Today's Review: Godzilla

Godzilla: ****/*****, or 7/10

You can't keep a classic monster down. All you can do is keep him locked in the fridge for a while, until the time is right to introduce him to a new generation. And so it is with that most iconic King of Monsters, Godzilla. Toho, the Japanese studio behind the creature, hasn't released a new Gojira flick of its own ever since his big 50^th anniversary showdown Final Wars in 2004. As the Big G is turning 60 this year, it seemed about time to revamp him once more for an international audience. Teaming up with studio Warner Bros., making audiences forget about the previous American remake, the dreadful 1998 Roland Emmerich movie, proved the least of challenges. This time, the director's chair was given to somebody who had proven experience carefully balancing human drama and monster action, the man behind the guerrilla style low budget Monsters, Gareth Edwards (whose credits until that point included only that movie). His take on the giant reptilian behemoth makes for one of the finest Godzilla movies yet, but it also frustratingly illustrates just how little you can do with the character.

Thematically, Godzilla has always been an obvious case of 'man versus nature' and this time proves no different. Man's folly playing with powers (usually atomic) beyond his control that end up wrecking civilization has been a prime franchise message since day one, but as it has been a decade since it was last sent to audiences, this is as good a time as any to reapply it to Godzilla's latest origin story. However, Edwards opts to focus most of the plot's attention not on examining Godzilla's existence, but his foe's instead. This story thread is neatly interwoven with the fate of the Brody family. Living in Japan in 1999, father Joe (the always formidable Bryan Cranston) and mother Sandra (Juliette Binoche) work at a Japanese nuclear power plant, where things soon mysteriously go awry, leading to the plant's destruction and Sandra's dramatic death before her husband's eyes. The area is soon declared a quarantine zone, but Joe can't stop investigating the strange events of that fateful day for the next 15 years, alienating him from his son Ford (a rather bland and forgetful Aaron Taylor-Johnson).

When his father once again causes trouble with his illegal excursions into the forbidden zone, the now adult Ford, a US Navy officer, indulges him to present his case or shut up about it forever. Their father-son bonding trip into the zone makes for a frightful, haunting return to their old family house in a now abandoned, rundown city. Alarming news imagery of the Fukushima area in the wake of the terrible tsunami and the nuclear disaster that followed is successfully evoked by the ruined town set to give this Godzilla movie a 21^st century update that accordingly makes it feel sufficiently current and underscores Godzilla's original themes still claim merit. Stumbling onto a secret government operation, the Fords are confronted with the 'MUTO', a giant insectoid creature, millions of years old, that has laid dormant for countless ages, but is now waking up. And all the military might in the world is not gonna stop it from following its natural instincts to feed on atomic energy – it eats nuclear bombs, which kinda sounds like a solution really – and procreate. To the latter end, it has signaled a wake-up call to its mate and the two beasties proceed to hook up again, likely to humanity's demise, with more tragic consequences to the Fords, directly caught in its wake.

Edwards spends quite some time setting up the MUTO's motivations and the plight of the Ford family, soon making you ask a most pertinent question: where is Godzilla? It must be stated that there is surprisingly little scenes of the actual Godzilla in this movie, but when he finally does appear, he does so with a vengeance. The giant reptile is the MUTO's natural enemy of ages past and as one big bug called the other, so too their predator woke up to find its prey, as expert Dr. Serizawa (Hollywood's obligatory Japanese actor, Ken Watanabe) explains, while donning a foreboding look of concern and alarm that irritatingly stays for the entire film. The name Serizawa will sound familiar to Godzilla aficionados, and is just one of many little tidbits Edwards has lovingly thrown in as an hommage to the Japanese movies. The MUTO's, however, are a new invention specifically for this film, but they serve their purpose adequately for resurrecting Godzilla and providing for a good old-fashioned Kaiju brawl at the movie's climax. Just like the Godzilla themes of old have hardly changed, so too does the audience's taste for big monster battles remain, as Edwards all too clearly understands. It just takes quite a while to arrive at that point in the film where the fight finally goes down. We have to sit through many a scene of human character drama that ultimately doesn't make us really care about their plight before we get what we want. Though patience is required, it cannot be denied that the introduction of both Godzilla and his adversaries is slowly but surely built to a crescendo. When the Big G finally does appear for the first time, it will be hard for fans to repress a chill at this reunion with their old friend. It would have been even more effective had the classic Godzilla score been applied, but the current soundtrack proves effective enough.

