Bryan Cranston makes everything better. This is a generally accepted fact. And it's true to say that Godzilla might have proven to be a little more riveting - and a lot more human - had the filmmakers opted to make his character, Joe Brody, the main character, instead of a secondary one. Not only is Cranston (hammy as he is) the most appealing and sympathetic character in the film, he's also the one who provides it with its emotional core - it's his wife who dies at the beginning of the movie, and he wants to solve the Godzilla mystery as a result. Perfect! Instead, the filmmakers kill off Cranston at the end of the first act, giving the spotlight to his son, Ford, played by Aaron Taylor-Johnson (more on him next). The problem with this shift is that we've followed Joe, not Ford, through the film's opening sequence where an accident at his workplace - a power plant - leaves his wife dead; he's the one who sets the plot in motion when Ford comes to Japan to get him out of jail for sneaking into a quarantined zone. Quite simply, he's the driving force behind the film's events; the character we should have rooted for.
Sam Hill is an ardent cinephile and has been writing about film professionally since 2008. He harbours a particular fondness for western and sci-fi movies.
