Godzilla (2014)

The legendary beast Godzilla has appeared in thirty movies during his six decades of cinematic existence. Some have been good, some bad. But few have been quite as infamous, at least among Americans, as Roland Emmerich's attempt to bring Godzilla to the United States in 1998. The movie was a complete disaster, panned by critics and moviegoers alike. Rumor has it that the movie was so embarrassing that Toho Company vowed to never again let Hollywood sink their hooks into Godzilla.

But sixteen years have passed since then, and a full decade since the big guy's most recent appearance in Toho's Godzilla: Final Wars in 2004. And now, as fans celebrate Godzilla's sixtieth anniversary, Hollywood has gotten a second chance to not only revive him, but reintroduce him to American audiences. This time, there's no Matthew Broderick, no Puff Daddy sampling Led Zeppelin on the soundtrack, no velociraptor-like baby Godzillas rampaging through Madison Square Garden. There's just the King of the Monsters, come to reclaim his throne with one hell of an amazing movie.

We begin in Japan circa 1999, at a nuclear power plant near the town of Janjira. Bizarre seismic activity originating in the Philippines has worried Joe Brody (Bryan Cranston), the plant's American supervisor. While his superiors dismiss his fears that it's just aftershocks from a recent minor earthquake, Joe's research leads him to believe that it's not that simple. He warns that the plant should be shut down until these tremors pass in the event that something dangerous occurs, but he's brushed off and told there's nothing to worry about. But when you're told you don't have to worry about anything, that's when you have to worry about everything. The plant is struck by what appears to be another, bigger earthquake that ruptures the plant's reactor core, killing Joe's wife in the process and leaving Janjira quarantined as a result.

Fifteen years pass, and Joe's son Ford (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) is returning home to his family from a fourteen-month tour of duty with the U.S. Navy. But no sooner has Ford started settling in with his wife Elle (Elizabeth Olsen) and son Sam (Carson Bolde) than he has to leave again, this time called away by the news that Joe has been arrested for trespassing in the quarantined area. In the fifteen years since the Janjira incident, Joe has become a crackpot conspiracy theorist, convinced that there's more to the story than a simple earthquake. He's been studying every scrap of information and following every clue he could find in regards to what happened, his search for the truth having left he and Ford estranged from one another.

Ford fears for his father's sanity, but agrees to help him sneak back into Janjria and retrieve some vital data from a set of computer disks left behind in their old house. Things get off to a bizarre start when Joe notices that there are no traces of radiation in the area, but when they're busted by a team of security guards shortly after retrieving the disks, things almost immediately get weirder. Joe and Ford are escorted to the nuclear plant, learning in the process that the whole earthquake thing was indeed a cover-up. The quarantine was not to keep people away from radiation, but to allow a multinational team of scientists to study the true cause of the Janjira accident: a massive chrysalis that has formed in the middle of the facility and has effectively consumed all of the toxic radiation in the area.

It is not long after the Brodys arrive that the chrysalis hatches, unleashing a gigantic, ferocious monster that lays waste to everything surrounding it. It escapes to the ocean and heads for the United States, where its mate has awakened from its slumber in the Nevada desert. As the military scrambles to find a way to kill what they've nicknamed the "Massive Unidentified Terrestrial Organisms," the mating call of these beasts has roused another creature from its long dormancy deep beneath the Pacific Ocean. The legendary beast known as Godzilla is once again on the prowl, on a warpath that will intersect with that of the MUTOs in San Francisco.

If you're a fan of Godzilla, then allow me to bring you some good news: This movie is nothing short of awesome. It perfectly combines the awe and spectacle that the best big-budget summer blockbusters have to offer with the fear and dread of the original movie from 1954. Godzilla is an utterly amazing experience from start to finish, one that makes going to the movies totally worth it. I know this sounds hyperbolic, like I'm trying to get this review quoted in one of the commercials or on the DVD cover. But Godzilla is the kind of movie that's sure to please fans of action, science fiction, and disaster flicks, and especially those who love Godzilla and giant monsters in general.

This new take on Godzilla was brought to the screen by Gareth Edwards, who is no stranger to monster movies. His feature film debut, in fact, was the critically acclaimed (and appropriately titled) film festival favorite Monsters in 2010. Armed with a budget that makes the one he had for Monsters look like pocket change, Edwards makes the absolute best of it. He puts forth a fabulous effort, building a tense atmosphere that makes the movie feel like danger is around every corner waiting to pounce.

Edwards is constantly building here, seeming as if he's trying to outdo himself with every scene. He not only ups the ante with each big action sequence, but he also maintains the suspense in the scenes between these action sequences. The characters remain in danger for practically the entire movie, the monsters threatening to take them out at every turn. It is the growing feeling of dread caused by this danger that I thought made the movie more satisfying. It brought a sense of urgency I felt was sadly lacking from other big-budget monster movies in recent years.

Edwards also makes sure that the movie's post-production conversion into 3D was a successful one. He and cinematographer Seamus McGarvey shoot the film in such a way that it still looks great whether you see it in 3D or its 2D counterpart, but having seen the 3D version, the added depth really adds to the theatrical experience. It makes the monsters feel bigger than life, almost as if they could have reached out and squashed you if you saw it on a big enough IMAX screen. There's something about it that makes the movie feel more epic as we're immersed into the world Godzilla and the MUTOs occupy. And I know 3D movies aren't for everybody, but it's worth it for Godzilla.

But while Edwards tries setting the movie apart with his direction and the 3D effects are fantastic, the screenplay has some of the same flaws as other, similar movies. Written by Max Borenstein (with some uncredited contributions from David Callaham, David S. Goyer, Drew Pearce, and Frank Darabont), the script's biggest problem is that we're stuck spending so much time with dull, underdeveloped human characters while Godzilla and the MUTOs feel secondary. A lot of monster movies will try emphasizing the human drama in an attempt to give them a little more emotional weight. But a lot of times, it's hard to really give a crap about the characters when all you really want to see are cities getting destroyed. The idea of balancing the human drama with the thrills of sci-fi chaos has might have worked in Independence Day, but that was an exception rather than a rule.

