Godzilla - 4K Blu-ray Review

[Michael Scott]

Godzilla



Movie:
4K Video:
Video:
Audio:
Extras:
Final Score:


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Movie
I remember growing up in that golden era where monster movies reigned supreme, albeit it was mostly during the days of the re-runs on cable TV, with Godzilla smashing Mechagodzilla, Mothra and even battling King Kong. I even had some fun with that stink bomb of a Godzilla film that Roland Emmerich laid out on us nearly 16 years ago. It wasn’t a Godzilla film in anything but name only, but it was still a fun “monster goes smash!” type of film. When I heard that Gareth Edwards was going back and taking a page or so out of the original 1954 “Godzilla” flick I was in like Flynn. Now I’m going to say that for the younger ones of you who grew up with Roland Emmerich’s version may be a little bit shocked at the lack of non-stop Godzilla stomping that we became used to in our day and age. Godzilla is used sparingly here and alluded to for a majority of the movie, with us catching glimpses of his back ridges or a tail, or even a leg till about half way through the film. It’s a bit flawed in its execution, but you can feel the love that Gareth had for those olden goldies that our favorite beastie starred in back during the 50’s through the 80s.

The film begins back 15 years ago when one Joe Brody (Bryan Cranston) is in charge of a nuclear power plant out on the coast of Japan. They had begun experiencing seismic activity the last several days without any ability to pinpoint what was causing it or where it was coming from. Going from bad to worse, the seismic activity leveled the entire plant and ends up killing Joe’s wife, Vivienne (Sally Hawkins) in the process, leaving him a single father to his son Ford (Aaron Taylor-Johnson). Fast forward to present day, and he can’t give up the search for the truth when those same seismic readings start to surface once more, in the same location as the old power plant. The good old government has quarantined the zone and declared it a health hazard, but Joe knows that SOMETHING is going on back there and he can’t rest till he vindicates himself and finds out what killed his wife and destroyed his life so many years ago. With the reluctant help of his son, the two men slip into the forbidden zone and there witness something that will threaten all of humanity.

It appears that scientists have been studying a “hatchling” that escaped from a prehistoric dig site in the Philippines and tunneled all the way to Joe's Nuclear plant, studying its energy readings for years and are now witnessing it’s rebirth into this world. From an ancient time when the Earth was covered in radiation, this giant monster is a juggernaut, absorbing radiation and pretty much invincible against our weapons. Rampaging across the globe in a search for radioactive material for sustenance, it can only be stopped by our biggest fear, an even BIGGER and more ancient beast that has been languishing in the depths of the ocean near the earth’s core where it can live in peace until a monstrosity like this attracts it. Godzilla himself. With the appearance of this MUTO, and the second sighting of ANOTHER MUTO that had been thought dead, Godzilla is on the hunt, acting as nature’s balancing agent, to bring order to what has now become chaos.

Dr. Ishiro Serizawa is convinced that Godzilla is here to restore balance to nature and isn’t interested in humans whatsoever; he’s focused on his giant MUTO prey. Alas, the military can’t take that risk, and headed by Admiral William Stenz (David Strathairn) they are going to try and take out all THREE beasties with a giant nuclear device in one shot, only to end up endangering the lives of all of San Francisco by nuclear detonation. Enter Ford Brody again, the only surviving bomb specialist in the area. Who will win? Will the military get their way? Will Godzilla lay waste to the West Coast? Or will it be just one giant battle to the death between gods?

I had a lot of fun in the theater, but even going in, knowing that Godzilla himself wasn’t going to be on the screen smashing things for 2 hours straight I was slightly disappointed. When you have a 2 hour run time and Godzilla isn’t the PRIMARY focus, you need good supporting characters, and that’s where the film had its stumbling. We all know the military is going to bungle things, that’s the nature of these movies. If they didn’t bungle things so badly, there would be no room for Godzilla to take things into his own hands (paws, claws whatever they are). However, when you kill off the most interesting character (and best actor) in under 40 minutes of exposition and leave us with the young pretty boys/girls, it tends to be a downturn. Aaron Taylor-Johnson became the focus of the rest of the runtime (humanwise) along with Ken Watanabe’s character; I still say that Aaron just wasn’t the right man for the job. He’s young, he appeals to the new generation, but he wasn’t the right man for the job and it just REEKS of a mistake when Bryan Cranston stole every moment of the first 40 minutes. Ken Watanabe does a decent job as the Japanese scientist firmly rooted in his belief that Godzilla was the great universal balancing device, but he still wasn’t given a lot to work with as the focus was on the rather forgettable young ones and the military.

I have some mixed reactions to Godzilla being that great balancing tool that I’ve mentioned. In the film he takes a bit of the later Godzilla mythology and is the protector of the human race (all while still completely ignoring them) instead of taking the harboring of doom that he was in the original and even in the Roland Emmerich film. It works in many situations, but they tried so hard in a few instances to try and prop him up as the good guy to cheer for that it came off as a bit cheesy. I still liked the idea of him ignoring humans as little ants and going after his prey, but the hero worship was on the opposite end of the spectrum and didn’t work as well. STILL, besides those two complaints the film itself was quite a bit of fun. The teasing Godzilla’s appearances and the little glimpses of him that we get are more visceral than actually seeing him run around roaring the entire movie. By the time that he DOES fully reveal himself we’re all giddy with excitement and read for him to start crushing things. That final battle between the two MUTO’s in San Francisco is absolutely epic and fans of the old Godzilla movies will recognize a couple of his signature moves during the confrontation (including one absolutely epic finishing move that will have every Godzilla fan cheering). The movie does have a couple of flaws that keep it from being epic, but I had loads of fun during the movie and am actually up for a 3rd watching in the next few days.




