal in light of it and the cycle begins again. The problem with so many big budget movies is a lack of cost to those setbacks and Godzilla is a perfect example of this because of its decoy protagonist played by Bryan Cranston. Bryan Cranstons character Joe goes through several loses over the course of the film. He loses his wife tragically in the beginning of the film and becomes obsessed with what triggered her lose. This obsession causes him to lose the respect of his son, Ford. Even so, he knows hes right and keeps fighting for what he believes in, until ultimately he loses his life. Ford on the other hand loses almost nothing throughout the film. He loses his mother, but we dont see his reaction to that particular tragedy. He loses his father, but he had only newly begun to gain any sort of respect for the man so it doesnt hit that hard as a loss. And from that point on the setbacks he encounters are minor and never come at any ultimate cost. Now, Bryan Cranston is a far better actor than Aaron Taylor-Johnson. He portrays the loses he experiences beautifully. But hes not the main character. Aaron is. Like Bruce Wayne in the Dark Knight and Raleigh Becket in Pacific Rim he loses almost nothing of great importance to him. Bruce Wayne ends his film without the crippling responsibility of being Batman and spending his time globetrotting with Anne Hathaway. Raleigh loses his brother in the beginning but after that nothing in the film holds any of the weight for his character that his brother did, so hes got nothing to lose. Ford ultimately loses nothing after losing his father. Theres no cost to what these characters are going through. Because theres no cost the audience doesnt empathize with the characters as well. Because we dont empathize we dont care about their characters and just want to get to the big climax and are left a little empty when its over because it turned out the stakes werent so high after all. Now Im all about a happy ending. A good happy ending is amazing, but the best happy endings are the ones that came at a cost, the ones that were earned. Hiccup loses his leg in the fight with the big dragon at the end of How to Train Your Dragon. Spider-Man loses Gwen. Batman in the Dark Knight loses Harvey Dent and Rachel and his status as Gothams hero. Those are the endings that stick with me. They have impact because of the emotional scars that went into earning the characters ultimate goals. Godzilla is still fun. I still love it. Im very happy that its getting a sequel. But I think the reason its leaving a lot of people cold is that in this movie about a semi-sentient natural disaster, there isnt much disaster.
Posted on: Fri, 23 May 2014 12:59:48 +0000
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