And this is particularly frustrating with Godzilla. The character of Joe Brody is really intriguing, and the idea of him following the clues of a conspiracy that's been covering up the existence of these monsters for decades is actually a pretty cool setup for a movie. But without giving away too much, the character disappears from the movie at the end of the first act and we're stuck with the typical monster movie format where we just tag along with some boring, one-dimensional characters when we could be watching giant monsters trashing Las Vegas and San Francisco. You've got a fascinating character that's worth following and is played by a talented, award-winning actor who's just come off one of the hottest shows on television, so why not keep him around for longer? Surely someone who worked on the script could have added more scenes with him, just to shake things up rather than run with the clichéd "military vs. the monsters" routine.

The lack of depth in regards to the characters also has an adverse affect on the cast's performances. Elizabeth Olsen suffers the worst from this, as she's given absolutely nothing whatsoever to do. They could have nearly edited all her scenes out of the movie and nobody would have noticed, because Olsen doesn't contribute anything of note to the movie. She's a talented actress, and not giving her at least a little something, even a lame "damsel in distress" moment, is a real waste.

Ken Watanabe suffers a similar fate, in that outside of delivering the occasional expository or pseudo-philosophical monologue, he doesn't have a lot to do either. A few scenes where his character, a scientist working with a multinational conglomerate tasked with studying the monsters and keeping their existence a secret, meets Bryan Cranston's character would have been great. But alas, that was not to be.

Aaron Taylor-Johnson, meanwhile, is also stuck in a weakly written role. But to his credit, he's given some plenty to do and is trying his hardest to make a go of it. I've only seen Taylor-Johnson as the dorky title character from Kick-Ass and its sequel, so I wasn't sure what to expect of him as a tough, monster-fighting soldier. But he's decent enough in the role, even if pretty much anybody could have played his character.

But one actor stands head and shoulders above the rest of the cast, that being Bryan Cranston. It's a real shame that Cranston's character exits the movie so early, because he really should have been the main character. Cranston is so good that he steals the entire movie, leaving one pining for his return whenever anyone other than Godzilla and the MUTOs are on the screen. His performance is captivating, pulling you in and making you want to see more of him. It actually makes me wonder why I've never watched Breaking Bad, because if Cranston is this good here, I'm sure I'd be even more impressed there.

I know I've spent the last little bit pointing out everything I didn't like about Godzilla, but the truth of the matter is that the movie is one of the most fun, exciting spectacles I've seen in a long time. You're really missing out on something awesome if you choose to skip it. Godzilla is the kind of summer blockbuster that makes it fun to go to the movies this time of year. So what if the script is a little weak? You're not seeing this movie for the script. You're seeing it for monsters raising hell on large metropolitan areas, and Godzilla delivers in spades. And finally getting to see Godzilla up on the big screen in an American-made movie that's actually good? That's a great feeling. So get lost, Pacific Rim. Suck it, Cloverfield. Long live the king.

Final Rating: ****

Godzilla (1954)

Giant monster movies can be traced as far back as the 1930s if not earlier, but the threat of nuclear warfare brought the genre into a new era with the release of The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms in 1953. The movie introduced the idea of atomic-created creatures wreaking havoc on mankind, an idea that would fuel many a Hollywood sci-fi flick during the '50s and '60s. It would also bring us one of the most enduring and beloved icons to ever come out of Japanese pop culture: the one and only Godzilla.

Inspired by The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms and Japan's still tender wounds following the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the monster known in his native land as "Gojira" has appeared in no less than thirty movies over the years. But every legend has to begin somewhere, so let's go back in time sixty years to Godzilla's first appearance in 1954 and see where the "King of the Monsters" got his start.

With a flash of light and an ominous roar, a fishing boat off the coast of tiny Odo Island is destroyed. A rescue vessel sent to investigate meets a similar fate, its survivors returning to the island swearing that they'd encountered an enormous beast. Their story oddly parallels old local legends about villagers who, long ago, would make sacrifices to appease an ancient sea monster named "Godzilla." Common sense might dictate that these stories are indeed just that, stories. So when these old tales prove themselves true and evidence of Godzilla's existence appears on Odo Island, everyone is naturally taken off guard. But no one is truly prepared for what happens when he surfaces in Tokyo.

Awakened by the recent nuclear weapons testing in the Pacific Ocean, the arrival of this prehistoric, dinosaur-like creature sends the people of Japan into a panic. Godzilla proves to be unfazed by every attempt to combat it, shrugging off the military's heavy artillery as he rampages through Tokyo. The government turns to renowned scientist Dr. Daisuke Serizawa (Akihiko Hirata), who has developed a powerful, top-secret weapon ominously named "the Oxygen Destroyer." Dr. Serizawa is extremely hesitant to allow it to be used, fearful of the dire consequences that would incur if it were to be used for the wrong reasons. But as Godzilla continues his reign of terror, the Oxygen Destroyer might be Japan's only hope.

When most people nowadays think of the classic Godzilla movies from Japan, they think of campy movies with bad English dubbing and actors in rubber suits stepping on cardboard buildings and fighting military vehicles that look like toys. But the original movie is actually different from the silliness from the '60s and '70s that most American audiences might be familiar with. It's in truth really more a blend of drama and horror than anything else. The titular monster is a walking, living, fire-breathing embodiment of the atomic bomb, the personification of a fiery nuclear terror and of a fear that said terror could potentially return. This is reflected in the movie's somber atmosphere, one that makes the movie feel as if a dark cloud were hanging over it.

Much of this is thanks to the skillful direction courtesy of the late Ishirō Honda, who would direct six more Godzilla movies (and in the process helped to introduce the world to other classic creatures like Mothra, Rodan, and King Ghidorah) before his retirement in 1975. But movies like this weren't so common in 1954, their tropes and clichés not really fully defined yet. That put Honda in relatively uncharted waters with Godzilla, which really helps it to stand out from the multitude of other giant monster movies. It doesn't bend of break any of the genre's rules because there aren't any to be bent or broken. The movie is instead helping to establish them as it goes.

