Godzilla: 2014

   When I say monster, what sort of thing comes to mind?  Maybe you think of the Universal monsters like The Wolf Man, or The Creature From The Black Lagoon. Or maybe you think of the creations of special effects pioneer Ray Harryhausen. But if you're like me, then the first thing you think of when you hear "monster" is Godzilla. A name that implies ultimate power and destruction...and dinosaurs. Godzilla began his reign of destruction in 1954 with the release of his first feature film entitled, "Gojira". The monster was supposed to symbolize the power of nuclear weapons, and the destruction the monster caused mirrored (more or less) the devastation of the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. This is  who Godzilla originally was, but as he began to appear in more films the giant thunder lizard would become both friend and foe to the human race through one way or another.  And once again an American director has decided to wipe the slate clean and retell the first appearance of a scary, green, scaly, atomic breathing, giant monster. Let's take a look at Gareth Edwards' Godzilla!

   Now before I begin I would like to clarify something. I am a huge Godzilla fan. I love the monsters and robots that he fights. I love Monster Island. I love everything from Mecha-Godzilla to Jet Jaguar and I was really excited when I heard tell of a new Godzilla movie! Like, oh my god. For once in my adult life I would have a modern release to call my own! I was hyped, and I hoped that this revamp of a franchise would succeed in reminding audiences who the king of monsters was. However, I understand that writing a review of a film with this big a fan base is a heavy burden to carry, and in doing so I need to remind those who have an opinion to also respect mine for what it is. To you I might be wrong. To you I might not have fully understood the kind of Godzilla movie that was meant to be made. Maybe, to you, Gareth Edwards exceeded your vision of Godzilla to the nth degree. I'm trying to break to you that I didn't like this movie. Let me tell you why. Who knows, you might be really disappointed. 

   The plot follows Joe Brody (Cranston), his son Ford (Taylor-Johnson) and their efforts to uncover a conspiracy hidden by the government. As you may have guessed that conspiracy is Godzilla, and it later escalates as more monsters reach more populated areas. And the first thing that I want to talk about is Godzilla which was, after all, the main selling point for the film. There is a ton to consider when you take the helm for a job like this, and I think that Edwards did the most that he could do. And it looks beautiful. The pacing, every movement, his face, the moves! It's all there! And it looks so cool!!!!! As far as I'm concerned Godzilla looks perfectly fine. I heard that some people thought that Godzilla's legs and feet looked fat, and I can see where they're coming from, but it never really bothered me because he's a giant monster and I was prepared for him to be lumbering around a metropolitan area. In other words, his size matched his speed. 

For a movie called, "Godzilla" there really isn't all that much Godzilla in the film. The full screen time that Godzilla has might clock out to a half an hour at the most, and only half the time he's fighting other monsters. When I watch a Godzilla movie I expect it to revolve around him for the most part, but instead Edwards decided it would be better to star two actors to carry our story from beginning to end.

   I want to explain why a main character is important in a story for a frame of reference to this movie. The main character is who the audience vicariously lives through. It is important to have a character in a story that doesn't understand the driving action at hand so that when he is learning about the situation, so are we as an audience. The way that Jo works with Ford is similar to a movie like Back to The Future however only in the sense that there is an experienced man trying to explain a discovery to an inexperienced apprentice. But in a movie like Back to the Future we care a lot more about Marty than Doc Brown because we like his character, we want to see him overcome obsticals, and we know he's not perfect (when he loses his temper after being called "chicken"). Marty McFly is a well rounded character. Ford is not. I have no disrespect towards Aron Taylor Jonson's performance, but his character has nothing interesting set up during the entirety of his screen time. I don't care about him as a character at all. I don't care about his wife, or his job, or his well furnished house. The only reason I think he needed to be in the movie was to give us perspective of a human in comparison to Godzilla...which was incredible. 

