Countdown To Godzilla: Cloverfield Review

     Wow, it is really only 16 days until Godzilla?  It still seems so far away but we have come a long way since the Comic Con 2012 Teaser Trailer description was put up online.  Well, let's keep the reviews going to tide us over and today we're looking at the found-footage kaiju film, Cloverfield.

     The plot of Cloverfield follows the friends of family of Robert Hawkins (Micheal Stahl-David) as they throw a going away party for him as he has accepted a job promotion in Japan.  Filmed entirely from a first person perspective by his brother Jason (Mike Vogel) and his best friend Hud Platt (T.J. Miller), they also capture some tension between Rob and his long-time friend Beth MacIntyre (Odette Yustman).  After they have a bit of a fight and Beth storms off with her date, Rob feels terrible about it and before he can try to fix it a giant creature attacks the city.  Unwilling to find the "off" switch for the camera, Hud captures the carnage of New York under seige and their battle for survival.

OHMAWGAWWWD!  OHMAWGAWWWD!

     Much like most of the world, my first exposure to Cloverfield was the amazing teaser that was attached to the first Transformers film in 2007.  At this point, the title "Cloverfield" was merely a rumor and had not yet been attached to the film but the teaser did it's job.  What caused the explosion?  What tossed the Statue Of Liberty's head like a baseball?  Is it a new Godzilla movie?  Cthulhu?  Jesus?  The Stay Puft Marshmallow Man?  The (now defunct) viral website 1-18-08.com had viral images that I never actually did get to see but from what I've read, it left people scratching their heads more instead of giving them answers (as viral media should be).  Well, we all paced around for a few months and a new trailer was released, confirming the title.  Speculation of the monster's identity was still running rampant but any guesses anyone had weren't even close.  Finally, January 18th, 2008 rolled around so we finally got to see what the hype was about.  It was one of the most intense cinematic experiences of my life (probably in the top 3 or 5 if I had to make a list), but that was 2008.  How is it in 2014 on a 39" LED?

The cast gets rounded up by the military.

     Okay, where to start?  Given that this is a "found footage" movie, you're gonna get a lot of shaky cam.  Does this get nauseating?  When you're watching it on your TV, it's not too bad.  Maybe I'm just saying that because I've seen the movie a couple times but the shaky cam really isn't as bad as everyone makes it out to be and it helps sell the whole premise of the movie (even prompting theatre promoters to warn of potential motion sickness to viewers), much like having relatively unknown actors in the leads.  Don't think that unknowns in the lead tampers the quality of the film because they all feel like real people that you see on the streets and in your social circles and not actors.  Watching this film again, not once did I feel that I was simply watching a movie but rather watching a real event as it unfolded before my eyes.
     Watching the film, I figured that it was simply shot on location in New York with the creature and damaged buildings added on top of existing buildings via CGI.  Nope.  There were a few shots filmed on location in New York with a couple of scenes filmed in Los Angelas and the rest filmed on sound stages with green screen filling the cityscape backdrop.  However, these shots were so well done that it feels like your smackdab in the middle of New York City when "it" arrives.

  

Speaking of "It..."

     Okay, so then of course there's the Cloverfield monster.  Did it turn out to be any of the guesses we had?  Nope.  From what little you do see of it, it has very long forelimbs, shorter back legs, a tail long enough to slice through the Brooklyn Bridge, exterior esophogi dangling from its stomach (that according to the Cloverfield Wiki, it used to eat people and horses) and as you can tell from this shot, is really fucking big.  Given the style that the movie was shot in, you never do get a truly great look at the monster, even when Hud is only a couple of feet in front of it near the end of the film.  Thankfully, Hasbro made a 14 inch figure that shows Clover, as the crew dubbed him, in all of its glory.  This is one of the more bizarre kaiju I've seen and given some of the kaiju that have crawled out of the woodwork, that's saying something but holy crap is it effective.
     You're probably wondering where this creature comes from.  Well, according to the manga tie-in Cloverfield/Kishin, Clover is an undersea life form that was discovered by the fictional drilling company Tagruato.  However, the Kinshin story spirals into stuff that's so out of left field that it is not considered canon to the film.  Producer J.J. Abrams has denied that the creature is an alien, saying the item crashing into the sea at the end of the film is a Chimpanzill satellite, added into the film as a nod to those who followed the viral marketing.
     As if Clover wasn't enough, it also has these parasites that fall off of the creature and attack the people of New York.  They're about the size of a wolf and their bite is extremely fatal, causing the chest cavities of their victims to expand and burst, as Marlena finds out firsthand.  While Clover himself is in the film more than the parasites are, it is his smaller counterparts that provide more of the "BOO" moments in the story and they make them count, despite the fact that the CGI may not hold up as well as Clover's.