I was thoroughly impressed with Honda's direction because of how well he builds and sustains the movie's mood and atmosphere. He isn't making some summer blockbuster, something we'd expect out of Roland Emmerich or Michael Bay. He's not making some campy, corny monster movie. Instead, he is more intent on making absolutely sure we know that Godzilla is to be feared. This couldn't be more evident than in an especially chilling moment where we see shell-shocked survivors weeping as Godzilla marches through the fiery rubble that was once Tokyo as if he were a king surveying his domain, holding dominion over all he sees. He's a destroyer, a horrifying force of nature that seeks only to crush everything in its path. That is the movie Ishirō Honda wanted to make, and he was more than successful.

And looking back at the movie so many decades after its release, the effects do indeed look dated and at times a little hokey. But much like King Kong and its stop-motion ape before it, there's something to Godzilla that makes them effective. You never question it, but sit back and watch with amazement. I would credit a lot of this with how Honda crafts the movie, using the cinematography, editing, and Akira Ifukube's now iconic music to make something that's greater than the sum of its parts.

The movie's script also surprised me. Written by Honda and Takeo Murata, the story does feature some of the same tropes that would come to be seen in future monster movies. But unlike many of those others, Honda and Murata handle them well. For starters, the characters are all written smartly. There's a shock and a horror that surrounds them, and each one is affected by it in a believable way. A lot of movies within the genre just don't care about the characters yet still try cramming down our throats anyway. Writers just keep trotting out the same clichéd crap time after time because they think audiences won't care either. Just as long as the monster occasionally wrecks stuff, who gives a damn about the characters?

But Honda and Murata make us care. The characters don't get caught up in their own pointless drama or put themselves in potentially harmful situations just to set up action sequences. Instead, the characters are intelligent and have a believability that is refreshing to see. Even the movie's love triangle is treated with a certain amount of class, as all three parties realize the gravity of the situation in front of them and all but say they've got bigger fish to fry than their own problems. This subplot is handled delicately enough that the characters all stay reasonable and unlike a lot of monster movies, the audience never wants Godzilla to squash them as soon as possible.

Secondly, Honda and Murata find a way to equally balance Godzilla and the human characters. I've seen more than a few instances where they spend so much time focusing on uninteresting people and petty squabbles with one another when you'd think they'd be more worried about the monster. But Godzilla rightfully remains the focus of the movie, while never sacrificing the characters either. We don't see a bunch of boring nitwits trying to deal with their love lives or a platoon of meathead soldiers who squabble amongst themselves too much. Instead we're given characters who have their own lives, their own ordeals, only to have everything shaken up by the arrival of Hell itself. Considering the movie's allegorical nature, it makes a lot of sense to tackle the idea this way. And you know what? It worked. It really worked.

But I won't lie and say everything about the movie is top shelf. In truth, some of the acting is a little on the hit-or-miss side. Nobody's awful or brings the movie down, but like a lot of movies, some actors are just outshined by others. Momoko Kōchi isn't particularly memorable, while Akira Takarada is solid yet at the same time just kinda there too, if that makes any sense. Meanwhile, Takashi Shimura (an actor known for his frequent collaborations with legendary filmmaker Akira Kurosawa and fresh off a starring role in Kurosawa's classic Seven Samurai a few months prior to Godzilla's release) brings a level of gravitas to his role as a paleontologist that wants not to kill, but to study Godzilla.

But they're all topped by Akihiko Hirata's strong, resonating performance. The character has a massive weight on his shoulders, and Hirata makes it believable. The way he approaches the role makes him fascinating to watch. He plays it with a stoicism that belies an inner struggle and turmoil. You can tell he's scared to death but tries to stay cool and keep it together. It's an impressive bit of acting that I really, really liked.

Of the thirty movies Godzilla has starred in over the past six decades, I doubt many of them could hold a candle to the sheer power of the original. It gives us a Godzilla that is a natural disaster on two legs, an amphibious nightmare as devastating as the nuclear weapons his creators intended for him to represent. No one could have possibly foreseen the impact that Godzilla would have on monster movies and pop culture in general, but regardless, he got off to a truly amazing start. Happy anniversary, big guy, and here's to another sixty years.

Final Rating: ****

Monster (2008)

I've seen more than a few bad movies over the years. I've seen three Uwe Boll movies. I've seen DC Comics crank out Steel, Catwoman, Batman & Robin, and Superman IV. I've seen movies like The Room, Gymkata, Hobgoblins, and Manos: The Hands of Fate. But oddly enough, until recently, I'd never seen a movie from The Asylum.

For those of you who have yet to discover The Asylum, they're a Hollywood production company that specializes in "mockbusters," low-budget knockoffs of mainstream hits. Released straight to video shelves just before the theatrical releases of their mainstream counterparts, The Asylum's mockbusters are usually only watched by rubes who don't know the difference and people who know The Asylum's track record.

But as I said, it was only recently that I first saw an Asylum movie. After I happened to buy the Blu-ray of Cloverfield this past May, I suddenly felt compelled to hunt down its Asylum equivalent, Monster. I don't know why, but stupid ol' me had to run down to a local video store that was going out of business and buy their copy of Monster on the cheap. And holy crap, everything I'd heard about The Asylum was right. 

Monster follows Sarah (Sarah Lieving) and Erin (Erin Sullivan), a pair of American sisters who have arrived in Tokyo to shoot a documentary about global warming. They aren't there for long, however, before Japan is rattled by what is believed to be the aftershocks of a massive earthquake that struck the country recently.

But as you may surmise from the movie's title, they're something much worse. These quakes are actually a precursor to the arrival of a tremendous beast, a gigantic octopus come to lay waste to Tokyo. Caught in the bedlam, Sarah and Erin document the chaos with their camcorder as they desperately hunt for safety.

Want to know my opinion of Monster? Take all of my complaints about Cloverfield and multiply them by a million. The Asylum practically got all the same things wrong as Cloverfield did, only they do it worse. If you want to see someone turn a mediocre movie into a crappy one, go rent Monster.

