The literary term deus ex machina refers to a sudden and often contrived solution to an unsolvable problem, a convenient silver bullet to neatly wrap up a story when all hope seems lost. The implication is that the preceding two acts had barely, if at all, explored the solution, thereby making its appearance in the third act unexpected, haphazard, and oftentimes, cheap.
As the title states, the hero of the movie is the ageless monster Godzilla. Or it should be. Make no mistake -- this is a reboot of the franchise, not a sequel. As such, you’d expect the monster to headline the action, its character to be central and dynamic and well, interesting. But here, Godzilla, the granddaddy of all monsters, is reduced to playing a supporting role in his own film, relegated to conveniently appear in the final act as little more than a magical solution to the rampaging monster problem.
This speaks to the greatest miscalculation in the film: Godzilla is reintroduced to a new generation of moviegoers as a wholly reactive character, dependent on the plot mechanics of lesser monsters and humans. By himself, he is intrinsically flat, barely containing any motive or raison d’etre beyond rampaging in crowded metropolitan areas.
The most common complaint leveraged against Godzilla would be that he doesn’t show up in his own film for more than two full acts. This is not entirely fair. Whereas refraining from revealing the monster too early has served other monster movies well -- the beasts in Alien and Jaws and Cloverfield and Super 8 don’t show up until well over an hour into their stories -- the big difference is those movies inherently centered around those monsters. The monsters were the star of the story; they were the central mystery that drove the plot. The shark in Jaws was the reason for the humans’ journey. The alien in Alien threatened the humans’ very survival. Godzilla is neither the centerpiece of this story nor the driver of the plot. Indeed, the MUTO (Massive Unidentified Terrestrial Organism), the insectoid monster enemy who terrorizes the world, is infinitely more interesting than Godzilla and definitely eats up more screentime. Maybe this movie should’ve been called MUTO ft. Godzilla.
From the beginning, the story is driven almost entirely by the MUTOs. It is the MUTO that first breaches the core of the nuclear power plant that kills Ford’s mother and thereby, sets Joe on a fifteen years search for answers. It is that same MUTO who later breaks free and ultimately claims Joe’s life, prompting his son to battle the rampaging monster. For at least two acts of Godzilla, the plot is intrinsically about the MUTO, not Godzilla.
Why focus so much on the MUTO? Why wouldn’t that ancient, mysterious slumbering beast from the beginning be Godzilla himself? Why wouldn’t he accidently claim the lives of Ford’s parents, thereby positioning Ford to battle the monster in a journey of redemption? Perhaps of forgiveness? When Godzilla himself is reduced to a secondary player to the MUTOs' journey, why should we care at all about the hapless and ineffectual humans?
I fear the answer lies in the necessary perception of the titular monster. Godzilla must be a hero; we must root for him. He cannot be the villain. If he had killed Ford’s parents, Ford’s journey to battle Godzilla would become a tale of vengeance, one in which we would root for Ford’s success and conversely, Godzilla’s demise. And if Godzilla were to be positioned as unlikable, what kind of monster franchise would that be?
This is a tough dilemma for the storytellers. On one hand, you don’t want to make Godzilla evil; he was never meant to be the mindless terror that humanity had to kill in order to restore peace. But he’s still inherently a wild beast; he can’t be tamed or placated by humanity. This blurry middle ground for the character lies somewhere between heroic selflessness and villainous machinations. Ambivalence is rarely a compelling trait in a title character.
