Movie Review: Godzilla Minus One (2023)

Godzilla Minus One (2023) co-written and directed by Takashi Yamazaki

Shikishima (Ryunosuke Kamiki) is a kamikaze pilot at the end of World War II who lands on a small island. He claims something is wrong with his plane but the mechanic crew can't find any problems. A problem does show up when the islanders' boogie man appears--a two-story tall, lizard-like creature called Godzilla. Godzilla rampages over the makeshift airstrip. When the mechanics beg Shikishima to use his plane's guns to kill the monster, he freezes up. Almost everyone else dies. The war ends and Shikishima returns to his home in Tokyo. His parents have died. His home is mostly rubble. His neighbors are dismissive if not hostile to a kamikaze pilot who is still alive. When he's in the market, a woman being chased by the police gives him a package as she races by. The package is a baby girl. Shikishima hems and haws about what to do. He decides to abandon the child in the market but relents. As he walks out of the market, the woman comes out of hiding. She follows him home and they start an awkward family life--the baby isn't even hers. Life slowly improves in post-war Japan. Shikishima takes a well-paying job. It's on a boat that disarms mines in the ocean. The risk is high and only gets higher when an atomic-irradiated (and much larger) Godzilla shows up to terrorize the ocean ships. Also, Godzilla's travels point him straight to landing in Tokyo harbor.

The movie does a great job depicting the menace of Godzilla. The island fight (well, more of a massacre) is tense. It also shows Shakishima's character, how he's dodged death by being inactive or cowardly. He knows his flaws and feels a lot of guilty, especially over all the mechanics who died. His life becomes a path to redemption as he grows bit by bit. The human drama is just as good and interesting as the monster drama. Godzilla is less of a character than a plot device that creates conflict for Shakishima. The movie is similar to Mad Max: Fury Road, where the title character is more of a supporting character and the main person is someone else. The actors do a great job in their roles and the CGI effects (except for bits with the airplane at the beginning) are excellent. 

Recommended, highly for Godzilla fans. This is as good as the original.

Movie Review: Troll (2022)

Troll (2022) co-written and directed by Roar Uthaug

In the tradition of King Kong, Godzilla, Jaws, Jurassic Park, and Pacific Rim, Norwegian director Roar Uthaug presents a monster movie with a very Norwegian antagonist--a giant troll. The movie starts with paleontologist Nora (Ine Marie Wilmann) at a seashore dig, finally making a discovery. Meanwhile, a train project is blasting a tunnel through the Dovre Mountains. Protestors chant outside while the workers inspect the results of their latest explosion. Something starts coming out of the cave, forcing everyone to flee. The government's emergency center is able to get some amateur footage from the chaos which shows dirt and rocks flying everywhere. They also see mysterious foot-shaped craters leading away from the tunnel. They decide to bring in Nora as a scientific expert. She manages to spot a two-armed, bipedal creature in the amateur footage, which leads to all sorts of speculation. Nora expects the worst and is forced to go visit her father, a folklorist who has gone crazy. He clearly thinks it's a troll and is not shy about saying so. Soon enough, they discover the creature in the countryside. The troll is heading toward the capital, so it's up to the army and the plucky band of scientists to stop it from destroying everything.

The movie is a very entertaining yarn, following the standard plot beats in giant monster movies. The government is ineffective in its brute force efforts to stop the beast ("you're only making it mad," says the crazy father). The scientists slowly figure out more and more of what the audience already knows. The troll does follow some of its mythology, though not exactly, because "this is science!" Some things are very implausible, like the movie repeatedly blaming Christian missionaries for wiping out the troll population of Norway. Apparently unarmed missionaries can slaughter dozens or hundreds of trolls while the modern Norwegian military can't even scratch a lone troll. The troll's purpose for going to the capital is also fun but bonkers. The ending relies on a clever way to beat the beast rather than nuking it. The movie has a new setting for monster fighting with a monster that has plenty of folklore that's acknowledged throughout the film. The special effects are good and the performances are earnest enough for viewers to buy into the plot and have a good time.

Recommended if you like big monster movies.

Movie Review: Pacific Rim: Uprising (2018)

Pacific Rim: Uprising (2018) co-written and directed by Steven DeKnight

It's ten years after the events of the first movie and Jake Pentecost (John Boyega) is living a wheeler-dealer lifestyle. His dad was the big hero the first time around, giving great speeches and sacrificing himself for the world. Jake is not so great a man. He winds up with a young idealistic girl named Amara (Calliee Sapeny) who's built her own small Jaeger (that's the name for the giant robots) to get ready if the Kaiju (that's the name for the giant monsters) ever return. Personal Jaegers are illegal and they both get tossed in jail. Jake's sister bails them out, only if they join up with a new Jaeger program. That offer seems better than serving time. They head off to a Jaeger base to get trained for any coming problems. And problems definitely come when a Chinese company gets permission to build remotely-piloted Jaegers, putting Jake and his crew in career jeopardy. When the Jaegers go rogue, they also face physical jeopardy.

The movie lopes along at a good pace, not worrying too much about the details. Even though they try to go bigger than the first movie, this one is not as compelling or as exciting. The mythology is developed a little bit and the fun scientists characters from the first film are back and play major roles. The main focus is on telling a fun story, which they deliver on. The actors are good and the fight scenes are entertaining if not as imaginative as the first film.

Mildly recommended--this is really for Pacific Rim fans.

Movie Review: Tremors (1990)

Tremors (1990) directed by Ron Underwood

Val (Kevin Bacon) and Earl (Fred Ward) are handymen in the town of Paradise, Nevada (population 14). They do a lot of odd jobs and have ambitions to move to the big city--Bixby, Nevada. They finally decide to leave. But they've decided too late! A student seismologist (Finn Carter) has taken over the earthquake equipment in Paradise Valley and has been picking up unusual underground activity. More unusual is one of the local who is up on a powerline tower with his Winchester rifle. He's died. Val and Earl run across him as they are leaving, so they bring his body back to town. The local doctor says he died of dehydration, which takes three or four days. What is so scary that it'd keep a guy with a rifle trapped for so long? Underground carnivorous worms, that's what. The worms attack a work crew that happens to be working on the only road out of the valley, leaving the residents of Paradise isolated with the increasingly menacing foes.

This classic b-movie hits all the right notes. The heroes are charming and and down to earth. Reba McEntire and Michael Gross are fun as a survivalist couple who have a fully-armed compound just outside of town. Some of the other residents are picked off to heighten the tension. The creatures are slowly revealed and pretty ugly, though in a PG-13 way (not too over the top with bad looks or gore). Even thirty years later, the effects look good. The film has a lot of POV shots of the creatures chasing the residents (even one or two "underground" shots that work surprisingly well), a classic technique in the horror genre. The movie also has plenty of humor (the best line is when Val describes their handyman work ethic--"We plan ahead, that way we don't have to do anything right now"). The plot is the standard "coming up with schemes to escape the monster" and is intelligent enough to be enjoyable. None of the ideas they used seemed dumb and the only unlikeable characters are the worms themselves.

Recommended--this is a top-tier b-movie like Deep Blue Sea.

Movie Review: Godzilla (2014)

Godzilla (2014) directed by Gareth Edwards

Two scientists (Ken Wantanabe and Sally Hawkins) have been investigating prehistoric creatures for decades. In 1999, a Japanese nuclear plant had a meltdown caused by some odd seismic activity. One of the techs, Joe Brody (Bryan Cranston), was gathering data and managed to escape with his son but not his wife. Fifteen years later, Joe is still obsessed with finding out what happened to the reactor. The area is under quarantine but that doesn't stop him from breaking in. His son, Ford Brody (Arron Taylor-Johnson) is grown up with a wife and child of his own. He comes back to Japan to bail his dad out again. Joe convinces his son to go back into the quarantine area because a very similar set of seismic activity is happening. They wind up at a secret base run by the two scientists, who are studying a prehistoric spore. The spore hatches, causing mayhem all around. Several monsters show up, with Godzilla squaring off against a pair of monsters trying to spawn more offspring, which would be bad for humanity.

The movie has a slow build-up, establishing characters and detailing what sort of creatures are around and what  powers they have. The focus stays on the humans and how they plan, react, and cope with new threats from the ancient past. Often, the monsters are fighting in the background or are mostly off screen, which works well to keep them mysterious and more overwhelming. The pace picks up as the monsters head to San Francisco and have a classic battle that destroys as much of the town as it does the monsters. Director Edwards indirect style makes the action more interesting and less like a CGI slap around. The movie looks great and finishes well.

The original Godzilla movie from 1954 had a thoughtful reflection on the dangers of atomic power and weapons. The sequels quickly turned into Godzilla fighting whatever monsters Toho studio came up with. This movie respects that tradition by having the sort of nuclear power plant accident everyone dreads. It moves on to a big battle scene at the end reminiscent of the "Godzilla Vs. the Next Offering from the Enemy of the Month Club" movies. This movie is satisfying all around, if you are a Godzilla fan.

Recommended.

Movie Review: Cloverfield (2008)

Cloverfield (2008) directed by Mark Reeves

Rob's friends are throwing him a farewell party in Manhattan. They are all late 20s/early 30s types. Rob's ex-girlfriend Beth shows up but things don't go well. She leaves after some curt words are exchanged. As Rob's best friend and his brother talk to him about it out on the balcony, the building shakes precariously. Turns out Rob should have left New York earlier because some monster is attacking the city. Rob decides to go after Beth. The only problem is she lives in the direction where the monster is attacking.

The movie is a "found footage" film. In this case, the footage is a tape from Rob's camera documenting the farewell party, which turns into a chronicle of their experience of the attack. The tape has some old video when Rob took Beth to Coney Island the month before, giving the characters a little more background and empathy. Unfortunately, it looks like there are some edits (like most of the testimonials from the party?) that blow the attempt at realism and immediacy. I never got fully invested in the film like I did with Blair Witch Project or Paranormal Activity. I started wondering if the Coney Island bits, which made sense narratively, would really be so perfectly lined up in random spots on the tape. So the found footage was a problem for me.