The sad part is that it's not one of those bad movies that's a catastrophic failure, either. It's not a BloodRayne or The Room kind of bad movie, where it's so bad that it sends me into a frenzy. It's one of those bad movies where, once it's over, you say, "Okay, that just happened. Whatever." I really don't like that particular type of bad movie, because at least the really crappy ones can inspire some sort of emotional response. The really bad ones, I can end up writing 2,000+ words about how much they suck. But not Monster. It's just kind of there.

But I guess I'd better get into just what makes the movie that way, so let's get started. At the helm of this sinking ship is Erik Estenberg, who has Monster listed as his only credit on his IMDB profile. His work here is really lame, showing an extreme lack of imagination. I know Estenberg was only hired to make a cheap knockoff of Cloverfield, but he could have at least tried making it watchable.

Then again, Estenberg is hindered by the movie's obviously meager budget. The movie looks like it was filmed in the Little Tokyo section of Los Angeles instead of Japan, making it feel cheap and artificial. But the budgetary limitations are even more obvious in how the monster is depicted. In Cloverfield, you rarely see the monster. Estenberg takes this one step further by never showing the monster. You see a tentacle here, a tentacle there. But that's all you ever get to see of the monster. Whenever it appears, it's obscured by really fake-looking camera malfunctions, or appears off-screen and has its attack narrated by whichever characters are in front of the camera at the time. I know there probably wasn't enough money in the budget to do any tremendous monster effects, but geez, it's like nobody wanted to bother.

I also thought the screenplay, written by Asylum co-founder David Michael Latt, was seriously lacking. I know that he didn't have to do anything creative, but did Latt have to tank it so badly? It's like he didn't even want to try. I mean, was it so hard to come up with something beyond "some people with a camcorder meet a monster in a major city"?

And did the characters have to be as bad as Cloverfield's too? The two main characters in Monster aren't totally unlikable, but they still tend to get annoying. Their whole routine of telling everyone they encounter that they're Americans gets old really quickly. But then again, they almost have to tell everyone what country they're from. I mean, I thought the two white girls who don't speak a word of any language other than English were totally Japanese at first.

All that's left for me to critique is the acting, which shouldn't be too hard, considering that there's only two major players in the movie. And to tell you the truth, neither Sarah Lieving or Erin Sullivan are really worth writing about. It's not that they're bad, they just aren't very good. The fact that the characters are so poorly written doesn't help anything, either. I think that with better actresses, it might not have been so bad. But Lieving and Sullivan just weren't strong enough to carry the whole movie by themselves.

I was familiar with The Asylum's reputation before I saw Monster, but nothing could have readied me for the amount of sheer failure that was displayed on my TV screen. Monster fails at being a monster movie, it fails at using the "found footage" gimmick, and it fails at being entertaining. It's not even a good bad movie. If it were like Uwe Boll's movies, where you can have oodles of fun mocking them, then I'd have been okay with it. But as it stands, Monster is just your run-of-the-mill crappy movie that I'll probably never give a second thought to. And I can't believe I actually paid good money to own a copy of this on DVD. What's wrong with me? 

Final Rating: *

Cloverfield (2008)

If I know my regular reading audience like I think I do, then I'm pretty sure you guys may have heard of an ultra-lame, ultra-forgettable movie known as The Blair Witch Project. I'm surprised I'm even bringing it up, considering how obscure it is. Okay, seriously, all kidding aside, The Blair Witch Project was a huge blockbuster when it was released back in the summer of 1999. It had the kind of outrageous mainstream success that most horror movies can only dream of achieving. And with the popularity of the movie came hundreds of parodies that surfaced on video store shelves and across the Internet. And I'm sure the presence of Internet parodies would have been more widespread, had it not taken six more years for YouTube to pop up.

But it would be nearly a decade before any serious attempts to replicate the movie's style were made. However, as the world neared ever closer to the tenth anniversary of the little low-budget horror flick that could, the world saw the release of very similar movies. Among them were George Romero's Diary of the Dead, the Spanish zombie movie [REC] and its American remake, Quarantine, and perhaps the most significant example of this new crop of Blair Witch-like cinema vérité horror movies, Cloverfield. Conceived by Lost creator J.J. Abrams, Cloverfield didn't quite match the runaway financial success that The Blair Witch Project had, though it still proved quite popular and got people talking. So let's talk about it, shall we?

Rob Hawkins (Michael Stahl-David) is in for the night of his life. On the eve of his departure for Japan in order to accept a swanky new job with a soft drink company, his brother Jason (Mike Vogel) and Jason's girlfriend Lily (Jessica Lucas) have thrown him a surprise farewell party. Jason and Lily have also entrusted Rob's best friend Hud (T.J. Miller) with a camcorder so that he can record everyone's final goodbyes for their leaving friend, but ends up spending the better part of the evening chatting up pretty partygoer Marlena (Lizzy Caplan).

But just as the party gets into full swing, things get a little bit awkward when Rob's longtime friend Beth (Odette Yustman) arrives with a date. See, Rob and Beth had a romantic liaison a month earlier, but things have been uncomfortable between them ever since. An argument ensues, and Beth storms out.

However, an argument between friends and would-be lovers will be the least of anyone's worries on this evening. Manhattan is rattled by what initially feels like an earthquake, and an ensuing explosion leads some of the partygoers to wonder if it could be another terrorist attack. But the true cause is much more frightening than anything al-Qaeda could have possibly dreamed up. It's not an earthquake, or terrorists, or even Superman on a bender. Instead, a really big, really ugly monster is roaming the streets of Manhattan, and he's sporting a bad attitude.

As the beast rampages through the city and battles the military, Rob receives a frantic cell phone message from an injured and terrified Beth. Determined to rescue her, Rob leads his friends through Manhattan, which has now become a dangerous war zone.

Thanks to the proliferation of the Internet, you can find out news about movies months before they even enter production. But what made Cloverfield unique was how it took everyone by surprise. There had been absolutely no news about it at all prior to the first teaser's appearance in front of Michael Bay's Transformers in the summer of 2007. The teaser only featured a release date and some vague footage that culminated in the decapitated head of the Statue of Liberty crash landing in the middle of a Manhattan neighborhood. The truly insane thing about it was that this teaser didn't even give the movie a name! But it got people talking, most definitely.