Rating:

Rated PG-13 for intense sequences of destruction, mayhem and creature violence




4K Video: Video:

The 4K disc was struck from the same 2K master that the 2014 Blu-ray was struck from, but shows some noticeable upticks in quality. The upgrade level from Blu-ray to 4K isn’t MASSIVE, in fact it’s an average jump, but the HDR highlights make for a more pleasing viewing. The film has always been criticized for being a DARK movie and a stress test on the black level capabilities of your display. If you have a mediocre TV, or a budget TV then you had problems with the blackness just overhwelming the screen. Rumors had abounded that Warner was re-doing the brightness levels to “fix” the issue, but after viewing them side by side it’s obvious that the black levels were untweaked. HOWEVER, the HDR really does change the viewing experience in those dark scenes. The darkness levels are deeper and inkier, and noticeably cleaner than the spotty digital noise that would show up on the Blu-ray. The end result is a cleaner look that shows more detail levels in the darkest of scenes, and doesn’t crush. Colors are still that muted and dulled palette that has always been present, but things like faces and clothing look sharper and richer with what minimal colors are present. Faces on the Blu-ray look sort of sallow and pale, while they’re more robust and skin textured here.

Detail levels in general are better, but not a whole lot so. The whole darkened nature of the film and the 2K source just doesn’t give us a TON of extra detail to add to the image, but combined with the HDR highlights the movie is definitely nicer to look at.










Audio:

The 5.1 DTS-HD MA track found on the Blu-ray from 2014 (and on the exact same disc found in this combo pack) was one of the most devastating mixes of it’s time. By that I meant that it was a bass powerhouse that just assaulted you and left your ears ringing and your entire room vibrating. I once rated that 5/5 due to how excited I was and how aggressive the mix was, but over time I’ve re evaluated my opinion on it. Sure, it was SUPER loud, and SUPER heavy on the bass. But there were some major problems built into the mix. The main one being that it clipped like crazy due to the bass and overall dynamics being pushed to level 15 out of 10. The more I listened to the mix, the more it felt harsh and grating, despite the bass head in me loving the boom boom.

This new Atmos mix is generally the same mix it sounds like, but the track is a bit softened in terms of how hot it was cooked on there end. There’s still some clipping going on (the mix had a TON baked into the original mix), but the hotness has been dialed back just a little bit, which alleviates the heavy baked in clipping. This means that the bass isn’t as stupid insane as it was, but it sounds more natural to my ears. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not here saying “oh they took the bass out of the movie like War of the Worlds 4K! Nothing’s wrong!”. The bass is there, and the bass is there in SPADES, but those overly harsh levels that it was mixed at before have become more neutral. The surrounds are still wildly active with the insane cacophony of the world being crushed by giant beasts, and the overheads get some really cool discrete effects on (especially when they parajump into the city near the end) and dialog is still quite intelligible. Great mix, and I actually like it MORE than the 5.1 DTS-HD MA track, despite it take about 15-20 minutes to get used to the lack of so much bloated distortion that I’m used to in the mix.







Extras:

• MONARCH: Declassified - Discover explosive new evidence not contained in the film that unravels the massive cover-up to keep Godzilla’s existence a secret
- Operation: Lucky Dragon
- MONARCH: The M.U.T.O. File
- The Godzilla Revelation
• The Legendary Godzilla - Go behind the scenes with filmmakers and cast for an even deeper look at the larger than life monsters in the film
- Godzilla: Force of Nature
- A Whole New Level Of Destruction
- Into The Void: The H.A.L.O. Jump
- Ancient Enemy: The M.U.T.O.s

Final Score: ​

It’s been a while, but we finally got the last of the “new” Godzilla films on 4K UHD. The film was one of those movies that trashed a lot when it came out in 2014, but I was one of those people who actually enjoyed it a lot, and was kind of disappointed by the sequel (though be assured I’m going to be checking out the new Kong vs. Godzilla entry this coming month). It’s a fun popcorn flick ala Pacific Rim, and while it does have it’s faults it’s an audio and video treat for sure. This disc sports a solid enough video upgrade, and a nicely improved Atmos mix that fixes some of the flaws of the old DTS-HD MA track. Worth checking out.


Technical Specifications:

Starring: Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Bryan Cranston, Ken Watanabe
Directed by: Gareth Edwards
Written by: Max Borenstein, Dave Callaham
Aspect Ratio: 2.40:1 HEVC
Audio: English: Dolby Atmos (Dolby TrueHD 7.1 Core), German, Portuguese, French, Spanish DD 5.1
Subtitles: English SDH, French, Spanish
Studio: Warner
Rated: PG-13
Runtime: 123 minutes
Blu-ray Release Date: March 23rd, 2021

Recommendation: Fun Grab

 

[Sonnie]

My kind of movie... looking forward to it.

 

[Michael Scott]

forgive me, the audio section got omitted when I posted, but has been corrected with the proper analysis of the Atmos track

 

[Sonnie]

Well that flew right over my read of it. Amazing how I sometimes don't miss things.

 

[Michael Scott]

Well that flew right over my read of it. Amazing how I sometimes don't miss things.

we'll blame it on the senility

 

[phillihp23]

I have this one on pre-order. Looking forward to check out the new atmos mix.
You know I watched this in digital stream at a friends house years back and I think I blew his tv speakers from all the distortion on the Blu-ray version.

 

[mechman]

I'll have to keep an eye out for this one. Love Godzilla!

 

[tripplej]

Thanks for the review. I also love Godzilla. Will check it out.