It's clear Edwards sees no point in redefining Godzilla's look, as Emmerich did before, as this new incarnation of Godzilla stays rather true to the recognizable Japanese forms. Of course, this being a big blockbuster movie, the beast has grown in size considerably to accommodate the humongous budget and the expected onslaught it wreaks on both human cities and the military forces thrown at him. Edwards' respect for the classic Kaiju movie approach of men in suits playing the monsters shows, as you'd almost be inclined to think Godzilla is brought to life again in just that manner. Even the MUTO's motions seem decidedly human at times, but make no mistake: all three monsters are fully digital creations, not guys in suits smashing cardboard sets. Nevertheless, Edwards' ode to sixty years of 'suitmation' is well appreciated. Still, the notable differences in Godzilla's appearance compared to his predecessors, particularly his rather obese bodily features, are bound to tick off some fans.

Unjustly so, as this Godzilla, both the execution of the titular character and the movie as a whole, form a vast improvement over the previous American capitalization of the Japanese property. That said, in terms of story Edwards adds little novelty to the previous fifty years of Gojira. The message remains the same, and is delivered in a rather serious fashion, as this particular Godzilla is certainly one of the darker takes on the character: for Edwards, giant monster movies are a serious business and there isn't much room left for levity. The usual tendency towards flat human character development interspersed between delightful monster battles remains. The fact is, there's only so much you can do with a giant monster. Edwards will be hard pressed to find innovative angles to take his successful reboot in for the next installments. However, as this movie demonstrates, times haven't changed enough for the cautions against man's tampering with nature to subside, nor has the audience changed to such an extent they can't appreciate a good ol' titanic monster clash on the big screen. Even if the upcoming sequels fail to deliver notably new directions for the franchise, clearly Godzilla has enough of a fight left in him for another fifty years.

Today's Double News: less than yesterday

Let's resume posting news in the usual frequency, shall we?

http://www.moviescene.nl/p/154917/marvels_dreadstar_wordt_bioscoopfilm

http://www.moviescene.nl/p/154916/nieuwe_uitgebreide_trailer_godzilla

I had only vaguely heard of Jim Starlin's Dreadstar, which is not surprising as it didn't get a Dutch translation, unlike many other Marvel comics. It's not a part of the regular Marvel Universe, instead being featured on the pages of Epic Illustrated, a semi-independent Marvel imprint where creative talent could show off their own ideas and keep more of their royalties accordingly. Now that Marvel is a really, really hot brand, it's a no-brainer studios, big and small, are looking for as yet unexploited Marvel properties, even in more obscure corners. It's good to see lesser known franchises are also eligible for cinematic adaptations, though in Dreadstar's case, it's hard to sell to a financier since the story is so unlike the existing Marvel movies, not to mention wholly outlandish and definitely expensive to produce. Audience expectations of super heroism when hearing the name Marvel might also work against the project, as this is totally different conceptually from the Marvel style people have come to know and love from the movies. Don't expect crossovers with already established characters, even the cosmic ones like Thor or the upcoming Guardians of the Galaxy. Dreadstar is a whole different animal. Which is what makes it exciting as a movie project, but a tough sell for the small studios that now own the rights. Whether Dreadstar will truly make it to the big screen only time will tell. I'm hoping there's room for unusual Marvel off-shoots like these though. There's more to Marvel than superheroes, you know? I can live without an adaptation of Millie the Model though.

I could also live without another American remake of Godzilla, but Hollywood is presenting us with one of those regardless, and I gotta say, it doesn't look so bad. Considering how few of the original Japanese movies can actually be called 'good', that's not so hard to pull off. This new 'extended look' isn't as extended as you might at first be inclined to think, and basically serves as yet another trailer, with about half of its material shown before and the other half new stuff to keep us interested. And since Breaking Bad, I'm always interested in Bryan Cranston, even is he is playing second fiddle to a giant digital reptile. It seems the trailer is telling us that the human element to the story is not neglected - good thing to, if you have an actor of Cranston's stature on your payroll - though of course the creature is still of greatest interest and therefore, not shown as much as you would like, confined to shapes and silhouettes. It keeps the audience in suspense as to what this latest incarnation of the King of Monsters will look like. Though those who really want to find out need only take a look at the movie's merchandise, which has already been released. Wanna see what the new Godzilla looks like? Click this link. That's right, he's fat. And his spikes are rather small. And there's a million other things fans might hold against this design, but hey, at least he doesn't look like his silly Sixties' Japanese counterpart seen here, which could be seen merrily cavorting in kids' movies, dancing around and such. You wonder how this beastie could have grown so iconic despite doing a bunch of these terrible kiddie pictures.