   Bryan Cranston's performance was incredible as well and while I don't believe that he was picked simply to grab more of an audience, I don't think it hurt the film during box office weekend. His performance was so good, I can honestly say that I cared infinitely more about Jo and his wife with the ten minuets they were interacting together, than the entire rest of the film that had Ford and his wife interacting together. The very moment that Bryan Cranston died I had no one to follow in the movie that I remotely cared about. It relieved all the tension because I didn't care about Ford or his wife. He was the only interesting character and when he left I had nothing to invest in for the rest of the film. 

   Many people had gone into this movie with different expectations because while there is generally a formula to a Godzilla movie, there are also different aspects of the franchise that fans like to focus on. My ideal Godzilla movie would be a bunch of never-before seen actors playing scientists with no names that try to kill Godzilla with a science thing...but that will never happen. I didn't expect it to happen, but I hoped it would. This is not that movie.

   There were a few minor problems I had with Godzilla, like how everything seemed a little too convenient for our main characters when they were everywhere Godzilla was, and when Ford makes it his mission to save one child out of the fifty people that are on a train literally speeding towards one of the monsters. But I can look past those flaws. All in all Godzilla takes itself a little too seriously for me. There are several dry spells in the film where nothing happens, the actual story that doesn't involve Bryan Cranston is terrible, and I didn't care about the main character. But if you're willing to put up with that to get to the best ten minuet monster fight you've ever seen, I recommend it.

6/10

Trailer

Troll 2: 1990

Release date: 1990 (initial release)
Director: Claudio Fragasso
MPAA rating: PG-13
Prequel: Troll
Sequel: Troll 3
Cast: Michael Stephenson, George Hardy, Connie Young, Jason F. Wright

   There really is no way to tell someone who doesn't know about "Troll 2" what the movie is about. Of course I can tell you that Joshua goes with his family on a vacation to Nilbog, a farming community that is somehow completely devoid of farmland and populated by Goblins (not trolls, but goblins) disguised as humans who, throughout the movie, plot to eat the family by first turning them into vegetation, because these are vegan goblins, and Joshua, is the only one who can save them because he's the only one who knows that the humans are goblins because his Grandfather tells him from beyond the grave. I could tell you this, but that surprisingly would not be doing the film justice.     

   Troll 2 has been claimed, not to be the worst movie of all time, but the best worst movie of all time. Because of this, fans have branched into two categories; those who like the camp value of the film, and those that loathe it. Naturally, Troll 2 became an ever-expanding cult phenomenon among movie lovers alike. There are several reasons why this movie doesn't work, and is flawed beyond belief. You might even think that the film wasn't finished because of how many terrible choices the director made in the making of his film. But, the idea that the viewers of this film had yet to grasp during "Troll 2"'s release in 1990, was that the film was meant to appeal to a different kind of audience. The audience that took films like this seriously. 

   The problem with this, of course, is that this is simply not a good movie. And I feel really bad for director Claudio Fragasso when I listen to interviews that reveal that he intended to make a good movie and thinks he actually did. I don't think that he's crazy for thinking that antagonizing vegans is simply the work of powerful cinema, and I also don't think that he is willing to change himself for today's type of audience. When I look at Fragasso, I see a man who has a very specific taste. I see someone who might be a bit too stubborn to realize what a terrible thing he's created, and I also see someone who never intended to create a cult film sensation like Troll 2. It's sad that Claudio will never really get the attention he believes he deserves. I also find it sad that his enthusiasm exceeds his talent. But, Fragasso understands that attention is simply attention and that you have to enjoy a movie how you want to enjoy it.

