Godzilla (PG-13) - Review
"You have a right to know!"
When Giant Radioactive Monsters devastate the East and West Pacific Rim, where does humanity turn to rescue it from the threat? Why none other than the King of Monsters, Godzilla, a prehistoric mutant of enormous proportions whose only rhyme or reason is wrestling with other nuclear fueled tyrants.
Finally washing away the stink of Emmerich's unwise 1998 version, Godzilla 2014 stays almost too true to the Japanese Kaiju mythos as it combines an authentic Godzilla movie elevated above the man-in-rubber-suit constraints of the Toho regime thanks to Hollywood blockbuster status. While it doesn't all add up to perfection and may not please everyone, long term Godzilla fans can breath a collective radioactive sigh of relief at this solidly entertaining outing.
The beginning of the film is almost a retcon of 1999s version, finding a scientific team headed by Ken Watanabe in the Philippines discovering ancient enormous fossils (the bones of a Godzilla relative and a pair of it's parasites). A short time later, the family of Bryan Cranston (Breaking Bad) faces tragedy when the Japanese Nuclear Power Plant he works for melts down under mysterious circumstances. 15 years later and his son (Aaron Taylor Johnson from Kick Ass) must plunge back into the monstrous mystery as he plays a crucial role in the epic events unfolding, this time on US soil. His family and country try to survive the epic clash as Monsters once again roam the Earth.
The film is at its heart an epic-level human disaster movie and derives its terror from references to both the 2011 Fukushima reactor explosion and the 2004 Indonesian Tsunami tragedy. Human life is a frail thing compared to these ancient primordial life forms who can swat us aside like gnats, feed off our worst radioactive bi-products and wrestle 50 stories above us. When the final confrontation occurs (and be patient it does occur), a San Francisco leveling brawl takes place with us tiny humans scrambling to save as many of ourselves as possible. Director Gareth Edwards excels, previously made the full-of-potential low budget indie film "Monsters", and here he is liberated from his penny pinching but not from the groundings of simple entertainment desires.
The American touches are mostly complementary. The film's audio design is outstanding and yet referential to the originals, the score is perfectly dark and smokey (so happy to have a touch of Requiem from 2001 ASO in there), the monsters look and feel very traditional to the old Toho design and yet without its cartoonishness or lack of mass. There is a moment in the film where pudgy CGI Godzilla looks into the camera and lets out one long continuous roar that goes on for much longer than is comfortable, announcing his intentions to finally kick monster ass. It is a delightfully self aware touch to a movie that for most people just needs to be about giant rubber monsters flailing about, and that is perhaps where it falls shortest. There are many instances of teasing the audience ala Cloverfield, cutting away from Monster action in an effort to prolong tension (something the Japanese could never be accused of). It delays and delays until it can't delay any further and must allow the beasts full screen mayhem. While moderately successful at creating anticipation, the technique may leave some audiences feeling slighted leaving as it does most of the action in the hands of its human actors. However, the humans having a larger role than anticipated is a staple of most Japanese Godzilla films and can be forgiven, and if only the filmmakers had found some wonderful middle ground between featuring humans/monsters then this could have been the perfect Godzilla. In fact the entire film reads like a Godzilla fans almost wet dream, with all the military "toys" and their dumb as a rock military plans, all the small children in peril, without the need to get gory or talk down to its audience. It all adds up to a Godzilla that we have never seen before, with an Indy sensibility behind the camera and an efficient intelligence behind its script, leaving us with an experience that is an uninterrupted echo of monsters through a darkened theater, reverberating off the ruined skyscrapers and felt curtains as they grind civilization to dust in their lumbering awake.
8 Godjira's out of 10 (GREAT)
Showing posts with label In3D. Show all posts
Showing posts with label In3D. Show all posts
Gravity (2013)
Gravity (PG-13) - Review
"In Space no one can hear you squeam"
On a mission to repair the Hubble Space telescope, dashing veteran astronaut Matt Kowalski (George Clooney) and civilian medical engineer Ryan Stone (Sandra Bullock) must overcome the dangers of the laws of physics in the vaccum of space as they try to survive a collision with space debris and must cling to each other for support as they freefall hundreds of miles above the planet.
