Kyle Johnson
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Godzilla Fiat Commercial is Scary for Wrong Reasons

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I'm not a superstitious man, but the tangential connection to Puff Daddy that the Godzilla Fiat commercial creates has me nervous.

Godzilla Fiat Commercial

If you’re not entirely aware, then it’s probably best that somebody inform you that there is going to be a new Godzilla film in theaters next Friday. If you have somehow made it through the entirety of 2014 to this point without having heard that The King of the Monsters will be storming through theaters once again—and in so doing, attempting to redeem his name after the brain-murdering atrocity that was the 1998 film starring Ferris Bueller and a bunch of actors from The Simpsons—then you don’t need to read another word before you watch this clip:

Ken Watanabe: “Let them fight.”

Me:

Godzilla Fiat Commercial

Sure, I understand your trepidation: the kaiju-loving kid in you was once before taken behind a shed and beaten with a bunch of nonsense plot and bad CGI when you thought you would get some truly awesome giant monster action. If you’re like me, you still feel that disappointment 16 years later, and it still hurts a little.

If you need reassurance that Godzilla has the potential to be a good film, then have a look and be calmed:

Yeah, that’s Breaking Bad’s Bryan Cranston doing a little bit of…how do you say? Ah, yes…acting.

To be honest, it’s that second clip that has me the most optimistic about the new Godzilla film. Granted, there’s no reason not to be excited about HOLY CRAP GIANT MONSTERS FIGHTING, but where even the thoroughly-entertaining and giant-monster-fight-filled Pacific Rim fell flat was with a somewhat meandering story that felt too big for its britches and left even the incomparable Idris Elba seemingly lost in the shuffle.

Director Gareth Edwards, whose low-budget Monsters is probably one of the most underrated films of the last five years and arguably one of the better giant monster flicks ever made, seems to have the goal of making the people in the film as much the focus as the titular lizard. This is reassuring, particularly when creature features tend to only use characters as proxies for the red paste to which they will eventually be reduced underneath our monster’s enormous claw.

Godzilla Fiat Commercial

Thumbs up for character development!

But because Godzilla is, in the end, a giant monster movie (and, at that, a HOLY CRAP GIANT MONSTERS FIGHTING movie), it will largely be marketed as such. It may even be the subject of some cross-promotion, as we previously saw with a pretty amusing Snickers commercial. Now, we get this Godzilla Fiat commercial:

I don’t like this for one simple reason: Fiat’s previous ad campaign featured an appearance from “celebrity” endorser Puff “Sean Combs” Daddy. Puff Daddy, at some point in the inexplicable and forgettable odyssey that has been his music career, recorded a song entitled “Come With Me.” This song, an inconsequential nugget of rap history that brazenly borrows its foundation from Led Zeppelin, was recorded for the soundtrack to a 1998 film that would come to be hailed as “one of the most idiotic blockbuster movies of all time.” That film: Godzilla.

Godzilla Fiat Commercial

I have an odd gagging reaction every time I hear that song, too.

Oh, I’m getting that old, familiar headache again. Quick, somebody reaffirm that the new movie is nothing like that trainwreck.

Ah, that’s better.

Godzilla opens in theaters on May 16. In the meantime, I’ll be ignoring the Godzilla Fiat commercial any time I see it and instead muttering please be good please be good please be good in a corner.

Godzilla

My reaction if it is indeed good.