The time was right in 2014 for Godzilla to return to the silver screen, for a few particular reasons. One is, obviously, that the success of Pacific Rim has convinced studios that giant monster tentpoles are a safe investment. This trend may even hearken back to the Transformers and the general success of sfx-heavy urban destruction films, that mirrors the cravings of postwar Japan. To me, this signifies the common reaction against many traumas, personal or public, to gain control over that which has traumatized you. In order for Japan to come to peace with the destruction of their cities by an external, alien force (all the more alien given Japan’s pre-20th century hermeticism), they destroyed their own cities a thousand times over on celluloid. That is, until somewhere around the 90’s or 00’s when the wound had healed to the point that the genre began to taper off into oblivion.

But, perhaps due to the effects of 9/11 and Hurricane Katrina, and so the reminder that all the works of a civilization can be invaded from the outside and brought to ruin,the climate is right for the American populace to do the same. To banish the specter of a traumatic scene of destruction, by replicating in a splendidly over-the-top way with the helping hand of super-villains, giant monsters, and alien robots. In Edwards’ “Godzilla”, the urban demolition is handled with attention and care, probably the most important way of paying homage to the Godzilla film franchise (which is so well-known for its focus on realistic miniature work). There is no slo-mo here, and the destruction is, unlike in the Transformers franchise, rendered slowly, sweetly, and comparatively realistic.

The spirit of the original Godzilla films was that of encapsulating a certain zeitgeist preoccupation into a monster, and I would argue that finding the right symbolic basis of Godzilla is key to making a successful film featuring said monster. This may actually be what allowed the Godzilla franchise to survive healthily into the 90’s in Japan. Where originally Godzilla was a glaringly obvious metaphor for Nagasaki and Hiroshima, the idea that he stood for a natural force of disaster, or for the dangers of nuclear energy usage, or as the emissary of payback for polluting mother earth, served as ideological investments that an adult audience could place in the image of Godzilla. Godzilla distilled all these things into one living, breathing form in each of the newer “Heisei” era films, in order that his acts of destruction, heroism, and his near-death experiences all become the backdrop of the human action, and the motivations of the characters.

Godzilla, in this film, is intended as a force of natural balance, something the character of Dr. Serizawa openly claims. By simply not acting and letting Godzilla follow his natural impulses, Serizawa claims, they will be able to eliminate the threat posed by the other monsters. Although I certainly enjoyed this angle (embracing the grace of inaction) in theory, it’s very evident that the balancing force of nature in this film is best embodied in these opposing monsters, not in Godzilla! The “MUTO”s in this film have apparently one major need. They consume large amounts of radioactive materials which are then rendered more and more impotent inside them until they are fully consumed in a matter of decades. And, although there might be some property damage brought on by their impending reproduction, which would populate the world with large, destructive beasts, they’re so ravenous that it’s clear they’d starve in a generation. At the rate of a warhead a day, they’ll quickly clean up every yield that we as a race have to offer. They’re going to eat all of our nukes, clean up all of our radioactive waste, and die out. But luckily, Godzilla is here to save the planet by restoring the balance….wait, no, sorry: wrong movie. Godzilla is here to make sure that we are able to play with dangerous radioactive materials unhindered. Godzilla is here to keep the status quo, of fucking around fecklessly with nature, from changing.

That brings me to my appraisal of the human action in “Godzilla.” It’s ironic how the theme of family is handled in this film, so much so that I wonder if Edwards is in on the joke, and included the following details as a wink to the viewers who are actually paying attention. Aaron Taylor Johnson’s character has to rectify his father’s mistakes by protecting his family at all costs, even eschewing other social responsibilities. Despite this being irresponsible advice, it becomes, as it often does in any filmed action-adventure film, that the hero becomes simply the person whose selfish desires just so happen to dovetail nicely with the pressing needs of the community at large. It just so happens that Taylor Johnson’s wife and child needs saving, AND that the military procedures that put his family in danger are also a terrible strategic mistake! Convenient. And how does that leave the family in the most unlucky predicament of all?

The adversarial monsters in the film, the MUTO, are guilty only of wanting to start a monogamous family with an invested bout of child rearing. The primary evidences that Edwards is aware of this are the loving exchange of a nuclear warhead as a conjugal gift from the male to female MUTO, and the despairing wail of the mother MUTO upon the destruction of its clutch. In fact, I can’t see how Edwards couldn’t have intended this effect, since the romance between the MUTOs is handled with so much more poignant care than the almost drugged-down blandness of the protagonist’s family interactions. They are just barely (like virtually all of the film’s cast) driven to passion by the catastrophe around them, with the only exception being Cranston’s drastic character, who is of course killed off fairly early. I was left wanting to know so much more about the enigmatic former generation than the current frigid one. And this all leaves us here: the overarching moral of the film is really to blindly follow your impulses, and pray that fate decrees that they somehow lead to an ethical outcome.

Some film goers were upset that we don’t see enough of the monsters, particularly of Godzilla, and that when we do see them it is generally in glimpses cut away from human-centric scenes. But this is par for course with the old monster films as well, and is actually an excellent way of paying tribute. You’re teased, image by image, by scintillating glimpses of monster flesh, until eventually you get to see bits of the full creatures in action. But on top of this he adds a new sense of awe inspiration that’s not really found in the old films. He brings in the first MUTO with a sense of terrifying scale, only to upstage it by later introducing a Godzilla that dwarfs the MUTO in size. It’s an impressive method for managing and producing spectacle, reminiscent of Lucas dwarfing Leia’s ship with the Star Destroyer in the opening of Star Wars. In the midst of all this cinematic foreplay, can I call this a seductive monster movie? If Transformers is the ostentatious lover who only knows how to do missionary really well, and either finishes too early or just unnaturally drags everything out at the same energy level, then Godilla is the one who takes you on a slow-burn, nipping you and encouraging you until you’re hungry for a complete sensual surrender.

As one last aside, I’d like to point out that this film features an inordinate amount of scenes of children staring into scenes of destruction. This is, of course, not only to remind the young viewers that they are welcome participants in the audience experience, but to allow the adults to surreptitiously enjoy scenes of collateral damage which would otherwise be considered obscene. As a mature, liberal, citizen of the world, I would be appalled and disgusted by watching inhabitable cities torn to pieces by giant monsters. But watching everything through a child’s eyes, we might allow ourselves not to think about what we can’t see, when all we can see is the impressive foreground of the monster action. This technique is commonly used, but I just wanted to illuminate that “Godzilla” employs it at least three times.

So, in closing, I can’t help but recommend “Godzilla” as a giant monster film. Which almost by definition means that I can’t recommend it as a film with anything but one, obvious layer to it. I would love to imagine that it is Gareth Edward’s master tragedy of the MUTO family, out of time and place, torn apart by the cruelties of mankind. Or even a double tragedy: the other being that mankind is afforded an opportunity to be cleansed of its poisons, but Nature deciding that we don’t deserve to be saved from our own wiles, and sending Godzilla to retract the agents of natural balance, leaving us to continue our plodding suicide. But this is probably more of a testament to my own imagination than to Gareth Edwards’ artistic vision. Hollywood is doing a damn fine job of entertaining us as a society with our own punishment, while allowing us to continue committing our crimes unimpeded at the end of every single film.