Director Alfonso Cuaron (who also directed the superbly crafted Children of Men) revels in the 3D medium, producing his trademarked lengthy shots that zoom in and out of the scenes as the characters attempt to cling to their lives high above mother Earth. The acting is obviously upper echelon, though this is a role that Clooney can and does float through without batting a baby blue. Bullock's Ryan is the vulnerable one here, she is barely trained and has emotional baggage stemming from the death of her only child. However, in a nod to a genuine staple of Sci-Fi heroinism, she takes little time in stripping to her underwear and bettering her male peers as she returns to the womb of weightlessness. This is her story, a fantastic yet mostly realistic horror-in-space tale that will leave you reeling again and again as she spins, drops, floats, flails and burns her way forward in an attempt to escape. Hopefully your sense of vertigo is up to the task of watching.
The pace is one of the best to be seen on the silver screen, the swelling of soundtrack music often standing in for the lack of sound effects that are the mark of the attempt of true science fiction. However, it must be said that Gravity features as much (if not more) CGI than Life of Pi, and like that film about a character surviving in an inhospitable environment with only themselves to depend on, it fills the frame with the uncanny valley, that sensation that nothing you are seeing is quite real. The astronauts look to be mere floating faces on computer generated bodies, going about their tasks while the materials and animations of their suits never look quite solidified and real. The telescopic 3D use is excellent, but also highlights the overall fad of the medium. Cuaron has fashioned a wonderfully crowd pleasing treat and the 3D is so well used it mostly fades into the background and brings you, in a darkened theater where it is most effective, closer to the danger. Yet how many great artists have been able to do that, and how many have the talent or the ability to make the next (or have made one that compares to) Gravity? In the many years of 3D film making there have not been any, and doubtless few more as home/mobile media continues to overtake the theatrical market.
The plot sometimes careens into the obvious, but that's ok as snappy references to Dark Star twang by and Sandra scrambles on another space platform fraught with peril. Its the best constantly on the edge of your seat SciFi film since The Abyss and the best film about space survival since Apollo 13 or 2001 A Space Odyssey. There no overt political agendas or themes to be had here, just pure high altitude entertainment with a pleasantly adroit message of "it's not enough just to survive, you have to live". That's something us Terrans can always hear more of.
8.5 Dreamy Clooneys out of 10 (GREAT)
"In Space no one can hear you squeam"
On a mission to repair the Hubble Space telescope, dashing veteran astronaut Matt Kowalski (George Clooney) and civilian medical engineer Ryan Stone (Sandra Bullock) must overcome the dangers of the laws of physics in the vaccum of space as they try to survive a collision with space debris and must cling to each other for support as they freefall hundreds of miles above the planet.
Director Alfonso Cuaron (who also directed the superbly crafted Children of Men) revels in the 3D medium, producing his trademarked lengthy shots that zoom in and out of the scenes as the characters attempt to cling to their lives high above mother Earth. The acting is obviously upper echelon, though this is a role that Clooney can and does float through without batting a baby blue. Bullock's Ryan is the vulnerable one here, she is barely trained and has emotional baggage stemming from the death of her only child. However, in a nod to a genuine staple of Sci-Fi heroinism, she takes little time in stripping to her underwear and bettering her male peers as she returns to the womb of weightlessness. This is her story, a fantastic yet mostly realistic horror-in-space tale that will leave you reeling again and again as she spins, drops, floats, flails and burns her way forward in an attempt to escape. Hopefully your sense of vertigo is up to the task of watching.
The pace is one of the best to be seen on the silver screen, the swelling of soundtrack music often standing in for the lack of sound effects that are the mark of the attempt of true science fiction. However, it must be said that Gravity features as much (if not more) CGI than Life of Pi, and like that film about a character surviving in an inhospitable environment with only themselves to depend on, it fills the frame with the uncanny valley, that sensation that nothing you are seeing is quite real. The astronauts look to be mere floating faces on computer generated bodies, going about their tasks while the materials and animations of their suits never look quite solidified and real. The telescopic 3D use is excellent, but also highlights the overall fad of the medium. Cuaron has fashioned a wonderfully crowd pleasing treat and the 3D is so well used it mostly fades into the background and brings you, in a darkened theater where it is most effective, closer to the danger. Yet how many great artists have been able to do that, and how many have the talent or the ability to make the next (or have made one that compares to) Gravity? In the many years of 3D film making there have not been any, and doubtless few more as home/mobile media continues to overtake the theatrical market.
