GODZILLA - Wednesday 21st May 2014

I ventured out with my Movie Buddy last night to my local multiplex to see the next in a very long line of Godzilla movies - this one, another Hollywood offering called, aptly, 'GODZILLA'! Believe it or not this huge lizard like dinosaur type monster is 60 years old this year having first appeared on our cinema screens in 1954 and has since been through 28 incarnations on the big screen . . . more than the James Bond franchise, and older too! Whatever you want to say about old mate Zilla - he has staying power, keeps the crowds coming back for more and still manages to remain fresh - but then at a cost of this latest rendition of US$150M you would certainly hope so!

Directed by Gareth Edwards and starring Bryan Cranston, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Ken Watanbe, Juliette Binoche, Elizabeth Olson and David Strathairn, this film is big on the three protagonist monsters, big on action set pieces, big on death and destruction and big on Uncle Sam flag waving (as these movies usually are!)

With the opening credit montage we are taken back to 1954 to set the scene of atomic testing in the Pacific in the wake of WWII, but this is really a cover up to destroy Godzilla who was seemingly wreaking havoc in that region at that time. The bomb is dropped, big bang, mushroom cloud forms and Godzilla is no more . . .  yeah, right!

Fast forward and we are in 1999 in a Japanese Nuclear Power facility when an unforeseen, unknown, malevolent force causes the meltdown of said facility and widespread destruction, the wholesale leaking of radiation and the death of wife to US Nuclear Physicist Joe Brody (Cranston). The aftermath is that the destroyed plant facility and the island which housed it is quarantined for the nest 25 years or so. Fast forward again to 2014 and Brody Senior remains in Japan but his son, Ford Brody (Taylor-Johnson) now grown up and a Navy Bomb Disposal Expert has just returned home to his own son and wife in San Francisco after a 14 month tour of duty. Dad meanwhile is locked up in Japan for trespassing in the quarantined zone and son Ford has to go release him. Dad though, knows something is not quite right and since the meltdown and loss of his wife Sandra in 1999 (Binoche), has been working to uncover the real truth about what happened that fateful day. Heading back to the quarantined zone with son in tow, the ugly truth is uncovered and then the proverbial brown stuff begins to hit the fan!

We are first invited to get up close and personal to a MUTO (Massive Unidentified Terrestrial Organism) that has hatched on the nuclear island previously laid to waste and allegedly radioactive so feeding said MUTO and bringing it out of dormancy. This is when is gets ugly and huge destruction, death and mayhem ensue. Needless to say our friend the MUTO is on the hunt for anything radioactive to feed on, plus it's mate that has been holed up in a deep undercover bunker in the Nevada desert - yep, close to Las Vegas! The mayhem and the action then spreads to the Philippines for a short while and then onto Hawaii by which time Godzilla has surfaced from his long period of hibernation and is on the hunt for MUTO and before boy MUTO hooks up with girl MUTO . . . and none of us want that do we? After trashing Hawaii big time, next it's mainland USA and SanFran is right in the path of destruction and the oncoming train wreck that will be Godzilla fighting it out for survival of the fittest with two bad ass MoFo MUTO's!

The rest you can easily piece together - the city skyline of San Francisco is completely trashed as skyscrapers are toppled like kids playing with dominoes, and the Golden Gate Bridge is snapped like it's supported by a spiders web thread! The ground opens up, trains disappear into ravines, planes fall out of the sky, fighter jets are tossed asunder, battleships are cast aside on instant tsunami's and no one and no place is safe! These action set pieces are well handled and executed and the creature effects I thought were well rendered and convincing enough taking you into the heart of the action. Deliberate or not there are moments straight out of 'The Hobbit' and 'Aliens', and it all comes together reasonably well in the end, and I think we all know who will rise victorious and prove to be humanity's saviour! These closing moments when Godzilla rises from the rubble of SanFran down bayside, and disappears slowly into the bay and the vast ocean beyond I thought were just a little too corny, too cheesy when all was said and done . . . but that said, he's been around a long time, fought a few battles, earned his stripes and keeps coming back for more.