Today's Poster: the big G returns to do what he does best

I found another neat new poster to post on MovieScene:

http://www.moviescene.nl/p/153929/nieuwe_poster_godzilla

This is how you do a good poster, at least in the case of a remake (which is sort of what this movie is, though there's plenty of room for new material). You refamiliarise your audience with the character in question, in a setting that brings about a shock of recognition. It reminds you what you remember most about what you liked about the original character, which is thrashing cities in Godzilla's case. If you like Godzilla at all, that is; which a lot of people apparently do, considering the 28 original Japanese movies and the two American remakes, this being the second. It's a giant monster movie staple, but spectators still get a kick out of seeing human habitat laid to waste at the feet of some ferocious, titanic creature. Especially if the city being demolished is familiar to them (hence why these movies usually tend to favour big landmark cities, obviously). At the same time, this movie makes you curious enough not to get overly negative about this iconic character being milked again for a new generation, by adding the element of curiosity. What are those falling lights above Godzilla's head? Is he gonna get mixed up with alien lifeforms with nefarious schemes again, maybe? This poster also adequately displays what Godzilla is all about (or at least, should be), functioning as the ultimate nuclear nightmare destroying human lives by the thousands after having been resurrected by man's folly of playing with powers too big and volatile for his control or understanding. Nevertheless, if Godzilla will indeed fight extraterrestrial antagonists or rivalling giant mutations, he may also be mankind's only hope. Whether 'Kaiju' enthusiast Gareth Edwards (Monsters) will opt for either take on Godzilla, or just go for both, remains to be seen. That he gets Godzilla however seems clear from this poster. Plus, unlike what happened to the previous Godzilla, he honours the original Japanese design by staying close to it, instead of giving him a giant make-over as occurred in 1998. That also can't hurt.

Today's News: the big G stomps his way into a new teaser

Not done with MS news posting just yet:

http://www.moviescene.nl/p/150606/teaser_trailer_remake_godzilla_online

Seems a solid teaser trailer. We get to see enough of this film to get us interested - if your interest is ever at all piqued by this type of film - in the usual death and destruction Kaiju-monsters tend to cause, ending on the big reveal of the main antagonist, without showing him off too much, thus keeping us intrigued as to his total form. It seems Gareth Edwards (who previously directed the low budget guerilla shoot Monsters as an homage to Godzilla and similar creature features) has the utmost respect for the big beastie, judging from his all too similar appearance compared to his Japanese counterparts, as opposed to the previous American Godzilla, which was and looked too much like an overgrown iguana. Also, Edwards makes it clear this movie is all about Godzilla himself; there's no human characters in sight here, despite the cast boasting such names as Bryan Cranston, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Juliette Binoche and the regular go-to Japanese guy for Hollywood flicks, Ken Watanabe. In fact, even the voice-over is not from any of the movie's standard cast, but a historical citation from Robert Oppenheimer. His chilling, haunting quote referring to the Bhagavad Gita is always a good choice when speaking in terms of nuclear holocaust, and in cinematic fiction, the offspring of such human folly, the giant monsters out to get mankind for its hugely irresponsible ways. Speaking of monsters, the teaser also indicates Godzilla is not the only big boy in this film. At least one other giant creature is visible, though it doesn't appear to be in perfect health anymore, undoubtedly having been knocked to smithereens by the big G's fire breath (you'd think after nigh on sixty years other Kaijus would know better than to mess with the King of Monsters!). Seems we can expect some decent Kaiju on Kaiju action - in terms of fighting, I mean! - besides Godzilla thrashing puny humans, as he also does best.

Overall, I'm teased. One thing's for sure: it can't actually be worse than the 1998 American attempt.