My face when Tim Hortons doesn't have my favorite donut...

     Well, I don't think there's really a whole lot else I can say about Cloverfield.  While the movie was met with fairly warm reception upon its release, I find it surprising how many people hate on the movie now.  Did we see the same movie?  Six years later and I still LOVED Cloverfield.  The acting is top notch, the shaky cam helps sell the terror and atmosphere of the film and this movie looks absolutely amazing considering it only had a budget of $25 million.  I've seen movies with quadruple (or more) the budget that this movie had and they don't look as good as this one did.  Does this mean I'd like to see a sequel?  Well, maybe but I don't know how that would work.  Would it be another found footage taken by someone else during that fateful night?  Would it be the monster attacking another city?  If so, you'd have to ignore J.J. Abrams' comment of saying that the creature is dead despite the inclusion of the cryptic "It's Still Alive" soundbite at the end of the credits.  Well, Cloverfield II is still just a rumor at this point so my perspective is this: if a sequel comes out, sure, I'll go see it but if it never happens, Cloverfield works just fine as a standalone film and I will take great pleasure revisiting it again in the future.  If you haven't seen this movie yet, you should really check it out.

     Check back in a little bit as we only have two more entries in the blog to go before the Godzilla review.  Next up will be director Gareth Edwards' Monsters, the project that helped him land the director's chair for Godzilla.

     -The Cynic

Countdown To Godzilla: Godzilla Final Wars (2004) Review

     We are only 21 days until Godzilla's release and today we're looking at the 28th and final Toho Godzilla film to be made, Godzilla: Final Wars.  2004 was coming up which would mark the 50th anniversary of the original Godzilla film and Toho decided that it was time to give the big guy a rest and send him out in the grandest fashion they could, pitting him against as many of his old enemies as possible.

     Here's the plot: So countless wars and environmental acts have caused several kaiju to surface, making the planet join forces and making the Earth Defense Force, which also recruits people with super-human abilities.  Godzilla has been pinned down in the South Pole by armed forces and a Gotengo (a cross between a blimp, battleship and submarine) manages to trap Godzilla in the ice with the help of an earthquake.  Fast forward forty years where several kaiju appear at once and begin devastating various cities around the globe.  Gotengos are dispatched worldwide to combat the monsters but the creatures suddenly disappear.  Turns out they've been taken by aliens who claim to be here to help Earth, but the central cast's doubts reveal the visitors' true nature: to conquer the planet and harvest humans like cattle.  With the fate of the world in their hands, our heroes must awaken Godzilla in order to stand a chance against the aliens.

And y'know, not die in the process...

 

      Okay, so there's a bit to talk about with this movie.  If Toho wanted Godzilla to go out with a bang, this was a pretty loud one.  Godzilla's design is one of the best, updating the look of the creature but still staying true to the original design and even using the original colors, unlike the Godzilla 2000 design (which I still like), and uses the same roar as G2K, which is my personal favorite roar (you can hear the evolution of the roar here).

     Are there other monsters to fight?  As you can tell by the poster and my earlier comment, damn right there are!  Looking at the villain roster in this movie is like looking at a band's greatest hits album and they all have updated looks.  The villains are Rodan, Anguirus, King Caesar, Gigan (probably the best design update in the movie), Kamacuras, Hedorah, Ebirah, Kumonga, a new creature named Monster X and Zilla (I'll elaborate more on his appearance later on).  The kaiju Manda, Milla (aka Minya) and Mothra also make appearances but do not actually clash with Godzilla.  When these creatures are on screen, they mostly look great and not surprisingly, these are the best parts of the movie.

     Okay, so how about the parts with the people?  Usually Godzilla movies are more about the people than the monster(s) and this one is no exception.  The stuff involving the people isn't bad, but it's not great either.  Probably the character that stands out the most is the alien leader, who looks like a cross between Dante from the The Devil May Cry remake and Neo from The Matrix.  After killing his superior officer (who looks suspiciously like George Takei), he takes control of the alien army and cuts the subtle invasion bullshit.  However, he's a little childlike for humor's sake, throwing a fit whenever Godzilla defeats one of his monsters (even calling Zilla a "tuna head.")  The rest of the cast is fairly archetypical with your good intentioned male lead, cute scientist female lead, tough as nails captain (who is the only main character who speaks English sans dubbing, even in the original Japanese version), etc etc.  It probably wouldn't have been so bad if the runtime for the film had been cut down a bit because when the film clocks in at two hours, mediocre human material just isn't going to cut it and it in many of these parts doesn't feel like you're watching a Godzilla movie.  At least when you see these characters, they're usually in some kind of battle and it is more interesting than the last Godzilla film we looked at.