See it on the big screen, but you can do without the 3D. Incidentally, my Movie Buddy did not rate this at all, and so we have a difference of opinion. If you like your big budget creature features loud, proud and in your face with all the death and destruction of our cities that go with it - then this will be right up your street! Enjoy the great gargantuan Godzilla giganticness!



-Steve, at Odeon Online-

What's new in Odeon's this week - Thursday 15th May 2014.

Following last weeks bucket load of new releases, this week we have slightly slimmer pickings to choose from, but nonetheless plenty of block buster action, independent offerings, formulaic big studio fluff and foreign language outings still doing the rounds to keep you occupied on a cooler autumnal evening in May. This week, we do have another mega budget monster action flick to numb your senses; we have cinema's auteur of the weird, wonderful and whacky with a new unique offering; there is a thought provoking film that might just leave you thinking about the existence of heaven & hell; and a Romanian offering for those that like their films served with subtitles.

GODZILLA - this big scary all chewing all stomping lizard creature first appeared on big screens in 1954 courtesy of Japan's Toho Studio's, and since then there have been 28 films dedicated to this scaly monster of all monster's. Last seen in 1998 courtesy of the master of disaster movies, Roland Emmerich, this 2014 outing should bear no resemblance to that turkey! For this film to be endorsed by Toho Studio's it must be getting something right, and Director, Gareth Edwards, has taken us back to the source of the original film to stay true to that early premise. That is, that Godzilla is born out of a nuclear incident, and that the action takes place mostly in Japan. And so it does, and we have Bryan Cranston as the physicist based in Japan investigating with his Navy bomb disposal expert son (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) a nuclear incident dating back to 1999 to uncover the real truth of what happened and why. Needless to say along the way the truth is uncovered, whole city blocks are trashed and they duly discover some big shit going down . . . really big, like, monstrously big!

THE ZERO THEOREM - Terry Gilliam is back, and thank God! He knows how to spin a yarn; create something fantastical; weave the whacky, weird and wonderful; and assemble a convincing cast to deliver a movie experience that is a feast for the senses, will play with your mind, and will make you think! He keeps on delivering such films going back to 'Time Bandits', 'Brazil', '12 Monkeys' and more recently 'The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus' all of which take us to an alternative universe, another dimension, some future dystopian world yet somehow grounded in what we know with a sense of familiarity. Here we have Christoph Waltz taking the lead with Matt Damon, Tilda Swinton, Ben Wishaw and David Thewlis all supporting as our eccentric computer hacker mathematics whizz Waltz, works away on a project set by the mysterious 'Management', with the end game being to determine if there is a purpose to human existence. . . The Zero Theorem! This will be quirky to the nth degree, visually mesmerising, and totally immersing - a must see for fans of Gilliam's work.

HEAVEN IS FOR REAL - Greg Kinnear, Thomas Haden-Church, and Kelly Reilly star in this story of a family coming to terms with the ramifications of their four year old son's life changing near death experience. Playing the small town father, Kinnear witnesses the impact of his son's fleeting moment in Heaven after he died briefly on the operating table, and has to come to terms with what he saw, who he met and what was said when he was on 'the other side'. This film could test your faith, it will be thought provoking, and it will leave you wondering 'what if'? Needless to say this film has created a bit of a sensation across America's bible belt - watch it and decide for yourself.

CHILD'S POSE - A Romanian film about justice being sought by the family of a young child killed following a car crash involving the son of a Romanian socialite. The child killed in the car accident and the family are polar opposites, simple folk, peasants almost. The mother of the man at the wheel of the car is overbearing toward her son, engulfing him with love and affection at every turn and firmly believing he is innocent of any crime despite all the evidence to the contrary. What follows when families meet is satirical, the Police are sidetracked, the truth is covered up and this overbearing mother will do just about anything to protect her son. This won the 'Golden Bear' at the Berlin Film Festival and was an Oscar contender for Best Foreign Language Film earlier this year.

A mix then this week of monster action, future adventure, family drama, and emotional imbalance. Check one out at least, and let me know what you think!

Movies . . . see as many as you can!

-Steve, at Odeon Online-