The plot sometimes careens into the obvious, but that's ok as snappy references to Dark Star twang by and Sandra scrambles on another space platform fraught with peril. Its the best constantly on the edge of your seat SciFi film since The Abyss and the best film about space survival since Apollo 13 or 2001 A Space Odyssey. There no overt political agendas or themes to be had here, just pure high altitude entertainment with a pleasantly adroit message of "it's not enough just to survive, you have to live". That's something us Terrans can always hear more of.
8.5 Dreamy Clooneys out of 10 (GREAT)
The Croods (2013)
The Croods (PG) - Review
"A Pre-Modern Family Film"
Cartoons. They have been abundant since the turn of the century, evolving from the Sunday funnies into two distinct yet familiar art forms. The Disney art fairytale vs the Warner Brothers Loony Tune vaudeville. Personal taste aside, both genres are still relevant art forms today and directly impact our modern 3d animation world (Pixar vs Dreamworks being a prime example). While Pixar pours their efforts into highbrow ideals and kid/family friendly messages while pushing the creativity to appeal to artier (and sometimes overly pretentious) audience, Dreamworks' pictures often go for mass appeal entertainment, the more street level slapstick fun that once was the domain of Bugs and Daffy.
The Croods is Dreamworks newest effort, a funny dusty flick with no pretensions of grandeur despite the obvious top shelf artistry and effort that went into its crafting everything but the script. The Croods are a prehistoric family without the footpedal cars or the dinosaur bulldozers, they are squat, rough and tumble and in a dangerous world. They cringe in fear within their cave for days, chancing the outside world only when their hunger becomes too great. Their father is voiced by Nicholas Cage, and he is the glue that keeps this movie moving (comedically and emotionally). His teenage daughter has just broken the rules and left the cave, discovering her inner courage and a cute (and more evolved) boy friend to fawn over. This coincides with tectonic upheavals that require the Croods to leave their shelter and strike off in pursuit of safety and attempt to keep the family unit intact (with the boy in tow since he knows the secret of fire).
The film chugs to a slow start, and strives to be funny and very cartoony while also being much more realistic than the Flintstones about what our cave ancestors lives were really like. The creature designs are pure fantasy, unabashedly cute yet bloodthirsty (much the same as their previous highwater effort How To Train Your Dragon). The color palette and landscapes have a wonderful Suessian flair, the fire and water effects show how technically astute Dreamworks has become and how they are beholden to none in their visual ability, not even to the almighty Oscarbait of Pixar. But in the end it is a funny silly little cartoon with an overwrought "nothing to fear but fear itself" message falsely tattooed on its forehead and a rather expensive looking one at that. The 3D is again unnecessary, the animation fine, the art exemplary, and yet the script just drags along the characters (some of whom like the Mother who get zero characterization, leaving the movie to be an uncomplex triangle between Father > Daughter > Boyfriend) through a process intending to evolve them emotionally to a life free of fear and new beginnings. Stuffed with action set pieces which mostly work, prehistoric humor that is ironically polished and uncrude, gorgeous backdrops and effects and interesting character designs. Now if only they'd dial back the MESSAGE to standable levels, its almost drowning out all the fun.
The Croods isn't the thick browed simpleton many are expecting. There is a powerful strong heart pumping here, of fatherhood and expanding your horizons, and Nick Cage is let loose just the right amount to give his cavefather the crazy, groovy hip insanity, and that infuses the rest of the movie with a wild sense of fun. Its just unfortunate that it has to cost so much and take so many man hours and people to create a fun silly cartoon like this. Once, all we needed was some paint on our hands and a cavewall as our canvas to entertain our families. Who can fathom what the cost of a bag of popcorn and raisenettes would have been back then?
7 Disturbingly Cute Cavegirls out of 10 (GOOD)
"A Pre-Modern Family Film"
Cartoons. They have been abundant since the turn of the century, evolving from the Sunday funnies into two distinct yet familiar art forms. The Disney art fairytale vs the Warner Brothers Loony Tune vaudeville. Personal taste aside, both genres are still relevant art forms today and directly impact our modern 3d animation world (Pixar vs Dreamworks being a prime example). While Pixar pours their efforts into highbrow ideals and kid/family friendly messages while pushing the creativity to appeal to artier (and sometimes overly pretentious) audience, Dreamworks' pictures often go for mass appeal entertainment, the more street level slapstick fun that once was the domain of Bugs and Daffy.
