Godzilla (2014)

Title: Godzilla (2014)

Director: Gareth Edwards

Cast: Aaron Taylor Johnson, Bryan Cranston, Juliette Binoche, Ken Watanabe

There’s a bit of resurgence in giant monster movies as of late, a renaissance if you will. It all started with Guillermo del Toro’s Pacific Rim (2013), which was a huge winner in my book, it showed that Kaiju movies could be cool and bombastic and just plain awesome. My big worry after seeing Pacific Rim was how Gareth Edward’s Godzilla could top it. As far as I’m concerned, Pacific Rim set the bar pretty in the land of giant monster movies, so Godzilla would have to be a pretty freaking cool monster movie in order to beat Pacific Rim. So…did it? But I’m getting ahead of myself here. Getting back to Godzilla, just who the hell is this Gareth Edwards guy? Well, a while back Edwards directed a straight to dvd monster movie called Monsters (2010); a cool little alien invasion flick that showed that Mr. Edwards knew his way around a monster movie, he ‘got’ them, he understood them; to top things off, Monsters showed that Edwards could do a lot on a small budget. So, Hollywood decided to give Edwards his big break to show what he’s made of, the result is the Hollywood’s second attempt at getting Godzilla right. Did it work? Was it a good Godzilla movie?

In Godzilla a mining operation discovers a giant egg, which just so happens to be a Kaiju egg. The creatures inside are these moth like (actually more like roach like) creatures who fly around the city sucking up anything that’s radioactive, including nuclear power plants! This of course spells certain doom for many nuclear plants around the world. Fortunately, Godzilla has also awakened and has emerged from the ocean! Will Godzilla protect or destroy the world from these giant radioactive cockroaches?

First things first, the filmmakers behind this movie got Godzilla absolutely freaking perfect! Unlike Roland Emmerich’s Godzilla (1998), which tried it’s very hardest to get away from the cheesier elements from the Japanese Godzilla films, Gareth Edward’s Godzilla actually embraced Godzilla exactly how he is depicted in the Japanese films, but with an added element of reality to it. This isn’t just a guy in a suit; nope, this is a gigantic, walking, stomping, atomic breathing King of All Monsters! So thanks go out to Gareth Edwards for giving us the Godzilla we always wanted, a Godzilla that I’m sure even the Japanese people can feel proud of and enjoy. On this film you will see everything you want to see in a Godzilla film, you will see Godzilla emerge from the ocean and go back into it, you will see him brawling with other giant monsters and he most certainly fires his atomic breath! So feel assured, if you’re a Godzilla fan, you will be pleased.

Aside from the awesomeness of Godzilla itself, the film has an amazing asset going for it, which I felt they could have exploited a bit more and that is actor Bryan Cranston, a solid actor if there ever was any. While he is in the movie, the movie flows perfectly well; the performances where believable and intense; unfortunately when he disappears half way through the film as does Juliette Binoche, things loose believability. You have two great actors and then you have them do a vanishing act to leave us with Aaron Taylor Johnson for the rest of the film? Not that I have anything against Aaron Taylor Johnson, but damn, Bryan Cranston could eat him for breakfast when it comes to acting! Why this cheap ass exchange? I would have found a way to keep Bryan Cranston on for the entire film!

The only real problem with this new Godzilla is the human side which felt clichéd and unconvincing. A good actor can make or break a film, and in this sense, this new Godzilla satisfied me only half way. Had they found a way to keep Bryan Cranston throughout the whole film, this movie would have gotten a perfect score from this reviewer, alas, we get clichéd characters and forced situations instead. For example, there’s this whole sequence in which Aaron Taylor Johnson has to save a little kid and you get the feeling that they did this simply to turn him into a hero; this sequence, while exciting, felt soooo forced and fake. Worse yet is that the kid disappears in a few seconds after he is saved, without a word or a thanks. It’s like you served your purpose in the plot kid, now scram! What the--? Characters weren’t well developed because one, you take away the good actors and leave us with the less experienced ones, and two, you have characters doing things simply to fulfill a character type or a purpose in the plot. It’s like, you’re hero, you’re the wife, you’re the soldier, you’re the scientist and you will do exactly what is expected of your archetype and that’s it. Ugh. My advice is next time, work on better human characters and the film should be better. Not that it’s an awful film acting wise, but characters felt like archetypes, not real people. I should add that this is a problem that many Japanese Godzilla films suffer from as well, a weak human side.

But aside from that, this movie rocked the house. Trust me when I say that whenever Godzilla is on, he is most certainly ON! Godzilla commands that screen whenever it appears! So much so that when he disappears you are left wanting more; which reminds me that what this movie needed more of was Godzilla! There’s this thing that Edward’s does in the film, he shows us Godzilla, teases us with this cool beast and then bam, the camera turns away! And you’re left wanting more Godzilla! Which is cool in my book, he kind of wets your appetite and the tortures ya by taking away what you want the most. I guess this technique was done on purpose, to keep us wanting more, to make us want a sequel; which by the way has just been approved! You will see Godzilla stomp the world again! You see, this Godzilla film made close to 100 million in one weekend alone! It’s a raging success! It is poised to make even more money than Pacific Rim did, but that’s to be expected because Godzilla is a brand name, and Pacific Rim was an original product. Still, if you ask me, if I had to compare this new Godzilla to Pacific Rim, I say Pacific Rim is still the superior of the two. It’s just more bombastic, bigger, more epic. But Godzilla is a damn fine Kaiju film, not a disappointment in the least and a cinematic experience not to be missed; go see Godzilla roar! It’s an experience!