The other problem I had was all the hints at what's really going on. I had the impression that there was a larger, more interesting story and we were stuck following this group of semi-interesting, semi-sympathetic characters. The ultimate ending for Rob and Beth is touching if not surprising. I was expecting more from the talent behind the film (produced by J. J. Abrams and written by Drew Goddard). Some moments are startling and beautiful and terrifying but quite a bit of the film looks like stuff borrowed from other, better films.

I was surprised by how mediocre this film is. It would have been less distracting without the found footage gimmick and a better story was probably going on somewhere else in Manhattan. The isn't bad; I am still going to watch 10 Cloverfield Lane, which hopefully is the better story.

Movie Review: Super 8 (2011)

Super 8 (2011) written and directed by J. J. Abrams

During the summer of 1979, a group of boys led by Charles want to make a Super 8 short film for a competition. On the last day of school they recruit Alice to play the detective's wife in their film. They all sneak out at night to film a scene by the railway station. During the shoot, a train comes by. The train is derailed by a pickup truck and everything goes flying everywhere. After running around in a panic, the kids see their science teacher in the truck. He warns them about the dangerous cargo and starts waving a gun around, which is enough to scare them off. But not before gathering all their equipment, including the camera that's been running the whole time.

The kids try to resume a normal life but it turns out the train was a special Air Force train and the military has moved in to clean up the incident. But as people and dogs and mechanical equipment start disappearing, questions start mounting. What was really on the train? What's on the film they took? Will the kids finish their movie in time? What about the other big secret?

What other big secret? The movie opens with a shot of a local factor where their "No Accidents in X Days" sign is changed back to "1." Deputy Jackson Lamb's wife died there leaving him and son Joe alone. Joe is the sensitive one of the film makers--he does the make-up and makes miniatures too. He's excited when Charles recruits Alice and they have a growing interest in each other. Alice's dad doesn't want Joe around his daughter and Joe's dad has similar feelings about Alice though it is not really clear why. For me, the Joe/Alice plot line is the most interesting part of the movie.

The monster part of the movie is much less interesting. All the exposition about the monster is saved till the end but when it comes the information doesn't explain its actions earlier in the movie. Why is it stealing only certain specific items? Other than creating a spooky atmosphere, why does the monster's presence cause lights and other electrical and mechanical things to go crazy? The action sequences are exciting but they don't add together to make a coherent story. The military is depicted as a bunch of generic cartoonish baddies which makes them less compelling as villains.

The movie is clearly a homage to 1980s science fiction movies, especially the work of Steven Spielberg (who is a producer on the film). Viewers see bits taken from Close Encounters of the Third Kind and E. T. The monster's face reminded me of Predator and its lair was reminiscent of Aliens. Viewers don't really see the monster till the end of the film as in Jaws. Things like that are fun to spot but they are also reminders of much better films.

I wish the film maker's had made the Joe/Alice story the main focus of the film and just used the train wreck and monster running around as background rather than a competing narrative. What could have been a great film is just a mediocre genre piece.

Movie Review: Monsters (2010)

Monsters (2010) written and directed by Gareth Edwards

Six years after a NASA ship carrying evidence of alien life forms crashed into northern Mexico, the zone between the USA and Mexico has been dubbed "The Infected Zone." Strange alien monsters have spawned there. Occasionally they come out of the zone and attack humans on either side. The USA has built a great big wall to keep them out. The Mexicans have some high-voltage wires up. Naturally there are more attacks in Mexico. American photographer Andrew Kaulder is in Mexico trying to get pictures for his newspaper of a live creature or of the human toll the creatures' attacks have taken. The owner of the paper is concerned because his daughter Sam is in Mexico as a tourist and needs help getting back to America. Kaulder's not so interested in helping out but she is the boss's daughter, so he does. They make the journey back to America through the monster-infested landscape.

It becomes clear early on that the toughest monsters to get past are the human ones. The guy selling ferry tickets is charging 5000 American dollars for one ticket back to the States. Others are just as greedy. Kaulder himself isn't the best person. He's on the lookout for a picture of a dead child since the paper will pay $50,000. Pictures of happy children get nothing. He does have a certain basic decency about him and he rises to the occasion as the movie progresses. Sam is troubled by what's going on and clearly has a strained relationship with her fiance back in America. She's quite resourceful and not some damsel in distress, which is a refreshing change for a movie like this.

Even with all the bleakness, the movie still has many moments of beauty and wonder. Kaulder and Sam meet a family who gives them shelter for the night and food and water for their journey. The Mexican countryside is beautiful in spite of the occasional signs of devastation (burned-iout tanks or downed fighters or ravaged buildings). The ending is surprisingly poignant.

Monsters is a fascinating take on the alien invasion film and well worth seeing.