GODZILLA (2014) (4K UltraHD Review)

GODZILLA (2014)

Label: Warner Bros. Home Entertainment

Region Code: Region-Free/A

Duration: 123 Minutes

Rating: Rated PG-13

Audio: English Dolby Atmos, English Dolby TrueHD, English DTS-HD MA 7.1 with Optional English Subtitles 

Video: 2160p UHD, 1080p HD Widescreen (2.39:1) 

Director: Gareth Edwards

Cast: Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Ken Watanabe, Elizabeth Olsen, Juliette Binoche, Sally Hawkins, David Strathairn, Bryan Cranston

I remember watching director Gareth Edward's sci-fi alien creature-feature Monsters (2010) and thinking to myself, "now this is the sort of guy that should be making Godzilla movies", and sure enough I was not alone in that thinking, and his next film turned out to be the relaunch of Godzilla (2014)!

The movie opens with Dr. Ishirō Serizawa (Ken Watanabe, Batman Begins), a scientist for the secretive government agency Project Monarch, who discovers the giant fossilized skeleton of a kaiju creature that resebles Godzilla in the collapsed cavern of a uranium mine, alongside two enormous egg sacs, one hatched, one still dormant. A short time later Joe (Bryan Cranston, Malcolm in the Middle), the lead engineer at the Janjira nuclear plant in Japan is investigating strange seismic activity, his wife Sandra Brody (Juliette Binoche, The English Patient) is a nuclear safety  consultant at the same facility. Mrs. Brody finds herself deep in the bowels of the plant investigating the structural integrity of the reactor during the tremors, and as the seismic activity increases the nuclear reactor containment wall is breached,  resulting in Joe having to close the reactor containment doors before his wife can escape, saving untold numbers but dooming her. 

Fifteen years later Joe is still living in Janjira where he lives the live of a conspiracy hermit, now estranged from his  adult son Ford (Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Kick-Ass), who is a a member of the US Navy as a  Lieutenant of Explosive Ordnance Disposal. He is now living in San Francisco,  married to Elle (Elizabeth Olsen, WandaVision), with whom he has a five year old son. When he gets a call from the authorities in Japan that his father has been arrested for trespassing into the Janjira's quarantine zone around the former reactor he reluctantly flies to Japan to bail his father out.

Reunited with his dad Ford grows tired of his father's conspiracies, convinced that the meltdown at the reactor fifteen year earlier was cover-up, that the government is hiding something, and hiding something big, and of course he is right! Joe convinces his son to accompany him into the forbidden zone, to revisit their former home to recover some files he needs for his research, where they discover that zone is uncontaminated, and end up at a MONARCH headquarter, where the truth is revealed.  

I like the set-up of the film, how they slowly introduce 

Godzilla with vintage 8mm footage of him being nuked at Bikini Atoll, it's a cool teaser. His kaiju foe in this first entry is dubbed a M.U.T.O. (Massive Unidentified Terrestrial Organism), a winged Lovecraftian-looking red-eyed, winged creature, that to be honest the first time I saw it in theaters I did not care for. Now I like quite a bit, but I found the unnatural angular design a bit off-putting. I thought the non-revolutionary update of Godzilla perfect, a bit of the new, a lot of the old Toho design, and thankfully not over-redesigned as Godzilla (1998). For the record I do not loathe that '98 film as some do, it's a cool popcorn muncher, but it did not look and/or feel like a Godzilla flick, and that's okay, it's still silly, overstuffed, big-monster flick escapism.  

The kaiju battles we see on screen here are awesome, the action set pieces are epic and breathtaking, with the stomp-Toyko type action in San Francisco pleasing me quite a bit. The movie looks great, and the ratio of big monster action to on-the-ground human drama is well balanced, though I was a bit disappointed that both Cranston and Binoche exit stage left rather early. 

Audio/Video: Godzilla (2014) arrives on 4K UHD from Warner Bros. Home Entertainment in 2160p UHD framed in 2.39:1 widescreen. Shot on digital and sourced from a 2K D.I. the image is upsampled in 4K  with HDR10 color-grading, the result are terrific. The previous Blu-ray was overly dark in spots that obscured the big-screen kaiju action, and while this is still a dark movie the HDR10 greatly improves contrast and the richness and subtlety of the black levels. There's also a slight uptick in detail over the Blu-ray, the textures of the MUTOS and Godzilla looks superior, as do clothing textures. The colors, while inherently muted by design does get a proper primary-pop due to the HDR10 color-grading. 

Audio comes way of English Dolby Atmos or Dolby True HD with optional English subtitles. Not surprisingly the Atmos upgrade is a real shack-shaker, the soundstage is absolutely immersive with some terrific use of the surrounds and height channels to create a bombastic, muscular and bass-filled experience befitting of kaiju creature-feature. The clicking noise of the Mutos, Godzilla's deafening roar, and the ringing of artillery and gunfire are ear-piercing, and the score from composer Alexandre Desplat (Moonrise Kingdom) sounds terrific. 

Onto the extras we get nothing new, which is not unexpected, but still a bit disappointing. All the extras are exclusive to the Blu-ray, which is actually the excat same disc as the 2014 Blu-ray release from WBHE. These include an hours worth of in-character extras that look as if they are classified videos produced by MONARCH itself, which I do love quite a bit. We also get some cool behind-the-scenes featurettes, animatics, conceptual designs, and some solid interviews with the cast and crew that gets into the herculean task of relaunching the franchise and the massive amount of work that went into it. There is also a digital code for a Movies Anywhere/VUDU 4K copy of the film, that includes the extras.

The 2-disc Blu-ray/UHD combo arrives in a black Viva Elite eco-keepcase with a single-sided sleeve of artwork that look to be a new illustration. To my eyes it looks to be taking a cue from the original Godzilla mixed with elements of Katsushika Hokusai's Under the Wave off Kanagawa painting. It has a cool retro vibe, the same artwork is mirrored on the metallic finish slipcover. The Blu-ray disc inside is the same 2014 Blu-ray with lettering on a black background, the UHD disc has a cool silver and grey image that's sort of translucent, nothing too special. 

Special Features:
- MONARCH: Declassified - Discover explosive new evidence not contained in the film that unravels the massive cover-up to keep Godzilla’s existence a secret. (7 min) HD 
- Operation: Lucky Dragon (3 min) HD 
- MONARCH: The M.U.T.O. File (4 min) 
- The Godzilla Revelation (7 min) 
- Godzilla: Force of Nature (19 min) HD 
- A Whole New Level Of Destruction (8 min) HD 
- Into The Void: The H.A.L.O. Jump (5 min) 
- Ancient Enemy: The M.U.T.O.s (7 min) HD 

Godzilla (2014) on UHD from Warner Bros. Home Entertainment is a solid upgrade over the previous Blu-ray, there are no new extras and I wish the accompanying Blu-ray was a new scan and color-grade, but the UHD looks and sounds terrific, and if you're looking to revisit it before the release of Godzilla vs. Kong (2021) there is no better way to watch it at home. 

Screenshots from the 2014 Blu-ray (WBHE):

Extras: