Godzilla

The last time I saw the great monster Godzilla on a theatre screen was in in the Japanese film Godzilla 2000, and, even though there was still Japanese Godzilla movies made after that, the giant Kaiju went quiet in North America, returning to the deep for many years.  And perhaps it was a good move as the excitement for the giant lord of the deep was starting to wain and began to quiet down.  Some things, however, can only remain dormant for so long.

In the latest installment of the franchise, Godzilla (2014) brings its own new interpretation to the history of the mammoth beast, and spends the first half hour or so of the movie introducing the major players and allowing the mystery to slowly be unravelled.  Bryan Cranston plays an engineer turned conspiracy theorist who is convinced that the Japanese government has something they are trying to hide at the site of a nuclear reactor that he worked at before it melted down.  He finds his antics getting him into trouble with the Japanese police, and his son Ford (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) heads from his nice life in the states after returning from military duty to bail his father out before finding himself wrapped up in the mess as well.

There, that is the plot.  Most of the times in a monster movie the plot is just a spinning wheel that transports us from our pleasant introductions to furious creatures pounding the monster-snot out of each other.  The trailers for the film had added an element of intrigue around the concept of a government cover-up, and I became kind of sad through the first portion of the film as the execution of the plot felt lifeless.  I also began to learn that thinking too much about the plot really was a waste of time, because it did not bring any excitement and was pretty ripe with possible holes.

Before the story could be too much of an issue for me, I was pulled off into a world of the giant monsters, which had now arrived on the scene, and began feeling just like a little boy again.  Director Gareth Edwards and screenplay writer Max Borenstein know well just how to build to a big event.  We got a lot of teasers from the Godzilla and his Rodan-like opponent, but full payoff was held back until the very end.  At a time in cinema where summer blockbusters are all about flexing 30 minute long battle sequences that end up numbing the audience, the build and anticipation showed that less can be more, and it can top the excitement of a Michael Bay movie about fighting robots.

One of my favourite moments in the movie was the first real appearance of Godzilla, a sequence that took place over perhaps ten minutes.  The monster’s arrival was not the purpose of the scene, but rather another element as there was a lot happening, which allowed Edwards to drag it out and get people like me ultimately geeked out and pumped for what was about to happen.  Much like the world of professional wrestling, the entrance sets the tone, and what a wonderful tone it set.

The special effects crew on this film was enormous, and it showed in the quality of the visuals.  Seeing it in 3D actually assisted giving scale and proportion at times, creating the sense that human characters were puny and insignificant.  Edwards also chose moments of a first person perspective in scenes that added to the emotional element that Ford was going through as he was trying to help save humanity.  And, on another technical note, it was not an incredibly loud movie, especially not compared to the aforementioned Michael Bay.  Edwards showed great abilities in using silence during portions of the movie, which then would elevate the effect of Godzilla roaring.  Technically, this film was a treat.

And that is why I chose to give up on worrying about the plot.  The people in charge of the film knew exactly how to create very epic and memorable moments, and pulled them off with expertise that forced a child-like grin to be tattooed on my face for much of the movie.  The biggest accomplishment of them all was the fact that the audience gains an appreciation for Godzilla and roots for him to not just kick ass, but to win and live to fight another day.  This movie proves that summer epics do not have to be close to three hours long, they do not need to be loud, and they do not need to rely on lengthy fight sequences to be entertaining.

Rating – 3 out of 4 stars

Deane's Pick: That Thing You Do!

When someone recommends a movie to be reviewed, it leaves me in a sticky situation.  I want to be honest about the movie, but at the same time I do not want to say anything bad about it.  Throughout the first twenty minutes of That Thing You Do I was trying to think of various ways to write how I was feeling, and different, yet sensitive, approaches to voicing the opinions that were building.  It was not awful, or anywhere close to that, it just was not anything that was connecting to me personally and I was not really enjoying it.

The movie is about four young men from a small town in Pennsylvania who play their one original song at a talent show with a replacement drummer.  The drummer messes up and speeds up the timing, and the band has no choice but to go with it.  What ends up happening is the crowd falls in love with what they hear, and the band (The Oneders, pronounced the oh-knee-ders) slowly begins to develop some local fame.  Before they know it, they have a manager who lives out of his awesome trailer and are getting more and more gigs.  It is only a short time before they are meeting record label manager Mr. White (Tom Hanks) who takes the band higher and higher as they start to ascend the billboard charts.

While I did not connect with the movie at first, it was the energy and the personalities of the boys in the band that started to win me over as their excitement and energy grew with their success.  The movie, which was written and directed by Hanks, accomplished its task of taking that raw buzz that was swirling around them as they were fish out of water in a musical landscape that was constantly changing before they were ever able to acclimatize themselves.  The tale really is about lightning in a bottle happening to people who are not in a space or prepared to deal with what it would bring, and the movie never attempts to make them look anything but mortal.

The casting in this film was done very well as the boys in the band all physically looked great for the kind of band that would have been promoted during that time, and they were all able to handle their roles properly.  It was nice seeing Steve Zahn, who always makes me laugh in movies, in his role as the excitable and gambling guitarist.  Liv Tyler, who played the girlfriend of the lead singer, plays her part in a sweet and innocent way that brings a sincere heart to the boys that are caught up in the whirlwind.  Tom Hanks does a great job of playing their manager in a way that people may think of the typical studio executive, spewing out honey coated sayings, but really just about the contract and the numbers at the end of the day.  As well, this movie lets us see some talent in the early goings of their careers like Charlize Theron and a very brief view of Bryan Cranston before he became famous for cooking meth.

The real key to the movie is the song that the band plays.  Essentially, they are a one-hit-wonder type of band on a meteoric rise and only really ever perform the one song, so it had to be perfect.  Adam Schlesinger ended up getting nominated for an Oscar for the song That Thing You Do, and it was ideal for this movie.  It really is amazing because you hear the song so many times throughout the film, and it never gets to the point of getting on your nerves or getting old.  There is so much believability to this tune and the chances it would have enchanting audiences that really gives this film wings,

It is far from a perfect film, and did have some elements that I found to be a bit abrasive.  Jimmy, the lead singer, had a very controlling personality that you know right from the beginning will lead to trouble down the road.  His descent towards being a jerk happens fairly sharply and seems rather jagged against the rest of the movie.  There was nothing natural about how it happened, and it really stood out to me as forcing the plot along instead of being a part of it.  Near the end of the movie, character traits of other members of the band were all of a sudden accelerated as well, which did nothing to help the flow of the film.

There are other things that I felt were miss-steps, many that I could list, but ultimately they are all inconsequential.  I had started writing a list of those things as I watched it, but eventually I succumbed to the charm of the boys, and their youthful enthusiasm.  I don’t think this movie was ever trying to be perfect, it was just trying to catch that emotion.  Well, it succeeded in its task and won me over as I was tapping my feet along to this story of good natured boys in a world they dreamed about but where not ready for or made fore.

Rating – 3 out of 4 stars

Drive

Here I am, only two days out from Christmas.  What that means in terms of my life is that I am more than a little stressed, because of top of the season to be merry, my wife and I are also moving.  That equals a lot of fun and entertainment as boxes and packing tape are strewn around the apartment with care.  Today was going to be my day to review Bad Santa, but numerous trips to the dump and other such adventures left little room for watching the movie.  Instead, I will take a look at the 2011 movie Drive, which was directed by Nicolas Winding Refn and stars Ryan Gosling and Carey Mulligan.

There are a number of different ways this film could be described.  Some may call it a drama, others may call it action, others may say that it has thriller elements.  It really is a film that is very hard to put into a box because it has a very unique personality to it.  It is a heavily stylized film, that calls upon the feel and sounds of the eighties, especially during the first act of the movie when we are getting introduced to the main characters.  There are many segments of the film with very little talking, as the mood and tone is communicated through the shots, the music, and the faces and postures of the actors.

Gosling plays The Driver, a stunt driver for movies and a mechanic who also moonlights as a very capable, competent, and precise getaway driver.  We never find out his name, or anything about his past, which is intentionally left out of the story.  His employer, played by Bryan Cranston, who is a very mild father figure to Gosling does not even know about his past.  Gosling's character is very quiet, very calm, and never shows a lot of emotions.  This is not because Gosling does a poor job acting out the character, but because there is something off with the very essence of The Driver, a veneer of placid looks and expressions that cover up frothing emotions. 

While Gosling is of few words, he is not one of few actions.  What makes this film interesting is the extreme nature of Gosling's deeds as they are being carried out by an almost mono-tone soul.  We never get the sense that he is void of all emotions and is a sociopath, but that he is withdrawn from society and lets very little of his personality ever show through.

If described as an action movie (which the foundation of the film could easily be compared to), it is possibly one of the slowest moving out there.  Do not take that to mean that it is boring, however.  The entire feel of the movie seems to mirror the personality of The Driver, making it paced calmly and purposefully with a lot of underlying emotion.  When the action does take place, it is very much to the point, and eerily introduced at times with a graphic nature that bursts the bubble of the of the good natured film we may have thought we had on our hands.  Just as people in the movie became surprised at the manner in which The Driver acted, the audience shares the same emotion with the film which is the nice guy next door that has a secret violent streak to him.

A lot of people may have a hard time with this film because of the odd tempo it has, especially when contrasted by the graphic action elements.  The two do not seem to marry well together in theory, but as I mentioned, the movie is a mirror of the character of The Driver.  Perhaps you have met someone before who was shy and quiet, kept to themselves but scared you to your core when they were instigated.  This film is that person, and it melds the calm and the storm together in a very dramatic story with a unique style and feel like no other.

Rating - 3.5 out of 4 stars