The Croods is Dreamworks newest effort, a funny dusty flick with no pretensions of grandeur despite the obvious top shelf artistry and effort that went into its crafting everything but the script. The Croods are a prehistoric family without the footpedal cars or the dinosaur bulldozers, they are squat, rough and tumble and in a dangerous world. They cringe in fear within their cave for days, chancing the outside world only when their hunger becomes too great. Their father is voiced by Nicholas Cage, and he is the glue that keeps this movie moving (comedically and emotionally). His teenage daughter has just broken the rules and left the cave, discovering her inner courage and a cute (and more evolved) boy friend to fawn over. This coincides with tectonic upheavals that require the Croods to leave their shelter and strike off in pursuit of safety and attempt to keep the family unit intact (with the boy in tow since he knows the secret of fire).
The film chugs to a slow start, and strives to be funny and very cartoony while also being much more realistic than the Flintstones about what our cave ancestors lives were really like. The creature designs are pure fantasy, unabashedly cute yet bloodthirsty (much the same as their previous highwater effort How To Train Your Dragon). The color palette and landscapes have a wonderful Suessian flair, the fire and water effects show how technically astute Dreamworks has become and how they are beholden to none in their visual ability, not even to the almighty Oscarbait of Pixar. But in the end it is a funny silly little cartoon with an overwrought "nothing to fear but fear itself" message falsely tattooed on its forehead and a rather expensive looking one at that. The 3D is again unnecessary, the animation fine, the art exemplary, and yet the script just drags along the characters (some of whom like the Mother who get zero characterization, leaving the movie to be an uncomplex triangle between Father > Daughter > Boyfriend) through a process intending to evolve them emotionally to a life free of fear and new beginnings. Stuffed with action set pieces which mostly work, prehistoric humor that is ironically polished and uncrude, gorgeous backdrops and effects and interesting character designs. Now if only they'd dial back the MESSAGE to standable levels, its almost drowning out all the fun.
The Croods isn't the thick browed simpleton many are expecting. There is a powerful strong heart pumping here, of fatherhood and expanding your horizons, and Nick Cage is let loose just the right amount to give his cavefather the crazy, groovy hip insanity, and that infuses the rest of the movie with a wild sense of fun. Its just unfortunate that it has to cost so much and take so many man hours and people to create a fun silly cartoon like this. Once, all we needed was some paint on our hands and a cavewall as our canvas to entertain our families. Who can fathom what the cost of a bag of popcorn and raisenettes would have been back then?
7 Disturbingly Cute Cavegirls out of 10 (GOOD)
Hugo (2011)
Hugo (PG)
"Mustache twirling is so out of style"
A PG Martin Scorsese film? Yes, and one of his most beautiful
productions he has made. The sets and lighting are incredible (you
have my permission to skip the 3d though, Marty uses it to great effect,
but I really don't feel it adds anything, it really still feels like a
fad). The film touches on alot of things, literature, Paris, nostalgia,
magic, wwI, etc. A boy and girl orphans
run around a train station in postwar Paris, getting into adventures
about the mysteries of a clockwork automaton. At it's core, it's a film
about the love of film though. This is where the movie really shines, a
swan song to those films that most people never bothered to watch, the
heroes from the silent era, the earnest and innovative pioneers who
developed the techniques and amusements we enjoy daily. Hugo is not
perfect, its a little meandering and a tad long, there's some subplots
that seem to go nowhere, the child actors are a bit child-actory (but
not enough to bother), and in all honestly nothing much actually
happens. Sacha Baron Cohen plays a great sinister slapstick inspector
from a bygone era, Kingsley is of course filled with delightful
gravitas. I've never seen a film that looks like it, the colors and
movements are incredible. I've never read the book it's based on, but
the inner film student in me was geeking out, and the irony of
Scorsese's most SFX laden film which is itself a film about the magic of
film and SFX wasn't lost on me.
8.5 bushy eyebrows out of 10 (for a kids film, that's pretty damn good) (GREAT)
8.5 bushy eyebrows out of 10 (for a kids film, that's pretty damn good) (GREAT)
Thor (2011)
Thor (PG-13)
"Speak Slowly, Carry a big Hammer"
Ditching the underlying mythology of Thor is like making a Jesus action movie where he's actually a space alien who falls in love with Queen Amidala, which isn't that bad of an idea really but really should be more about wacking people with that hammer of his instead of just standing around all studly all the time.
5 Odin's Beards out of 10 (MEDIOCRE)
"Speak Slowly, Carry a big Hammer"
Ditching the underlying mythology of Thor is like making a Jesus action movie where he's actually a space alien who falls in love with Queen Amidala, which isn't that bad of an idea really but really should be more about wacking people with that hammer of his instead of just standing around all studly all the time.