Today's Mini-Reviews: giant robots, Kaijus and super-villains

Pacific Rim: ****/*****, or 7/10

Guillermo Del Toro's epic hommage to the Japanese 'Kaiĵu' movies, produced on a bigger budget than all such giant monster movies of the last fifity years combined. Del Toro obviously has a great love and respect for the genre, resulting in a very catchy action flick, undoubtedly the best American counterpart to its Japanese predecessors. One might almost say Hollywood has redeemed itself for the 1998 version of Godzilla, but such a statement had better be held back for another year, until the next American reboot of Godzilla hits theatres in 2014. In the meantime, Pacific Rim works well as an appetiter to the big G's resurrection. An extra-dimensional rift opens on the bottom of the Pacific and huge beasts come pouring out, wreaking havoc on mankind as they lay waste to cities and obliterate our armed forces. Humanity quickly sets aside its internal differences and joins forces in creating big robots to fight the creatures on their own terms. Piloted by a pair of human Avatars, these so-called 'Jaëgers' effectively combat the beasts, but the life of a Jaëger pilot as Del Toro reveals is filled with personal loss. When the monsters emerge ever more rapidly from the Breach, as it is named, Jaëger command develops an intricate and dangerous plan to halt the Kaiĵu threat once and for all. Del Toro briefly explores the history of the first Kaiĵu assaults and the development of their robotic antagonists and afterwards spends more time getting us invested in the human characters than is usual for this type of film. It does make the movie feel like its dragging its feet for a while, until he unleashes the action the audience craves with a vengeance, resulting in over an hour of nigh endless monster bashing. Unfortunately he cannot help but inserting a few characters that are supposed to deliver some much needed comic relief to make sure we don't take it all too seriously, but sadly these characters – stereotypical geeky scientists as ever we've seen them – are so mind-boggingly annoying (Charlie Day particularly) they make you wish for a Kaiĵu to step on them to end their endless whining. Del Toro's talents are beter suited in delving deeper into a world where Kaiĵus are not only a threat to world peace but also big business: toy companies produce action figures of them, creepy cults worship them and in Hong Kong, a 'Bone Town' is established, a black market for Kaiĵu products for shady purposes, similar to the disgusting existing South-East Asian trade in animal parts. Run by Ron Perlman (always a joy when paired with Del Toro), some of the funniest, wittiest and anatomically most unsettling scenes take place here. Though the dealings and the history of the Jaëgers are fleshed out to the fullest, their enormous alien adversaries, ever the most important ingredient in a Kaiĵu film, do remain somewhat underexposed by comparison. Unfortunately their motivations – they're really foot soldiers out to cause as much damage to mankind as possible, in order to pave the way for an invasion from their (smaller) intelligent overlords – remind us of the recent Shyamalan flop After Earth, a movie we'd rather forget entirely. Usually, Kaiĵu are more antiheroes than full-out villains, but Del Toro opts to keep them a simple threat to be wiped out instead of embuing them with a more sympathetic character like their forebears Gojira, Gorgo and Rodan, who were always the victim of human (nuclear) folly, transforming them into avenging gods to remind us of our place in the world. The movie is dedicated to Ray Harryhausen and Ishiro Honda, two people who only too well understood the need to layer their creatures and make them charm you so you feel more for them, but in this instance, Del Toro decided not to go with such wisdom. As a result, Pacific Rim at best is a highly likeable action flick, but not necessarily an apt lesson for western audiences into the true nature of the Kaiĵu genre. Then again, there's only so much you can do with the notion of giant robots bashing giant monsters. Let's say Guillermo gets as much out of that premise as we could hope for.

Despicable Me 2: ****/*****, or 7/10

Simply fun sequel to the animated surprise hit of 2010. Gru and his legions of minions are back, but no longer driven by the need to exact evil schemes on an unsuspecting world, as Gru (still voiced with a outrageously hilarious accent by Steve Carell) has taken to his role as a father figure for his three orphan girls Edith, Agnes and Margo quite seriously. The big question on the girls' minds of course is – much to Gru's chagrin – 'when will there be a surrogate mother too'? Apparently several thousand minions are not enough to fill that particular role, so Gru has to endure countless matchmaking on their part. Fortunately for him, he quickly finds himself abducted by agent Lucy (Kristen Wiig returning for the sequel, but voicing another character) of the AVL, the American Vampire League Anti Villain League, who means to recruit him to smoke out a threat to world peace apparently hiding in a shopping mall, potentially posing as one of many goofy shop owners. Gru hesitantly accepts the job, if only to escape his girls' endless romantic pestering. Needless to say, Lucy and Gru soon get romantically entangled while attempting to stop the outrageously stereotypically Mexican baddie El Macho (Benjamin Bratt) from completing his vile scheme to unleash thousands of vicious purple monsters (most of them harvested from Gru's own minions) on mankind. Though the plot leaves little room for narrative surprises, the infectious charm of the characters and a plethora of witty jokes for young and old make for a thoroughly enjoyable animated flick. As before, it's the endearing minions that steal the show – a fact that has already been confirmed to deliver them their own movie next year, which may not be such a good idea – but thanks to the effective emphasis on Gru's own plot line, including a flashback to his youth which is both sad and superbly funny, it also becomes ever more evident just what a droll character he is himself, considering he spends most of his time without his minions and vice versa, while the movie doesn't end up either boring or less hilarious whenever either party takes center stage (also thanks to Wiig's obvious enthusiasm). Though more attention on an original plot would be welcome for the unavoidable next installment, I can unabashedly say I'm looking forward to a Despicable Me 3 regardless. Preferably with both Gru and minions together once more instead of one or the other.