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:

Blu-Ray Review: Gamera/Gamera 2 (2010)

GAMERA DOUBLE FEATURE
Gamera: Guardian of the Universe (1995) / Gamera 2: Attack of the Legion (1996)
Mill Creek Entertainment

GAMERA - GUARDIAN OF THE UNIVERSE (1995) Directed by Shusuke Kaneko / Starring Tsuyosha Ihara, Akira Onodera, Shinobu Nakayama, Hatsundri Hasegawa /Color /Unrated/103 Min. That giant fire-breathing turtle you loved as a kid is back with a vengeance in GAMERA: GUARDIAN OF THE UNIVERSE. The super turtle combats both a misguided military and a hideous race of man-eating flying reptiles. Aiding Gamera in his fight are a courageous naval officer, an intrepid ornithologist and a beautiful young psychic. Don't miss the most incredible slam-bang, knock-down monster slug-fest ever filmed as Gamera turtle-waxes the evil Gyaos through downtown Tokyo in GAMERA: GUARDIAN OF THE UNIVERSE! (from MillCreekEnt.Com)

 I missed out on earlier 1960's/1970's incarnations of Gamera, but after popping this in I was instantly transported back to my childhood and the Godzilla films I loved so much. So, apparently Gamera is a 200 foot-tall bio-engineered, bipedal fire-breathing giant-turtle created by the people of the ancient and highly advanced civilization of Atlantis. His purpose was to defeat another Atlantean engineered creature called Gyaos, which are gigantic lizard-like flying bird that eats humans. From what I could figure the Gyaos were created to combat pollution during ancient times. I guess this wasn't a problem until they started procreating and their numbers got out of hand and they started eating too many people. So, once this happened the Atlanteans had to create Gamera to fend of the Gyaos. No wonder Atlantis sank, this kind of logic is self-defeating. So, Gamera did defeat Gyaos back in ancient times and forced them into hibernation. Thousands of years later (1995) we have continued to pollute the enviorment and the Gyaos have returned. Following suite Gamera also returns to finish this ancient battle. Of course, the military is after Gamera, the one creature that's trying to save the human race. They're more concerned with the capturing the Gyaos and weaponizing them for military purposes. We get your classic man in a rubber suite on a sound stage full of miniatures here, but it is so well done. The creature, the miniature city, the special effects shots are very well inciorporated, quite seemless. I bought into the effects from the start and really didn't start thinking about the man-in-the-suite aspect until after the film. My only complaint of the film is the Gyaos creature design look pretty hokey at times, but effective nonetheless. So much fun - huge explosions, buildings crumbling under the might of two enormous creatures engaged in an ancient battle. Great stuff and exactly what you would want from these films.

GAMERA 2: ATTACK OF THE LEGION (1996) Directed by Shusuke Kaneko / Starring Akiji Kobayashi, Toshiyuki Nagashima, Miki Mizuno, Tamotsu Ishibashi, Mitsuri Fukkoshi /Color /Unrated/114 Min.  A freak meteor shower near Sapporo, Japan brings with it more than just a killer light how. Electrical problems, over-grown plant life and a whole slew of rather irritable critters also drop in to threaten the human race. Local science instructor Midori Honami (Miki Mizuno) is called to assist the brave Colonel Watarase (Toshiyuki Nagashima) in the military's oft-confused attempts to save mankind. They must find a way to successfully combine efforts with their reptilian protector, or both will face ultimate destruction from the Earth's bugged-out invaders. Join the battle as Gamera and his bipedal pals work to repel the Attack of Legion! (from MillCreekEnt.Com)

The second installment of what is known as the Heisei-era of Gamera films is Gamera 2: Attack of the Legion (1996). This time around Gamera must battle a race of insectoid aliens who arrive on earth during a meteor shower. The Legion (as they;ve been dubbed)build a hive in the subway tunnels of Tokyo and are building a sort of pod at the city's center. There are two types of Legion. Most are smaller swarming hive-creatures and then there is the gigantic main creature that grows to a size equivalent to Gamera. I really enjoyed the creature design in this film more so than the Gyaos from Gamera: Guardian of the Universe. The Legion creatures were quite detailed and the battles between Legion and Gamera bring mass destruction the miniature cities, it looks really great. To be honest the human element of these "kaiju" films are not of great interest to me, I wanna see some creature on creature action and Gamera 2 did not disappoint on that level at all. You get the usual array of characters: a young, attractive scientist Midori (Miki Mizuno) and Colonel Watarase (Toshiyuki Nagashima), who join forces early on to combat the alien-threat. It's an effective team-up and provides some comedy to the story. The Gamera: Guardian of the Universe films was a fun and action-packed, Gamera 2: Attack of the Legion actually ratchets up the action and the special effects look even better this time around.

DVD: Both features are presented in their original aspect ratio of 1.85:a anamorphic wide screen in 1080p high definition with the option of Japanese Dolby Digital 5.1 or 5.1 DTS HD or dubbed English 5.1 Dolby Digital with optional English subtitles. For the most part colors are vivid and crisp though there are parts that seem a bit soft and some compression artifacting is visible. The audio while not bombastic is effective and during the epic battle scenes comes to life. No supplemental features are included.

VERDICT: If you are a fan Japanese giant monster films (Kaiju films) and felt disappointed by the American reboot of Godzilla (1998) I think you'll find solace in this action-packed Gamera double feature, this is fun stuff. While I don't pretend to be a connoisseur of such films I can say without a doubt that my kids and I had a blast watching this.  
***1/2  (3.5 out of 5 stars)

- McBASTARD