Rating: 4 out of 5

Cache (2005)

Title: Cache (2005)

Writer/Director: Michael Haneke

Cast: Juliette Binoche, Daniel Auteuil, Lester Makedonsky, Maurice Benichou

Review:

This is my first Michael Haneke film. I’ve heard his name and movies mentioned a lot so I decided to finally explore his filmography, I decided to begin with one of his most accessible films (on this side of the world anyways) Cache. I have no idea what this director is all about, or the themes he likes to explore, so this review comes from a possibly naïve point of view to those who know what he is all about. It’s just that Haneke has a new film coming out called The White Ribbon and a quote about the film said that “it feels like a classic even as you are watching it!” So I said that’s it! Let’s start watching some Haneke! So I started with Cache. How was it?

Cache is a film about a family who is being watched. The Laurent’s are a high class family. Dad works running a talk show on tv, mom edits books and the son is a high school student. They appear to be a tranquil and happy family. Or are they? One day, somebody leaves a video tape at their door step. When they play it, they realize that somebody has been taping the front of the house for hours and hours. Seeing everything they do. Soon, other tapes follow. It becomes quite obvious that somebody is following them around taping their every move. Who is watching them and for what purpose? And how will the fact that they are being watched affect the family?

With its initial premise, Cache reminded me a lot of David Lynch’s Lost Highway (1997). It starts out essentially the same way, with a family receiving a video tape letting them know that they are being watched by an anonymous on looker. It’s a freaky premise any way you look at it, having a stalker following your every step without you knowing it is a scary idea. Which is probably why Lynch used it, cause he loves to creep you out with the mystery. But on Cache, Haneke used the same premise as Lynch, only without the freakiness. Let me rephrase that, without excessive freakiness. Cache does have its freaky moments, it’s just that they don’t permeate every single second of film. This movie plays a lot like a thriller, teasing, and taunting its audiences, but in many ways, it isn’t. It plays with your expectations that way.

I’m always seeing similarities between films, and with Cache I also noticed some similarities with Chan Wook Park’s Oldboy (2003). Same as in Oldboy, something from the past is creeping up on the main characters. Cache is about that whole idea that something from your past is coming back to haunt you. It plays with that idea that you did something really awful in the past and you tried to erase it from your mind, forget it. But now, it’s come back to bite you in the ass! This is the films main theme, that idea that we sometimes take an event in our lives that’s so awful, so bad, that we basically edit it out of our minds. Only, no matter how much we edit, that event we want to forget will come creeping right back back into our lives in one form or another. I don’t subscribe to this point of view, because I’m of the mind that bad things happen, and they stay in the past. Most of the time we simply have to move on. But sometimes, just sometimes, it isn’t that way. And that’s one of the themes in the film. Confronting the sins of the past. Confronting that monster that’s hiding in your proverbial closet. Like Oldboy, you get the feeling that there is some mastermind pulling the strings, always one step ahead of our protagonists. Trying to make them suffer so they can pay for what they did.

To me, this film was commenting on all sorts of things, it was heavy with themes. Exploring these themes and ideas are Haneke’s main concern with Cache. He isn’t even really concerned with delivering a completely satisfying thriller, he would rather expose you to his ideas so that you may look upon them, like a mirror. And speaking of ideas, the idea of a watcher, examining this family also reminded me of another film. I’m talking of Takashi Miike’s Visitor Q (2001). Don’t know how many of you have seen that particular film, but basically, its about this godlike being that suddenly starts to live amongst a family, like a silent watcher, criticizing many things that are wrong in the family circle.

This to me was Haneke’s main objective. The point is not who is the watcher and what is his purpose. Like Miike’s Visitor Q, what Haneke really wants is for you to look at this family and see what is wrong with it. In many ways, this silent watcher plays the role of an all powerful god watching over us, making us see what it is that we are doing wrong. And at times making us pay for our wrong doings, in this sense, the film is very much a morality play. What is the right thing to do? What did you do wrong? And how are you going to pay for it?

Cast and crew work out a scene with Haneke

In this film, we explore a family that is slowly but surely growing apart, to the point where they don’t really know each other anymore. The dynamics between parent and child are explored. Do you really know your children and where they are, what they are doing? Who they talk to? Or have you grown so comfortable in your complacency that you aren’t aware of what is going on in each others lives? Haneke’s film is not a conventional film by any standards. It has many elements that some might consider too “artsy fartsy” or slow paced. This is a movie that takes its time. There are shots that simply linger on and on, they might test your patience. Haneke challenges you to really look at his film and figure out what it is that matters in the shot. Some might calle that boring, others might call it art.  “Look through the scene and you shall find” is what I always say. The message lies hidden within Haneke’s powerful social critique.

Rating: 4 out of 5