Godzilla X Megaguirus: G Extermination Strategy (2000) movie review

Overall verdict: 5.5/10

The one where Godzilla is green and purple, fighting a giant bug (no not mothra)

The Good: Impressive monster designs, engaging lead character, well crafted miniatures

The Bad: overall cheap look, sub par special effects, serviceable directing, uninspired camerawork, boring battles, more style than substance, lacks any deeper themes in the narrative

***********Review***********

With the success of Godzilla 2000, Toho green lit a new Godzilla movie which for some reason is not a sequel to Godzilla 2000. Despite featuring the same Godzilla design, albeit painted a bright green with purple spikes, GODZILLA X MEGAGUIRUS serves as another reboot in the millennium era of the franchise.

Godzilla's many attacks on Japan across the years led to the formation of the G-Graspers, an elite tactical unit tasked with fending off the attacks. By 2001, Japan has invented the Dimension Tide, a weapon capable of opening miniature black holes which can consume anything in its path, and they plan to use it on Godzilla. A test run accidentally transports ancient mutant dragonflies into Japan which take refuge in the sewers.  During this time, a "moby dick/Ahab" style relationship develops between Godzilla and the vengeful Major Tsujimori who is obsessed with taking down the giant beast. 

At first she finds an unlikely ally in the dragonflies, dubbed meganula, who attack Godzilla and drain his nuclear energy. However, unknown to the humans, that energy is used to empower the meganula queen, Megaguirus.

As can be seen by the lengthy synopsis, GXM has many sub plots to resolve. There is the issue of illegal plasma energy experimentation which attracts Godzilla, there is major Tsujimori's journey of revenge, there is the Monster dragonflies, there is the sub plot of professor Yoshino and the Dimension Tide. 

I found Tsujimori's arc of vengeance to be the easiest to follow. She was made out to be a rather sympathetic character despite her tough exterior and it is easy to become invested in her tale. Other than that, the film does drag its feet in many of the human scenes with all the sub plots intertwined nicely but resolved hurriedly. The movie is paced as if the Creative team forgot about the "Megaguirus" in the title and then had her come out only in the third act.

While impressive in design, Megaguirus is essentially Mothra and Battara all over again; an insectile giant monster who is fragile but uses speed and cunning to fight Godzilla. Sadly the tangling between the two titans is quite disappointing. Megaguirus is a puppet on strings and Godzilla is an intricately designed but very stiff suit. 

Do not expect the savage, up close and personal, tooth and claw type duels. These are overly choreographed affairs, complete with a samurai sword duel homage with anime-style visual cues. The fight easily degenerates into distinct formula thanks to the limited movements that the stiff suit and puppet can do. Then the director chooses to have half of the fight done in this choppy jerky slow motion style that too many tv directors abuse.

All this and more give the movie a very cheap "tv episode" kind of feel, barely doing justice to the painstakingly crafted monsters. While GODZILLA X MEGAGUIRUS boasts decent special effects, decent acting and a well written though one dimensional human protagonist, it establishes itself as a mere middling entry into this rich franchise due to uninspired directing, cheesy Monster fights, and a an unevenly paced and shallow narrative.

***********Review***********

Entertainment: C

Story: B-

Acting: B-

Characters: B-

Music: C-

Replay value: C+

"Brains": C-

The Mummy (2017) remake review

Generic Tom Cruise action movie about Tom's hot stalker

Overall verdict: 5.5/10

The Good: Comedic timing between Cruise and Johnson, incredible performance by Russell Crowe, genuinely eerie creature designs and effects, decent action, sets up greater shared universe with other films.

The Bad: uninspired directing, dark murky cinematography, not scary, shallow narrative, lacks any deeper themes, convoluted plot that is not resolved well, underdeveloped antagonist, bland protagonist

***********Review***********

The Mummy heralds the genesis of Universal Studio's very own shared cinematic universe, christened the "Dark Universe". And boy they weren't kidding! Directed by writer Alex Kurtzman in his directorial debut, has coated the entire movie in a murky light dimming filter. Daylight scenes look muted and dull without strong shadows, serving no conceivable thematic purpose other than to have a darkness filter over everything. Kutzman's barely serviceable directing style, with its constant shaky cam, close ups, tight shots and slightly off focus action scenes, all point to a director acting off a checklist of "typical action movie shots". To make matters worse, most of the action scenes are set in dark underground locales or at night, which requires much strain to make out what is going on.

Not that it is entirely a bad thing. This darkness does serve the horror element of the movie. After all this is a remake of the classic horror movie franchise "The Mummy" which saw one remake by Stephen Sommers done in more of a classic swashbuckling adventure style. The big twist this time is that the mummy is a lady.