People had all kinds of theories regarding what the monster was. Some thought it might have been Cthulhu, the terrifying beast created by horror writer H.P. Lovecraft. Others thought that Toho had forgiven Hollywood for that disastrous Godzilla movie from 1998 and had allowed America to make another movie starring the king of the monsters. There was also a rumor that it could have been a live-action Voltron movie. And some people even thought that — due to the teaser's failure to give the movie a name — the monster might have been the logo for J.J. Abrams's production company, Bad Robot. But no, it's an original monster starring in a movie that just couldn't live up to what was expected of it. Through all the rumors and all the speculation and all the nonsensical viral marketing that popped up online, Cloverfield ended up being an utterly mediocre movie that nearly collapses under the weight of its own hype.

Though Abrams has taken pretty much all the credit for the movie, he didn't write it or direct it. So let's begin the actual critiquing by discussing those who were working under Abrams's shadow. Cloverfield was directed by Matt Reeves, a longtime associate of Abrams who co-created the TV show Felicity. He's not the most experienced director when it comes to feature films, as his only real credit is one movie twelve years prior to Cloverfield. However, I must give him credit for actually holding the movie together. I assume that making a movie like this is very hard if you're not just giving the actors a camera and letting them run wild with it. But Reeves manages to keep things trucking along at a relatively steady pace, doing his best to make sure the audience stays interested.

He does throw in a lot of intriguing visuals, some of which work better because of the "man on the street" handheld camera style. It especially works in the scene in the subway tunnel where the crew has a night-vision encounter with a gang of little monsters the primary one has spawned, is pretty darn scary. And because Cloverfield exists in a post-9/11 world, Reeves also gives us a scene with a lingering dust cloud that invokes memories of one of 9/11's most sadly unforgettable images. This scene might rub some people the wrong way, and it does feels a little cheap, but it's a powerful moment.

Unfortunately, the movie feels artificial to a degree. You never get the sense that this could be actual found footage, because everything seems too polished. Maybe this is just me, but I always felt like this wasn't a movie about a guy with a consumer-grade camcorder roaming a monster-devastated city, but a guy with a professional camera being followed by a sound crew while walking around Paramount's studio backlot. The Blair Witch Project worked because the actors were handed a camera and left to their own devices. But with Cloverfield, the big budget and the studio backing just leads to a movie that feels fake.

Any positive things I may have had to say about the direction are pretty much negated by the less-than-stellar screenplay. The movie was written by Drew Goddard, another past Abrams collaborator who'd written episodes of Alias and Lost. He's also worked with Joss Whedon on Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel. Cloverfield is his first feature film, and I felt that he could have done a lot better. One of the big problems I have with the script is that the characters are either incredibly stupid of just plain unlikable. They're all a bunch of way-too-cool hipsters that are written in such a way that I had a hard time relating to them.

And call me crazy, but when I go see a monster movie, I don't want to waste any time getting to the monster. I don't want to spend twenty minutes watching characters I don't like partying at some apartment I could never afford. I was bored out of my head by the time the monster arrived, and that could have been fixed if Goddard had either written better characters or gotten to the point faster, or if Reeves had stayed in the editing room longer.

Goddard's script also raises questions, mainly only due to the logic of movies like this. For example, why do they run towards the giant killer monster from Hell to save that girl that's probably dead? Yes, I understand it's a primal instinct, but it's also incredibly stupid and will probably result in their painful and messy deaths. And why would Hud keep filming? Wouldn't your survival instinct be screaming to drop the camera and run for it? If he were a TV cameraman by trade, or even if there were some throwaway line where Hud said he wanted to make a ton of money by selling the footage to whichever news network was the highest bidder, I could be cool with that. It would at least be somewhat plausible. But he's just some random schmuck who had a camcorder thrust upon him for no reason other than the intended cameraman didn't want to do it himself. At least the style has a point in other movies, because the characters are making a movie or are part of a TV camera crew. But in Cloverfield, there's no reason beyond needing the movie to keep going until they reach the end.

But what about the acting? Hopefully that could help the movie, right? Believe it or not, I actually didn't think the actors did all that bad a job, for the most part. They're a little week in places, but more often than not, they do decent enough work in spite of the crappy roles they're stuck playing. As the de facto leading man among the ensemble, Michael Stahl-David is endearing despite his character repeatedly making so many unbelievably stupid decisions. He's earnest in the role, to the point of making the character almost believable. I also thought Jessica Lucas and Lizzy Caplan were good, though I didn't find them too particularly memorable. And Mike Vogel and Odette Yustman aren't around long enough to really make any lasting impression. But what I saw of them wasn't awful.

If there's a bad performance, it comes from T.J. Miller. He's supposed to be Cloverfield's comic relief, but he isn't really all that funny. Only a few of his jokes work, and he doesn't even really deliver those well. The character is pretty much an annoying jackass for the whole movie, and I kept waiting for somebody to snatch that camera from him and beat him over the head with it. Miller doesn't do anything to overcome any of the flaws in the material, and the bad part is that we're stuck with him for the whole movie.

And I know there's no real reason to bring it up here, but I wanted I wanted to punch its viral marketing in the face. None of it had any sort of bearing or impact on the actual movie itself. It was pointless! I can forgive the movie for not explaining the origins of the monster, since doing so while using the Blair Witch style would have seemed forced and tacked on. But going by the viral marketing, I felt like I had to do tons of reading about crap I didn't give a damn about in order to get the big picture. It all ends up raising more questions than it answers, so I generally just try to pretend the viral marketing didn't exist.

But on the whole, Cloverfield is a movie that is, at its best, just okay. For all the hype and speculation that surrounded it, it wasn't either good or bad. It was just kinda there. But assuming it had better writing, I actually wouldn't mind seeing it remade as a conventional movie. Even if the Blair Witch style does lend itself to some cool scenes, it ends up feeling like just a gimmick. And when it's all said and done, Cloverfield is just plain mediocre. It could have been better, so let's hope J.J. Abrams has learned his lesson if he ever chooses to make Cloverfield 2.