   In order to really understand a movie that is so bad, yet so loved, you need to watch the documentary, "Best Worst Movie." This time, Michael Stephenson who played young protagonist Joshua from, "Troll 2" becomes the director of the re-telling of the cult phenomenon in his 2009 documentary, "Best Worst Movie." I won't review it, although it is a very good film, and it shows the way Stephenson redeems himself as a man of film-making. Instead of reviewing it, I'm using it as a different perspective of "Troll 2" in order to not simply say, "This is the worst  movie that I have ever seen!" By watching this film I feel obligated to say a few things. First, one of the reasons why the acting in this film was...not as great as it could have been, was because the writing was translated from Italian to English (in a manner of speaking), so the actors struggled tremendously in trying to decipher what they were supposed to be saying in the film. This language barrier was the cause of maybe 50% of the mishaps in the film, not to mention one or two actors being downright insane during shooting.

   I can't talk about every problem the film had, because this review would last a few more pages than I'd like it to be, but I will tell you my main problem with it. The music is probably the worst I have ever heard. If you watch this movie you might think that the acting was the worst aspect, or the editing, or just the amount of plot holes, but no. The main problem was the music, and I'll tell you why. For the most part of the movie, there is no real problem with the score, until you get to any one of the "action sequences." Now think back to any horror film you've seen and try to remember how the score sounded. It might send shivers down your spine, or retain some of that creepy ambiance, as a good score should. But if you were to just listen to this song, would you ever think that this would be attached to a horror film? 

   
   No, it takes you out of the film! And you may be wondering why I'm even trying to understand a movie like "Troll 2", but after learning about this director it doesn't seem like he would haphazardly throw this song together and put it into a movie that he wanted to scare an audience with. He genuinely wanted to make a movie, but this score could simply be Claudio's way of "Americanizing" his film. (This better explained in the documentary). I'm almost certain that if you were to put some kind of an effective score in the film, it might work to its advantage...but that's just me being optimistic.  

    In the documentary of the film, Claudio Fragasso talks about the "themes" placed throughout "Troll 2." These included "hunger," "life," "death," and "family." I suppose that these appear in the movie, yet, they play no part in the movie, nor are they even addressed to give the appearance of a "theme." What Claudio believes to be a motif in his film, comes off as a confusing misguided mess. You could give the excuse that because Claudio doesn't direct Americans well, he didn't get his point across, and so the final product didn't translate correctly for other Americans. This is probably true, but the writing in the movie turns it into such a disastrous train-wreak, that I can't tell anything apart from the confusing dialogue, the terrible acting, and every conceivable image in the film. It's like a code that, when deciphered, never really meant anything to begin with. When you realize this, you can either never look back at the film again, or you accept it for what you think it is. Then you begin to like it, and you begin to notice this special quality in the film. And that's when you realize, this movie was like no other film you had ever seen. 

   If you don't really look into why Claudio Fragasso thinks he can make movies, you might enjoy this film. It is hysterical! "Troll 2" is an example of a movie that was made by aliens and sent to earth to see if we could respond. If that were to happen, just take a copy of "Plan 9 From Outer Space" as a retort, and send it to them. I enjoyed this film, and you might enjoy it too. But I suggest that you look at "Best Worst Movie" afterwards. It put the actors places into perspective for me, and I truly believe that these two movies were made to be watched together. But is "Troll 2" the worst movie ever made? Well, let me put it this way; I have not yet witnessed a movie worse than "Troll 2," and I've seen "Plan 9 From Outer Space," and "Santa Clause Conquers The Martians." ...I'm going to let that sink in for awhile...

      
2.7/10

Troll 2 Trailer:

   

Best Worst Movie Trailer:

      Next Review: Kangaroo Jack 2003

Creature from the Haunted Sea: 1961

Let's review a B-Movie Creature Feature.

   A crook decides to bump off members of his inept crew and blame their deaths on a legendary sea creature. What he doesn't know is that the creature is real.

   "The Creature from the Haunted Sea" is an example of Rodger Corman's knack for dark humor.  He takes a budget of what looks like less than $200, and turns it into this.  A furry/criminal/stranded/quirky/chuckle/in love/Cuban/monster...and all of it on a boat.  In a way he's a genius, and in another he's...well...not.  But, there is a definite charm to his films, this one especially.  The movie is so strange that I would classify this to be rather stylistic, or at least to some extent.  I do have to note the cartoon opening credits though.  I thought for just a second that it would be, "Santa Clause Conquers the Martians" all over again, but thank goodness that it wasn't.