5 Odin's Beards out of 10 (MEDIOCRE)
Cave of Forgotten Dreams (2010)
Cave of Forgotten Dreams (G)
"Caveman of your dreams"
Herzog's 3d documentary about the ancient Cave drawings in France may be your only chance to almost see them in person since the cave is sealed off from the commercial world (and rightly so). The quality and variety of the drawings is astonishing, the 3D does lend a hand in immersing you into the cave, and director Werner tries with lighting and music and sound to get you to experience them as our ancestors may have: primally. Mix in a few humans whose own personalities border on the bizarre, and the result is fascinating, mesmerizing and a bit bewildering.
8 Bear Claws out of 10 (GREAT)
"Caveman of your dreams"
Herzog's 3d documentary about the ancient Cave drawings in France may be your only chance to almost see them in person since the cave is sealed off from the commercial world (and rightly so). The quality and variety of the drawings is astonishing, the 3D does lend a hand in immersing you into the cave, and director Werner tries with lighting and music and sound to get you to experience them as our ancestors may have: primally. Mix in a few humans whose own personalities border on the bizarre, and the result is fascinating, mesmerizing and a bit bewildering.
8 Bear Claws out of 10 (GREAT)
How To Train Your Dragon (2010)
How To Train Your Dragon (PG)
"A boy and his Cat-dragon"
Dreamworks Animated features finally drop the amusing cartoonish antics and go for the heart (as so often their competitor Pixar is lauded for) in a loose adaptation of the children's series How to Train Your Dragon.
Hindered by typically inept marketing, HTTYD still finally boosted Dreamworks into being taken seriously and making wads of cash with an almost unknown property, an extremely rare occurrence in this cynical box office environment of "sequels and remakes." The story of misunderstood Viking son Hiccup and his cat-like dragon "Toothless" resonated with audiences with its cuteness and variety. There are goofy jokes and snide remarks, and low hanging narritive fruit such as "parents just don't understand" that today's youths might latch onto but this reviewer is tired of listening to.
But the art is beautiful, the emotions true, the animation top notch. The art style has some hidden hiccups and the story some strange eccentricities (why do the Vikings adults all voiced by Scottish actors, yet their kids are all Americans?), but the vast majority of the film exceeds expectations of a DW animated flick. Expanding the fun yet sparse source material into a giant world (much like they did with Shrek) works well; imparting pathos and a real sense of danger and humanity was genius.
HTTYDragon is a fantasy movie like they used to make pre-90s, with invention and risk taking (mixed with the ultracute just to take the curse off it). It shows how a license, properly cultivated by caring artists and story tellers, can diverge and prosper artistaclly and not just pander to the kiddies,
8.5 Scots with Horns out of 10 (GREAT)
"A boy and his Cat-dragon"
Dreamworks Animated features finally drop the amusing cartoonish antics and go for the heart (as so often their competitor Pixar is lauded for) in a loose adaptation of the children's series How to Train Your Dragon.
Hindered by typically inept marketing, HTTYD still finally boosted Dreamworks into being taken seriously and making wads of cash with an almost unknown property, an extremely rare occurrence in this cynical box office environment of "sequels and remakes." The story of misunderstood Viking son Hiccup and his cat-like dragon "Toothless" resonated with audiences with its cuteness and variety. There are goofy jokes and snide remarks, and low hanging narritive fruit such as "parents just don't understand" that today's youths might latch onto but this reviewer is tired of listening to.
But the art is beautiful, the emotions true, the animation top notch. The art style has some hidden hiccups and the story some strange eccentricities (why do the Vikings adults all voiced by Scottish actors, yet their kids are all Americans?), but the vast majority of the film exceeds expectations of a DW animated flick. Expanding the fun yet sparse source material into a giant world (much like they did with Shrek) works well; imparting pathos and a real sense of danger and humanity was genius.
HTTYDragon is a fantasy movie like they used to make pre-90s, with invention and risk taking (mixed with the ultracute just to take the curse off it). It shows how a license, properly cultivated by caring artists and story tellers, can diverge and prosper artistaclly and not just pander to the kiddies,
8.5 Scots with Horns out of 10 (GREAT)
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About Me
- Kevin Gasaway via HardDrawn
- Turlock, California, United States
- Media and Reviews by Kevin Gasaway