*sigh* If only it were this cool...

 

     Alright, the only things that really annoy me with this movie involve Zilla.  Not the fact that he's in the movie period, but just how Toho treated it.  When you see Zilla, he's never a guy in a suit, only CGI and rather poor CGI at that.  He's not the only creature who is CG'd in this movie but it seems like when they came to animating Zilla, the digital effects team just phoned it in out of spite making Zilla look worse here than he did in his own movie.  Would've been nice if just a little more effort was put into it.

     Also, one of the main hypes surrounding this movie was, "Hey, guess what?!  The Japanese Godzilla is going to fight the American Godzilla!"  When I first heard that, I was like, "Sweet!  The Japanese one is totally going to win but that's gonna be an awesome fight!"  Oh, how wrong I was...

     "Disappointment" doesn't even begin to describe how I still feel about this scene.  First off, why Sum 41?  Sure, I know it's one of their crunchier songs, but it just seems like an odd choice.  Second off, what a cop out fight.  I know that Godzilla is much more powerful than Zilla and all that, but they weren't even trying with this part.  This is what a lot of fans wanted to see and Toho just went, "It's Zilla *SPLAT* Next."  This really should've been the final fight of the movie instead of (spoilers) Monster X turning into Ghidorah.  Ghidorah is physically Godzilla's greatest foe, not to mention one of the most popular so I understand why he was on last but stop and think about it: did Ghidorah try to take Godzilla's identity by being in a horrible movie with his name plastered all over it and leave a horrid inkblot on his legacy?  No, but Zilla did.  Zilla tried to take the name "Godzilla" from its owner.  I don't know about you but I'd take that shit pretty personally.  Final Wars' finale should have been once Ghidorah was defeated, Godzilla would be weakened by the fight with Milla rushing up to comfort him.  However, Zilla leaps out of Tokyo Bay and knocks Milla aside, landing a good sideswipe on Godzilla in the process.  After landing a few clawings and bites, maybe even clawing one of his eyes and drawing blood on Godzilla, Zilla turns his attention to Milla.  Milla attempts to fight back, but Zilla is too fast and strong for him.  Hearing his son's squeals for help, Godzilla goes into a berserker rage, pulls Zilla off of Milla and throws him through a few buildings by his tail.  The two continue to trade blows but Godzilla gets the upper hand and beats Zilla to a bloody lifeless pulp, not even relying on his atomic breath.  Milla, as well as any survivors, watch in awe as Godzilla, covered in both his blood and Zilla's, stands triumphant over his enemy's body and lets out the loudest victory roar the world has ever heard, forever cementing him as the true Godzilla.

     Alas, that will never happen although we did get a much better Godzilla/Zilla fight in the IDW comic Godzilla: Rulers Of Earth (it ends in a draw, though).  That being said, I for the most part enjoy Final Wars because while it may run a little too long, it was a great way to send the king off into a ten year break.  If you like giant monster mayhem, I'd say give this one a shot.

     Well, that's the last Godzilla movie to review before the new one.  Check back next time when we look at the found footage kaiju film, Cloverfield.

 

     -The Cynic

Countdown To Godzilla: Pacific Rim Review

     Hey, everyone!  Here we are 79 days until May 16th when Gareth Edward's Godzilla hits the theaters with a vengeance.  Yesterday the internet was presented with a new trailer for the film (which helped us nerds ease the sadness of the loss of Ghostbusters writer/star Harold Ramis the day before) and so...what do you mean you haven't seen it?  Here, check it out below.  I'll wait.

     Okay, now that we've gotten that out of the way and we've wiped the drool from our gaping mouths, upon seeing that I was thinking to myself, "Damn, I gotta get on that next review.  May'll be here before we know it!"  After the kids had gone off to bed, I parked my ass down and finally got around to watching Guillermo del Toro's Pacific Rim.