Now, I'm not clear as to what the budget Corman was given exactly.  But whatever he wanted to do, I think he did it.  Aside from the poor sound quality he accomplished his task successfully, although it was very difficult to hear the dialog.  This made it very hard to hear the jokes and even sometimes the story.  But even though there was poor sound quality, that didn't stop any of the actor’s voices from hitting an un-hittable frequency.  Honestly, I don't know whether these people want to be caught, or are just lousy spies!  Every scene in which two people are trying to trade, "spy" information, they talk as though nothing's at stake!  "HELLO THERE FELLOW SPY!!!” "OHHHHH HELLO!!!”  "DO YOU HAVE THAT SUPER TOP SECRET INFORMATION ON THE COUPLE SITTING IN THE BOOTH NEXT TO US???”  "WHY, I SURE DO!!!  HERE YOU GO!!!".”THANK YOU FELLOW SPY!!!  GOODBYE!!!".”GOODBYE FELLOW SPY!!!”  It's ridiculous!

   Now let's talk about the monster.  I can tell you that when I saw the poster for this movie, I did not think that it would look like it did.  I'm sure that by now I've gone and posted the monster's picture on this review, but I'll describe it anyway.  It looks like if you took the creature from the black lagoon, and instead of having him be a human fish, you made him a bear/alien.  I guess the monster is pretty funny, so that's another point to the comedic side of this film.  Also, if you look at the synopsis near the beginning of the review, it takes a (sort of) real issue, and mixes it with a myth.  I suppose that it's to flesh the monster out to be more realistic, but I'm not too sure about that.  

   

   In Conclusion:  For anyone that knows what a Rodger Corman film looks like, then you can expect what you're going to get out of the, "Creature from the Haunted Sea".  It's a cheesy film, riddled with dark humor and an expendable cast to be picked off one by one.  I do respect Corman for both the director and producer that he is, and I also like his films, but in a different way that I like other films.  With him, you know what you're getting into and I enjoy that just as I do with people like Alfred Hitchcock and his twist endings.  And speaking of endings, this film has a surprisingly satisfying one!  If you enjoy a good Corman film, I'd advise you to check this one out!      

Verdict:

I give this film 3 plungers to the face out of 10

Next Review:  Night of the Living Dead 1963

The Brain That Wouldn't Die: 1962

   Alright, here we have, "The Brain That Wouldn't Die"..... I mean, "The Head That Wouldn't Die"...... I mean, "The Black Door".  Okay, what's this films real name?!  Okay, I'll explain.  The original name for this film was, "The Black Door", and was completed in 1959.  However, it was released in 1962 when they decided to rename it, "The Brain That Wouldn't Die.   The film was directed by Joseph Green and written by Green and Rex Carlton.  

   So we start our film off in a hospital, where we see four doctors operating on a body.  After the patient’s death, one of the surgeons, Bill Cortner, asks if he could try to revive him and, he succeeds.  Now, how many times have you seen that?  A father and son operating on a body.......they must be close. 

   The next day the surgeon and his wife, Jan Compton, drive to the country house because a man named Kurt called and told them to head over because of an emergency.  While driving on the road they crash and Jan's head is decapitated.  Now I'm debating whether this was done properly.  We barely know his wife or hardly anything about her that would make us care that she dies.  Also, you'd have to be pretty desperate to carry your wife's severed head(if that is what their implying) out of a burning car.

   Granted, his motives for doing this are quite clear, and I feel really bad for anyone who doesn't understand beyond this point.    And another thing, how does her head become severed in the first place?  Are we meant to believe that a simple car-crashes-into-railing incident would decapitate a human head?!  Please movie........BE MORE CREATIVE!  Anyway, after this traumatic (and rather improbable) experience, Bill takes what’s left of his wife and heads for the hills.......while run/limping away.  