Final Rating: **½

King Kong (2005)

Remakes are a common concept among Hollywood filmmakers. Why think up a new story when you can just take a well-known one and put a new spin on it? The thing is, only a select few lay claim to being equal to or better than its source material. Sure, there are remakes out there that are actually good, but many simply find themselves being halfhearted attempts to cash in on an established property. I'll admit that not every remake can be as entertaining as David Cronenberg's The Fly or John Carpenter's The Thing, but a lot of them are just plain disappointing.

But in an era of mediocre remakes, Academy Award-winning filmmaker Peter Jackson crafted a great one as the follow-up to his epic trilogy based on J.R.R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings novels. With his Lord of the Rings crew and a new cast of characters in tow, Jackson returned to his home country of New Zealand to craft a film born of the fond memories of his childhood, the remake of one of the most famous monster movies ever produced: King Kong. The second retelling of a story about a beauty and the beast whose heart she stole, Jackson has created a remake worthy of at least a portion of the respect Merian Cooper's original film is given. So let's get to the review, shall we?

We begin in New York City circa 1933. The city is in the grip of the Great Depression, and among the impoverished masses is Ann Darrow (Naomi Watts). A struggling vaudevillian actress who has grown accustomed to performing shows in front of more empty seats than people, Ann is heartbroken to discover that she's been forced out of her job after the lack of income forces her theater to permanently close its doors.

Desperate to find work, she stops local casting director Charles Weston (David Pittu) on the street and hits him up for a role in an upcoming production written by her favorite playwright, Jack Driscoll (Adrien Brody). Weston says the role has already been cast, but sympathizing with her misfortune, he gives her the address of another job, suggesting that she only work there long enough to get whatever money she needs.

Shortly thereafter, we are introduced to Carl Denham (Jack Black), an entrepreneurial filmmaker whose penchant for "safari films" isn't exactly winning over his investors. They'd rather him make more profitable romantic movies, or at least include a few naked jungle girls. When Denham discovers his investors are planning to sell off his latest work as stock footage instead of funding his next movie, he and his assistant Preston (Colin Hanks) steal the footage and jump into the first taxi they can.

Once on their way, Denham tells Preston to assemble their crew so they can leave within the hour for their location shoot. But being the bearer of bad news that he is, Preston informs Denham that their leading lady has quit because Preston couldn't bring himself to lie to her about their filming location. And to really narrow things down, any replacement they get will have to be a size four because the wardrobe department has finished all the costumes. Denham rattles off a number of actresses, but all of them are unavailable. He hops out of the taxi and begins a search for a new lead actress, leaving Preston to make sure everything else is in order.

Ann and Denham's paths fortuitously cross paths at a burlesque house, where they both arrive at the same time. Yeah, Weston sent her to a strip club to find work. Real class act, that guy. Denham notices her, and realizing she's the woman he's looking for, he follows her as she dejectedly walks away. The starving Ann soon arrives at a fruit stand and gets herself into trouble when the stand's proprietor catches her stealing an apple, but Denham promptly steps in, holding up a coin to pay for it. He takes her to a café to talk to her, but promptly kills any trust she may have had in him by asking if she's a size four.

This, of course, is precisely the thing you shouldn't as a lady as soon as you meet her. Ann thinks he's looking for a good time and she just isn't that kind of girl. Denham reassures her that he means no harm, only wanting to offer her a role in his movie. As he explains the intended role to her, she shows enough interest to convince Denham that she'd be a perfectly sympathetic star. Unfortunately for him, Ann graciously turns him down, explaining that she's a comedian at heart. Starring in a dramatic picture is out of the question. But when Denham fleetingly mentions that Jack Driscoll is putting the finishing touches on the script, she just can't say no.

They arrive at the docks soon thereafter, where Denham introduces Ann to Preston and their ship's captain, Englehorn (Thomas Kretschmann). Preston pulls Denham aside and tells him that his investors have sent the police after him for stealing his footage from them, prompting Denham to send Ann on board while urging Captain Englehorn to set sail immediately despite the lack of proper paperwork. Denham rushes aboard to search for a place to hide, bumping into Jack in his cabin to review the script. And much to Denham's chagrin, Denham has only completed the first fifteen pages of the script. But Jack is in a hurry, as he has an appointment with his true love: the theater.

As Jack starts to leave, Denham surprises him by offering $2,000 as payment. After getting stalled with a few poorly written checks, Jack heads for the door, choosing to wait until Denham returns to accept his pay. But thanks to Denham's stalling, Jack misses his opportunity to get off the boat before it sets sail, leaving the dock mere moments before the police arrive. He even considers jumping overboard, but hesitates, leaving Denham to quip, "If you truly loved the theater, you would have jumped."

As the ship's voyage gets underway, the ship's first mate Hayes (Evan Parke) leads Jack to the cargo hold, since all of the actual cabins are spoken for. There are cages everywhere, and when ne'er-do-well cabin boy Jimmy (Jamie Bell) accidentally reveals Captain Englehorn's stash of chloroform, Jack learns that their captain is an expert in capturing exotic animals. He pays it no mind, however, and picks out a rather large cage that he'll call home while he finishes the script.

It is during one of Jack's brainstorming sessions with Denham that their fearless leader finally divulges that the ship's true destination is not Singapore, but a mythical uncharted territory named Skull Island. The little snoop that he is, Jimmy hears the whole conversation and relays the news to Hayes. So he's a thief (as evidenced by a scene in which he got caught stealing Jack's fancy fountain pen), a snoop, and a snitch. I'm surprised the other sailors haven't thrown him overboard yet. Hayes confronts Denham about it, recounting a tale of a drifter who had been found out to sea. He told an ominous story of a island with a massive wall, but before he could divulge any more information, he killed himself.