Ahmanet was an Egyptian princess who was denied her rightful place as ruler of ancient Egypt. She made a pact with the God of chaos, Set, to get revenge on her family and in turn she would bring Set into the world through a chosen individual so she could rule by his side. She was found out and mummified alive as punishment, far away from Egypt. Five thousand years later, rogue soldier Nick Morton and his pal Chris unwittingly discover Ahmanet's tomb in the middle of the war torn Iraqi desert. Unknown to Nick, Ahmanet is still alive in her sarcophagus and uses her arcane magic to manipulate events and people into bringing her body to London. There she hopes to find an ancient weapon belonging to Set, and Nick is the key to her plan.

Unfortunately it is a stretch to call this a horror movie. The darkness of the footage does attempt to convey the look of a horror film, and the effects are hauntingly good. The scenes immediately after Ahmanet resurrects as a desiccated anatomically twisted mockery of humanity are particularly effective as is the look of the zombies. But other than that, this movie has more in common with an action comedy than a horror. 

Though the make-up and effects are meant to be scary, the way scenes are set up, shot and scripted end up more hilarious than horrific. A shocking moment where forgettable love interest Jenny accidentally barges in on Ahmanet straddling a captive Nick, surrounded by rotting minions and about to perform an arcane ritual on him, is scripted as if she barged in on a couple making love. Or when Chris is cursed and haunts Nick as a disembodied spirit bearing the scars of his death, it is played less like a spooky spectral encounter and more like one of those Scary Movie parodies.

Nick himself is a standard morally ambiguous, selfish,arrogant, snarky, action movie protagonist and his sarcastic partner is the standard comic relief. Tom cruise and Jake Johnson as Nick and Chris have great chemistry making the action very fun to watch. Simplicity seems to be the order of the day and any character who was not a monster is portrayed as a one dimensional archetype. In a grave misstep, the script decides to try and develop the already uninteresting Nick and this takes time away from developing the titular mummy Ahmanet. Only Russell Crowe's Dr Jekyll was able to hold my attention and be an interesting addition to the dark universe.

A part of that intrigue comes from Crowe's performance and the stark contrast in the Jekyll and Hyde characters. Unlike past portrayals, Jekyll and Hyde here do not look much different aside from some CGI details. Crowe's performance gets the credit for selling this contrast and comes off as genuinely unsettling. I had hoped to see more of his character in this movie or future ones.

I also liked the gender flipped premise of a dude in distress chased by a female undead necromancer as well as the amount of world building that went into crafting this shared cinematic universe. And perhaps that is where the problem lies: this movie succeeds in being enticing for what is promised rather than what is delivered. Too funny to be a horror, too bland to be a comedy, THE MUMMY succeeds in setting up a new shared cinematic universe but fails to exploit its full potential and fails in delivering a professionally made movie that stands on its own.

***********Review***********

Entertainment: B-

Story: B

Acting: B+

Characters: C-

Music: C-

Replay value: B-

"Brains": D

Transformers Car Robots / Robots in Disguise (2001) anime series review - 39 episodes

 

5.5/10

The Good: detailed character designs, vibrant colours, decent voice acting, overall fun atmosphere

The Bad: Juvenile story and dialogue, flat humour, limited animation, generic music, little stakes except until the last few episodes

***********Review***********

If Beast Machines was "Transformers on philosophy" this show is "Transformers on happy fuel". From the get go, Transformers:Robots in Disguise came across as more of a comedy than any other Transformers show ever was.

Now, i am not lambasting this show for being funny. The original cartoon had its funny episodes and so did Beast Wars. This show's humour however is not only overdone and terribly handled, but it is in all the wrong places, ALL THE TIME. This show was obviously written as a comedy series first, and then had elements of sci/fi robot action thrown in. Seeing the Autobots and Predacons duke it out in this series is less like seeing the conflict between Autobots and Decepticons in the original cartoon, and more like Bugs Bunny Vs Yosamite Sam. 

The first few episodes were perfect in keeping with the sci/fi adventure feel of Transformers, but after than, everything descends into a laugh-a-minute. An autobot flirts with a red sports car every episode, Predacons whine like schoolgirls and over-the-top lameness typical of comedic Japanese anime(see huge sweat drops and super deformed characters/chibi) get thrown into even the most serious and emotionally charged scenes, thereby ruining whatever impact those scenes were meant to have.

If the humour works, i would have no qualms. Problem is, it doesn't work. This show cannot seem to decide if its a serious sci/fi adventure or a slapstick comedic spoof with the genre going into either extremes multiple times(and at all the wrong times) in a single episode. The scripting is very juvenile, more in line with Pokemon and Powerpuff girls than Transformers. In attempting to give a more serious tone to the series halfway through by the addition of the Decepticons and Scourge and an entire story arc involving some ancient Transformer, it in fact causes the entire series' already meandering plot to get even more convoluted.

