Official Teaser Trailer for Godzilla
The first official teaser trailer for next year’s new Godzilla reboot/remake/rebirth from director Gareth Edwards has finally hit the internet, and boy is it pretty damn good.
When it was first announced that Legendary Pictures and Warner Bros. Pictures planned to reboot the Godzilla franchise, I’m pretty sure everyone shared in my decidedly “meh” reaction. I mean, after the 1998 debacle from Roland Emmerich, we were pretty done with the giant lizard, right? Right. However, if you’ll recall, Legendary Pictures’ first film actually managed to successfully reboot a franchise we were more than done with. Of course, I’m referring to the 2005 film Batman Begins, which reestablished the Batman franchise as a powerhouse in cinema, after Batman Forever and Batman & Robin had ran its name through the mud.
Two things go without saying, however, but I will say them anyway: Legendary Pictures has since gone on to co-produce several more films since then, to varying degrees of success; and just because they were successful in bringing back Batman doesn’t mean they’ll be able to do the same with Godzilla (after all, Godzilla doesn’t have the luxury of Christopher Nolan and his production company Syncopy).
Given all the understandable apprehension toward this new film, this teaser trailer is very important because it will go a long way in determining whether or not you’re able to wipe the last American Godzilla movie from your mind (it was 16 years ago, after all) and give this film a chance, especially if you haven’t seen the Comic-Con footage that was leaked to the internet earlier this year. Now watch it.
If that doesn’t look awesome to you, then I don’t know what the hell would. Gareth Edwards would seem to have knocked the ball right out of the park, at least from what little we see in this teaser. Not only is the cinematography shockingly good, but there would appear to be a factor that was glaringly absent from 2013’s Hollywood kaiju film, Pacific Rim: writing. As much as I like Charlie Hunnam, Idris Elba, Charlie Day, and Ron Perlman, they had absolutely nothing to work with in Pacific Rim. That was a tragic underuse of a stellar cast, but this teaser not only features a great monologue from David Strathairn, but also gives us just a glimpse of Bryan Cranston-which is more than we see of Godzilla itself; we see just enough of the monster to want to see more, which is exactly what a teaser is supposed to do.
Godzilla is directed by Gareth Edwards and stars Bryan Cranston, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, David Strathairn, Elizabeth Olsen, Ken Watanabe, Juliette Binoche, and many more. It’s set to release on May 16, 2014, and I’ll be there.