As the ship's voyage progresses, as does the filming of Denham's movie. As production moves forward, Jack finds himself less than impressed with the performance of egotistical star Bruce Baxter (Kyle Chandler), who often improvises instead of sticking to the script like asked. However, Jack is vocal in his satisfaction with Ann's performance, and before long, the pair are head over heels for one another. The guy even writes a play for her to star in. Alas, their romantic bliss is cut short when Captain Englehorn alters course after discovering that there's a warrant out for Denham's arrest. Unfortunately, the ship gets caught in an impenetrable fog bank and eventually crashes into a gigantic rock wall off the coast of ― where else ― Skull Island. The ship is stranded, and as the ship's crew tries to remedy this unenviable situation, Denham takes his film crew onto shore.

As they arrive, they quickly learn that "Skull Island" is an appropriate name, because not only is the shore full of rocks that resemble skulls, but a number of very real human skulls line the path that the landing party follows. Denham's party soon lands in a village bordered by an enormous wall, the one alluded to earlier. The village is seemingly deserted, populated only buy skeletons that appear as if they were part of ritual sacrifices. Denham discovers that the town is very much inhabited, but the natives that call Skull Island home aren't exactly thrilled about having visitors. An unlucky member of the landing party finds himself the recipient of a spear through the back as the natives attack, killing more members of the crew while showing a very disturbing interest in Ann.

Captain Englehorn and his sailors finally show up with guns and chase the villagers off, and both the sailors and film crew return to the boat and get ready to leave. But upon nightfall, a native slips on board and kidnaps Ann, who is dragged back to the island and prepared as the newest sacrifice to the creatures that live on the other side of the wall. Tied up and alone, the frightened Ann is even more terrified to discover just what she has been sacrificed to: a 25-foot-tall gorilla named Kong (Andy Serkis, via motion capture technology).

However, the native that kidnapped Ann made the mistake of leaving a necklace behind for Jack to find. He informs the sailors, who immediately drop what they're doing and start a rescue mission. Ann's rescuers arrive at the wall just as the giant ape snatches up his quarry and disappears back into the jungle of which he is king. Jack and a number of armed crewmen venture behind the wall after Ann and Kong, while Denham, Baxter, and some of the film crew tag along with the intention of continuing his movie's production.

Once past the wall, Captain Englehorn gives them twenty-four hours to return before he and the ship leaves for home with or without them. Unfortunately for them, the island's jungle isn't exactly the happiest place on Earth. Thanks to Denham's inherent desire to finish his movie no matter what, he and Baxter accidentally anger a herd of brontosauruses into stampeding. And just their luck, a number of hungry velociraptors get in on the fun too. Once they get to safety (after a few members of the group have been trampled or eaten), they stop to regroup, with Baxter's cowardly ways coming to the surface as he suggests they turn around and assume Ann didn't survive. Driscoll calls him on being a chicken, and takes the rest of the crew to continue the search.

Meanwhile, Ann has survived, and has been brought to Kong's home high atop a cliff overlooking the ocean. Ann pulls out some of her vaudeville act in an attempt to keep him from killing her, which actually does work in amusing him. Kong humorously gets in on the act by knocking her down over and over, but when she yells at him and tells him to stop, Kong throws a temper tantrum and leaves. And smartly, she takes the opportunity to escape. While she runs for her freedom, the rescue party runs into Kong while trying to cross a fallen tree that bridges a crevasse. Not too happy after the argument with Ann, Kong dumps the tree and everyone on it into the ravine. The fall kills most of the crewmen, and the survivors find themselves at the mercy of giant man-eating bugs and maggots.

With only Jack, Denham, and Jimmy left, Baxter and Captain Englehorn come to their rescue. Jack continues his determined search for Ann while the rest of the crew return to the ship, with Denham (whose camera and film were destroyed in the fall down the ravine) deciding that if he can't have his movie, he's going to capture Kong.

While all this is going on, Ann runs afoul of a trio of angry Tyrannosaurus Rexes, but Kong returns in the nick of time. He manages to fight off and kill all three T-Rexes, then puts Ann on his shoulder and walks back to his cliff, where they watch a lovely sunset and she falls asleep in his gigantic paw. It is up on the cliff where Jack finds them, and he and Ann make a break for it while Kong defends himself from a mob of overgrown bats. Kong catches up to them as they run through the jungle, where the remaining crewmen are waiting to spring a trap for Kong. The trap only serves to slow Kong down, and at the last minute, Denham knocks him out by smashing a bottle of chloroform across Kong's forehead. Standing above the unconscious primate, he announces his plans to make Kong a Broadway attraction as "the eighth wonder of the world."

Months later in New York City, Ann has become an anonymous chorus line dancer after refusing large sums of money to assist with Denham's exploitation of Kong, while the lovelorn Jack watches a production of the play he wrote for her. Unable to watch the play without Ann in the lead role, Jack leaves and rushes to another theater, where Denham has succeeded in putting the shackled Kong on display in front of a large audience. The show also features an elaborate stage show featuring actors playing the natives and Bruce Baxter taking all of Jack's glory as "the man who hunted down the mighty Kong." The grand finale of the show features a fake Ann presented before Kong, which, when combined with the annoying popping of the media's camera flashbulbs, only serves to piss the big guy off.

Kong breaks free from his restraints and begins demolishing the theater. But when he recognizes Jack as the man that stole away his beloved, Kong follows Jack into Times Square and runs amok in his frantic search to reclaim Ann. Jack decides to lead him to her, commandeering a taxicab and tearing through the streets of Manhattan with Kong hot on his heels. He finally catches up with Jack, but before he can squash his human foe into a greasy spot on the pavement, Kong sees Ann and calms down. He scoops her up and takes her to Central Park, where they have a brief moment of happiness sliding around on a frozen pond.

Their fun is short-lived, however, as the military breaks it up with gunfire. With Ann in hand, Kong bounces around across the skyscrapers of Manhattan, escaping to the Empire State Building at sunrise. But once again, their happiness is cut short by six Navy biplanes firing at Kong. The story comes to a head in a recreation of one of Hollywood's most legendary scenes, as Kong makes one last stand atop the Empire State Building against the planes that seek to bring him down.