   Upon arriving, he hooks the head up to an (insert sciency, tecnobable here).  Now, there is no doubt that what Green comes up with saves allot of money, but this is something you would find in a neighborhood haunted house.  But, I shouldn't really complain, because it doesn't take that much credibility away and you didn't really need to do anything extra to make it work.  Now, if I was a supporting surgeon to a crazed madman trying to keep a decapitated head alive, I would have some things to think through.  So, we find that Jan can live at least forty hours on life support before dying.  We also find out that the scientist is keeping a creature in his closet.  Sure, why not.  I’ve seen a head on life support, and a-thing-in-a-closet......at this point I'll believe anything.  

   I'm not blaming this guy for becoming insane, I'm blaming this movie!  But seriously, this thing freaked me out, and I only heard it, you don't actually see the monster.....yet.  So, after promising his wife a new body, Bill goes to a night club.  Say, there are allot of mixed messages within that scene.  A man will go through the trouble of reviving his wife (keeping in mind that he has at most two days and two hours to get her a new body) and he goes to a night club, as if he has time on his hands.  I don't know what to think.  So, back at the laboratory, Jan tries communicating with the monster in the closet. That sounds a whole lot more mediocre than if you were to watch it happen.  His wife reasons with the monster and they both create an alliance, which is a change of pace.  It's also a twist that shows itself much earlier than in other movies. 

   You wouldn't think that being kept alive would be so bad, but  before you put yourself in a situation like that, you have to ask yourself:  at what cost?  So, we find out that the monster in the closet was lifeless before it was given a serum to bring it back to life.  These scientists sure are obsessed with resurrection, though they don't seem insane.  I forgot to mention awhile back that Kurt had a warped hand caused by all the grafting and tests on it from Bill.  In a way he shares their pain.  

   While driving down the road, Bill is haunted by the temptations of other women, once again.  A few women that Bill knows stop him and tell him about a beauty contest that he should go to and they do precisely that.  Now, why would women want to go to a beauty contest?  I'm not sure if that's normal, but if it's one thing, it's ironic!  There is an incredible build up until the monster is revealed, and even the monster pounding on the door is frightening.  

   After the beauty contest, one of the women that acquainted Bill tells him about the most beautiful woman, and he sets out to find her, his intentions being to murder her, and use her body to connect itself onto Jan.  How does he start off by finding this person?  He doesn't, he drives in one direction and then he's suddenly there.  Bill's lucky.  But certainly getting into a celebrity's studio filled with camera men will be a challenge, right? Wrong, he has full access to the entire room that their shooting in.  VERY LUCKY.  

   And here's another thing.  Bill is the only one there that's not a model and not a camera man.  Who the heck is this guy?!  If he has access to things like this in the first place, don't you thing it would have been easier for him to get a model to kill?  Because of this ONE flaw, any reasonable person could have cut out at least a half an hour of these shenanigans!  I curse you movie! I curse you!!!  

   We cut to back at the lab........after about a minute of blackness!  I don't know what it is, maybe an in-theater interaction with the movie (note, "The Tingler" and "House on Haunted Hill") If you know the answer, tell me in the comments section.  Leading up to the models surgery, they give so many clues to what his real intentions are, and she doesn't seem to think there's anything wrong in the least!  After drugging her he goes forth with the operation.  All I can say after this point is that the climax is terrific.               

In Conclusion:  This was classic.  It may amount to some boredom, but in the end it all levels out.  You could argue that that the film could use some character development, but it didn't need any.  It went back to the basics, and I respect that.  However the ending could have used some polishing, and it may have been rushed, but it said what was needed to be said.  I enjoyed this film very much and I think that you will too.  Read, watch, comment, and +1!

I give this film 4 scalpels out of 5.

    

Thank you,

   

   Albert

           Next Review:  Frankenstein 1910