The Promise: Is “Good Enough” Good Enough?

Today I’m left wondering about something in the wake of my review of GODZILLA.

In that review I said that “there is no emotional investment in GODZILLA…which doesn’t make it bad, it just prevents it from being great.” As if on cue, Chris Hunneysett left a very thoughtful comment on the review, offering an interesting counterpoint.

He said: ‘With no emotional investment all we have left is a pretty lightshow with zero character, dull dialogue, some nice design. I cared no more for the monsters than I could an earthquake or a tsunami.

This is on a par with The Phantom Menace, not Jurassic Park.’

Ordinarily, I would respond within the comment section, but something about Chris’ comment led me to believe that there was an entire post here. Is “Good Enough” actually good enough.

Let’s look at GODZILLA. When one drops down their hard-earned and buys a ticket for this Gareth Edwards blockbuster, what are the expectations? If we’re being honest, we want to watch a giant creature knock shit over and not feel insulted while it happens. Nuanced plot? It’d be nice, but it’s unlikely. Grander themes? Probably not. Intriguing characters? Hopefully, but not a guarantee. No, sixty years after he first laid waste to Tokyo, that giant lizard remains the star of the show. Everybody paying to see this movie is paying to see him the way that we once pay to see James Bond act suave, and Indiana Jones escape certain doom.

To suggest otherwise sets unreasonable expectations and asks more of the property than it – or any film like it – has ever offered us before. It’s like criticizing a golf cart because it tops out at 10 km/h. We can hope for more, but if those hopes are dashed, it’s on us – not on the film. When we bought into the film and found ourselves hoping for a little extra beyond a-giant-creature-knocking-shit-over, we were experiencing just that: hopes. We’d seen the evidence, soaked up the facts of the past, and put forward what we wanted to happen in our minds. With no evidence of such results in the past, these hopes were ripe to be dashed. But is that the film’s fault?

This is not a defense of mediocrity; this is a question of delivering on promise.

The promissory note given to audiences from the moment “We’re making a Godzilla movie” is announced, is that giant creatures will lay waste to cities. That’s all. If we’re really lucky, the humans on the ground may fuel the fire in some complimentary way. However, evidence points to the contrary almost every time…sometimes horrifically so. If anything, we only hope that the humans on the ground don’t distract and bother us too much, and allow us to have fun watching the beasts high above them.

Which brings us to what Chris described as “a pretty light show”. He’s right, that’s exactly what it is – and there’s a place for that. The same way that there is a place in the cinematic landscape for experimental cerebral films, game-changing documentaries, and sharply-written human drama. The cinema I watched the movie in had stadium seating, Dolby Atmos sound, and the biggest screen of the ten at this particular multiplex. If that wasn’t built for a pretty light show, what was it built for? Film can change the way we see our world, inspire us to greater ideas, and take us out of ourselves for two hours…but it can also be about “pretty flashing lights”, “having fun”, and “Making things go boom”. It always has, and it always will. If that’s what a film wants to do, there are only two rules: don’t pretend to be something you’re not, and deliver on spectacle.

It’s the time of year where we are having cinematic cheeseburgers for dinner more often than not, so why complain about the quality of the cheeseburger?

If I were to guess, I’d suggest that Chris’ point finds soil in some of the greats from years past. Chris is thinking about JAWS, STAR WARS, ALIEN, THE TERMINATOR, DIE HARD, RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK, and the aforementioned JURASSIC PARK. He is thinking about the blockbusters that find a way to elevate themselves into something greater. Sometimes they do it through a sharpened script, sometimes they do it through well-crafted character. Sometimes they do it just by tapping into the zeitgeist in ways the filmmaker hadn’t intended…leaving the public to elevate it well beyond expectation. These titles outgrow their “good enough” status, and become something great. They make their mark on the collective conscious, inspire legions of dreamers, and leave us wanting more (note that every film listed spawned a franchise). Often times, their success has as much to do with dumb luck as it does with precise execution.

They are all really good cheeseburgers. Meals that taste as if they’ve been made from the finest ingredients and assembled with care. But a cheeseburger is still a cheeseburger, and whether one is eating a good one or a bad one, it’s not fair to say that this cheeseburger tastes greasy compared to the steak you ate last night.

Zero character and dull dialogue aren’t knocks on a film like GODZILLA – they’re par for the course. Films of its ilk don’t pretend to have them, so why yank them down a peg for not having them. The product where a giant beats knocking shit over was delivered upon – often in some very entertaining ways. At the end of my review, I pointed out that the film made a promise and kept its promise. It does what it sets out to do, and any misgivings from that are on us – its audience – and not failings of the film. What’s more, in an age where so many franchises and blockbusters never seem to know ‘when’ and dial back the bombast, being able to hit the mark becomes a dubious achievement on its own.

The funny thing is that I didn’t overly love the film…I just thought it was “pretty good”. The details that Chris suggested likely would have taken it from “pretty good” to “bloody great”. Still, to knock a film for not being “bloody great” seems unfair.

Sometimes “good enough” really is good enough.