The humorously and sometimes painfully childish story is not the only thing that does not quite work. The animation is only mediocre; the bright vivid pastel colors and limited frame rate make it on par with other Saturday morning kids' anime like Digimon or Beyblade. The character designs for the humans also carry that typical "for children" anime art style. Thankfully, the usual animation short cuts are only used sparingly and the series maintains a consistent level of art detail throughout.

To add to the overall childish look and feel, the transformers now sport "special powers" akin to the special powers in digimon or Dragonball. They shoot, laser/missiles/fire/plasma etc, while SHOUTING OUT the name of their attacks and striking "cool" poses. 

Even doing something as normal as taking out a gun and shooting at the enemy requires the autobot to proudly declare "LASER BLASTER!!!" before striking a stock footage pose and shooting a laser beam. Later characters sport such ludicrously sounding "attacks" as "Hurricane Kick" and "Tsunami blast".

Thankfully, an excellent cast that delivered spot on professional voice acting, saved this show from spiraling into down the drain hole. Too bad about the material they had to work with, or this series could have been so much more than it currently is.

Fans would enjoy the sleek re-designs of many classic characters. Plus, the bright pastel colors, slapstick(though misplaced) humour and good clean action would no doubt make this a hit with the younger crowd. But compared with what came before(Beast Machines, Beast Wars, G1 and the comics) this show falls short on many levels, never really living up to its potential. There really isn't more to this than meets the eye.

***********Review***********

Entertainment: B+
Art: C-
Animation: C

Story: B
Voice Acting (English): B+ 

Characters: C+

Music: C-

Replay value: A-
"Brains": C-

Transformers: Revenge of The Fallen (2009) movie review

 

Overall verdict: 5.5/10

A franchise starts its fall

The Good: big action, well acted characters, generally impressive special effects

The Bad: inconsistent CGI, uninteresting characters, flat jokes, shallow narrative, erratic camera work

***********Review***********

Where should I start?

Maybe i shall start on the plot which, although not a total mess, lacked whatever semblance of depth the first film had. Instead of building upon previously established plot threads, Transformers 2 decides to throw everything out and plonk in a whole new mess of plot threads. The whole backstory about thew "Primes" coming to earth eons ago seemed like it was just conveniently inserted into the plot as there was no mention of this particular story thread in the previous movie. The motivations for Megatron have also changed, from chasing the allspark to earth in order to seize its power in the first film to coming to earth to find his "Master" whom we are introduced to as "the fallen", an ancient decepticon that came to earth a long time ago. Already, inconsistencies with the first film and plot holes the size of Saturn's moons abound.

Next we have the characters. Instead of developing the already underdeveloped robot cast from the first movie, Hasbro decides to include even more robots. Some of them are not even named in the movie and just end up becoming cannon fodder at the end of the day. The already decently developed character of Bumblebee gets sidelined after a rather embarrassing bout of crying with the plot thread of Sam and Bumblebee's strained friendship left undeveloped. Optimus Prime himself takes a dive down from being a level headed and compassionate tactical commander to being an impulsive and brash bully with a bad attitude. 

He "talks down" to humans now instead of treating them as equals, he rushes headlong into a battle without as much as a tactical analysis and he needlessly puts his own team in danger more than once with his impulsiveness. The Fallen, the seemingly new and more menacing villain, comes across as having more bark and no bite; being able to "use the force" and throw things around with his mind or something but barely holding his own in actual hand to hand combat.

The humans don't fare any better either. Whatever witty humour there was in the first movie got replaced with terrible, and even offensive sexual jokes. Done in moderation, sexual jokes are fine. But Transformers 2 takes the innuendo to new heights of unnecessary offensiveness. I highlight "unnecessary" as many of the jokes could have been replaced with better ones or done away with no effect to the story. It is just so counter productive to have so many sexual jokes in a film made for all ages. It offends the kids and the parents. Heck even me as a teenager felt offended by those jokes. The acting takes a turn for the worse. At times it gets so over the top that the characters some across as caricatures of their former selves, especially John Turturro's character, Agent Simmons. On the other hand, the voice acting from the robot characters keeps more true to its cartoon roots than the first film with more time devoted to dialogue interplay between the autobots or decepticons.

The acting of the human characters is only thing that takes a turn for the worse. The CGI is highly inconsistent in this movie. You got great scenes, very nicely rendered and animated, mostly in the first half of the movie. But once the movie moves to Egypt and toward its climax, the level of detail and fluidity in the CGI robots starts to dip. Its lowest point is at the final battle between Prime and The Fallen which looks like an X-box game cutscene with lighting and texturing on the robots that look really out of place among the physical background.

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen is a wild, unrestrained misguided practice in EXCESS. Everything is just so overblown, from the action, to the acting, to the budget. Even the media coverage and publicity was overblown and it resulted in Transformers 2 NOT living up to the hype.