     Gypsy Danger vs Knifehead

     The plot of Pacific Rim is that giant creatures begin emerging from the Pacific Ocean called Kaiju (Japanese for 'Giant Beast').  The first creature takes six days to kill using conventional military weapons.  As more Kaiju show up, the world realizes that their tanks and jets aren't going to cut it, so the nations set aside their differences and pool their resources to make giant robots named Jaegers (German for 'Hunter') to combat this threat.  At first the Jaegers are a monumental success and the Kaiju almost becomes something of a joke to humanity, but then the Kaiju begin adapting to the Jaegers and humanity's future is put into question.

     To be honest, Pacific Rim was one of the big summer '13 releases where try as the trailers might, it just couldn't draw me in enough to buy a ticket  (the other was Man Of Steel).  Sure, I like giant monster movies and creature features in general but for whatever reason, Pacific Rim just wasn't doing it for me.  The film's theatrical run came and went and feedback from my friends varied from "Very articulate and well thought out" to "so horribly stupid that it's enjoyable, much like the Mario Brothers movie."  I still hummed and hawed about it once the film hit home release, but then I watched the Honest Trailer for it and decided, "Okay, let's give it a shot for Countdown To Godzilla."  Minor spoiler alert.

Heimdall and Jax in the same movie?  Man, the Kaiju are so screwed.

      Well, where to start?  Let's go with the actors.  At first, I groaned a little at Raleigh Becket's (Charlie Hunnam of Sons Of Anarchy fame) narration at the beginning of the movie, feeling that it lacked...enthusiasm, for the lack of better term.  I kept an open mind though because some actors work better on screen then they do with voice overs and, hey, the narration wasn't as bad as The Last Airbender.  It wasn't until Raleigh's backstory was told that I understood why he lacked enthusiasm (his brother got killed during the fight with Knifehead) and was more forgiving with that.  Hey, how upbeat would you be if your brother got killed while you were neurally connected?  The rest of the cast does a decent enough job with their roles, although I'd be lying if I said that the switches between English and Chinese during Mako Mori's (Rinko Kikuchi) lines were a tad distracting because the film never really gave a reason for it.  If it was established that Mako's English was limited, I'd shrug it off but I never got that impression.  As far as Idris Elba's role as Commander Pentecost goes, it's not like it was phoned in but I didn't find myself clenching my fists and thinking, "Fuck yeah," whenever he was onscreen, unlike when I watch the Thor films.  The cameos from del Toro alumni Ron Perlman as a Kaiju Organ Black Market dealer and Ellen McClain in her GLaDOS voice from the Portal game series were welcome additions.

Maquette for the Kaiju "Otachi."

      Okay, not surprisingly, this movie gives enough to its human cast so that the audience doesn't get up and leave during the slower scenes and tosses everything else at the special effects department, and I don't just mean the CGI.  Legacy Effects (formed by Stan Winston Studio almuni Lindsay Macgowen, Shane Mahan, Alan Scott and John Rosengrant) contributed the practical effects to the film, giving amazing detail to the Kaiju skin parasites and body parts in Dr. Newton Geiszler's (Charlie Day) lab, amongst others.  As far as the CGI goes, Industrial Light & Magic really outdid themselves on this film, making their efforts from the Transformers and Pirates Of The Caribbean films look cheap in comparison.  The first appearance of the Kaiju is an image that'll give you chills with how detailed everything looks as it rips apart the Golden Gate Bridge.  I don't think the rest of the Kaiju shots quite live up to that first one, but they all look quite remarkable.

*Shudders*

       Am I sorry I didn't catch this one in the theaters?  No, not really.  Pacific Rim doesn't really blow your mind with its storytelling but I don't think it wants to.  It wants you to be a kid again, enjoy giant robots feeding giant monsters knuckle sandwiches and depart from the dark, gritty Christopher Nolan-esque style blockbusters seem to be taking lately.  While some parts closer to the end of the film felt a little too Independence Day for my liking, overall Pacific Rim gets an "okay" from yours truly.  The film may run a little longer than it probably should but it is far from a waste of time.  That being said, I don't think I'm on board for that potential sequel that Guillermo del Toro has talked about (the ending doesn't really leave an opening for a sequel, but hey, neither did Independence Day and look how that's going).  If you dig CGI spectacle creature features, put this in your movie que.  If nothing else, it's a helluva lot better than Q: The Winged Serpent was.

     Check back in a little while for our next entry in Countdown To Godzilla, where we look at the one that started it all: 1954's Gojira.

-The Cynic