If anything, Transformers 2 feels like a extra long running toy commercial. All that matters is CGI graphics, action, explosions and new robots. Story, characters and what not apparently do not matter anymore. The sadder thing is that so many people LOVE this kind of shallow and excessive shows that it would just encourage movie producers to make more. This is an pretty but offensively silly excuse for a film; Big and brainless.

***********Review***********

Entertainment: B-

Story: C-

Acting: A

Characters: B-

Music: C-

Replay value: B-

"Brains": D-

Wonder Woman (2017) movie review

9/10

There is wonder in 'most everything I see

The Good: Best written romance in a comic book movie, heartfelt character development, excellent cast chemistry, outstanding soundtrack, explores deeper themes

The Bad: underdeveloped supporting villain, some instances of sub par special effects

***********Review***********

The origin story of the quintessential female superhero is finally realised on the big screen. Only the fourth entry into the DC Extended Universe (DCEU), WONDER WOMAN is an feature length flashback detailing the events behind the mysterious photo from the First World War that was shown in 2016's BATMAN V SUPERMAN. 

Before she became a hero, Diana of the Amazons had only known a paradise of sisters forged in the ideals of cooperation and a Mission to defend the world against Ares, the last of the old Greek gods. Her perfect world is shattered when war comes to Paradise Island in the form of the American spy Steve Trevor and a ship full of German enemy pursuers. Diana in her innocent idealism believes Ares to be responsible for the war and leaves the island with Trevor in the hope that killing Ares will spare innocent lives from the horrors of war.

Giving life to the character of Diana is actress Gal Gadot. Gal is a dead ringer for the iconic superhero, looking exactly like she stepped out of the comic books. The earnestness she brings to the role perfectly conveys Diana's innocence and idealistic outlook. Much time is spent focused on the characters such that even side characters receive decent characterisation and development. 

Diana shares a magnificent chemistry with co-star Chris Pine playing the world weary captain Steve Trevor. Their romantic sub plot can be compared to classic romances like Casablanca, masterfully and tastefully realised on screen. But the more intriguing aspect is when the movie goes into their minds, showing their contrasting perspectives on life.

Diana approaches her Mission like a child approaching a fairy tale story. Clear black and white morality, destroy the bad guy and the world is saved. That simple. Unfortunately, it is not that simple and her entire story is one of growing up and seeing the truth about humanity's ugly nature. On the flip side, Trevor straddles the line of cynicism; he knows full well the worst that humanity is capable of yet cannot bring himself to break Diana's innocent worldview.

What begins as a relatively run of the mill superhero origin story morphs into a surprisingly deep narrative that seeks to shatter viewer expectations. True to the DCEU, WONDER WOMAN, like its predecessors, explores some heady themes against the backdrop of war. Key of which is weighing Diana's idealism against worldly cynicism and outright nihilism. 

The movie explores those perspectives through its characters, never preaching one over the other and coming to a mature conclusion that ties into an ongoing theme of "hero by choice, not by obligation" that the DCEU movies had been conveying.

The movie never shies away from showing the true horrors of combat, broken families, broken people, a hero helpless against the odds, a truly dark time serving as a stark contrast to the amazon's paradise island. Into this darkness comes Diana herself who is given ample opportunity to flex her powers in a spectacular show of Super heroics.

Patty Jenkins approaches the action like a pro, keeping to the more fantastic, speed ramped portrayal of superhero fighting as established by Zack Snyder, while adding her own touches such as the amazons' uniquely cooperative battle tactics (which gets a wonderful payoff later in the movie). Her masterful direction extends to the balanced tone of the movie. Many comic book movies prefer to stuff their narrative with humour, even in the middle of intense battle scenes, such that the movie fails to take itself seriously. WONDER WOMAN does not fall into that trap. 

The battles are approached with respectful gravitas, and a genuine sense of peril. Bookending such sequences are character centred scenes in a peaceful setting which help to develop their relationships in a very natural and heartfelt way. There is humour and it is used sparingly, never detracting from the underlying themes or the seriousness of the setting.

This balance gives us a product that can easily appeal to everyone. Diana as a character is one that anyone who had ever been a child can relate to. The epic action, consistently focused on the characters and set to an emotionally rousing score by Rupert Gregson Williams (Legend of Tarzan), will please the typical blockbuster fan. 

For those who love the deeper more  complex cinematic offerings, you will not be disappointed by the themes explored in this move. And as a refreshing surprise, WONDER WOMAN features what I can unabashedly say is the most genuine and well written romance in a comic book movie, ever.

Truly wonderful.

***********Review***********

Entertainment: A

Story: A-

Acting: A-

Characters: A

Music: B+

Replay value: A-

"Brains": A-