Clocking in at around three hours and seven minutes, King Kong is twice the length of the original film. This is the biggest problem with the movie; it just runs far too long. Even the end credits run long, contributing nearly ten minutes of the movie's total running time. Most directors remove or shorten scenes from their movies to tighten the pacing or keep it at a respectable running time, but it seems as if director Peter Jackson kept nearly everything he shot. There's a deleted scene or two out there (one of which turned up in TV commercials for the movie), but for the most part, I don't really think very much was lost in the editing room. Maybe Jackson forgot that most people would get a little restless if stuck in a theater for three hours. Maybe he didn't want a very big "deleted scenes" feature on the DVD release. I don't know.

A movie this long isn't so bad on home video, because you can hit the pause button and take a potty break, get a snack, or whatever, then come back and pick up where you left off. But in a theater, you're going to be looking at your watch after about two and a half hours, wondering if and when this thing going to end. While I don't have a problem with long movies per se, King Kong has a few moments that are exciting and entertaining at first, but become tedious after a while because they just keep going and going and going like it was the Energizer Bunny.

However, despite the movie being far too long for its own good, Jackson's direction is very good. For a guy that got his start directing gory low-budget horror movies, Jackson certainly knows how to make an epic. In association with the cinematography of Andrew Lesnie, King Kong is a visual tour de force. Jackson utilizes creative camera angles, such as the point-of-view shots from the biplanes, to put the audience right there in the action. However, Jackson overuses slow-motion setups until they become annoying. You might be able to get away with it a few times, but there's a certain point where a line gets crossed. And when Jackson decided to draw out Denham spelling the word "skull," he gleefully hopped right over that line.

The movie's "realism" also came under fire in various reviews around the time of its initial release, but there is a certain suspension of disbelief that should quell some of their complaints. However, I do wonder about one thing. How would Kong be able to jostle poor tiny Ann around as he does without hurting her? As much as she gets thrown around, I'm surprised she didn't end up with a broken neck (or a major case of whiplash, at the very least). But then again, the movie is about a 30-foot gorilla that fights dinosaurs in the South Pacific before fighting planes atop a skyscraper in New York City. So I guess I shouldn't let a crazy little thing like the laws of physics get in the way of having a good time.

The script, penned by Jackson, Fran Walsh, and Philippa Boyens, isn't all that bad. It's a far improvement over the original script from 1933. The characters are much more well-rounded, and it succeeds at telling a better story. Though it uses the 1933 classic as its blueprint, King Kong also draws inspiration from the 1976 remake by developing a delicate, two-way relationship between Kong and the film's female lead. Fay Wray's Ann Darrow was merely a frightened object of Kong's lust, while Naomi Watts's Ann Darrow views Kong as her protector. It seemed to me that if Kong were human, Ann would pick him over Jack any day.

The Ann/Kong relationship is developed through numerous scenes, each marvelous in their own way. From Ann performing a humorous dance routine for Kong and watching a sunset atop a cliff, to their playfully tender moment in Central Park and the sweet sunrise atop the Empire State Building, I found the onscreen chemistry between Naomi Watts and her computer-animated simian friend more likeable and enjoyable than many human couples in romantic movies.

It is not only a testament to Naomi Watts's ability as an actress, as she had to share the screen with someone she couldn't see, but it is a testament to Andy Serkis's ability to convey emotions with simple movements. He doesn't so much play Kong as he does provide the body language for the effects team, but Serkis gives Kong a humanity not seen in the original movie, and it set up the necessary connection that needed to be made between the screen and the viewer. Because if Kong was just another monkey, it wouldn't have been as engaging.

With the exception of the Kong/Ann relationship, perhaps the movie's strongest point is the cast. Of the three lead characters, Naomi Watts is the best of them. Not only is the role very physical and requiring Watts to interact with a cast member who isn't there, but she must also travel a diverse emotional range. From fear to acceptance to caring, Watts hits the nail right on the head with her absolutely wonderful performance.

Adrien Brody does what he can, but the role isn't really a lot. He doesn't get to contribute much, outside of falling in love with Ann, running around the island, getting into a car chase, and riding in an Empire State Building elevator. He's not exactly bad, but Brody isn't given all that much to work with. And in the most unusual instance of casting against type I've seen in a while, Jack Black is quite effective as Carl Denham. I've seen the role described as a cross between Cecil B. DeMille and P.T. Barnum, and I think it's a very fitting description. Black primarily plays the role straight, but there are traces of his comedic personality that shine through on occasion.

While King Kong isn't exactly the best movie of 2005, it's definitely very good. Although it runs far too long and runs the risk of being boring, it proves that in spite of the disappointing remake of Godzilla, movies about old-school gigantic monsters can be good. I doubt Jackson's retelling of the story will overtake the 1933 version in the minds and hearts of moviegoers, but it definitely shows that there are times when remakes can honor the legacy of its unsurpassable source material. It's an entertaining movie if you can forgive the three-hour running time, so fans of movie monsters will find a fun movie to watch..

Final Rating: ****

King Kong (1976)

Remaking a classic film can be a tricky thing. You not only have to appeal to those that hold the source material dear (and will likely resent the remake no matter what), but try something a little different so the movie doesn't seem like a total rip-off. The idea of remaking movies has meant big business for Hollywood since the late '90s, but they've been around for decades. Even as early as the '50s, filmmakers have long been infatuated with the idea of telling the same story from a different perspective.

But when Italian producer Dino de Laurentiis announced his intentions to remake the legendary monster movie King Kong in 1976, critics immediately jumped all over it. The original King Kong is one of those movies that you just don't mess around with, so the idea of a remake was immediately proclaimed blasphemy. But is it really that bad?

Our story begins at a port in the Indonesian city of Surabaya, where an exploratory vessel for the Petrox Oil Company is on an expedition to find a previously undiscovered South Pacific island hidden by a permanent fogbank. Petrox executive Fred Wilson (Charles Grodin) believes the island contains a massive depository of oil, and wants to acquire it before Shell and Exxon have the chance. As Wilson explains the details of the island to the crew, the meeting is interrupted by Jack Prescott (Jeff Bridges), a primate paleontologist that just so happened to stow away as the ship left Surabaya. He warns Wilson's team about going through with their mission, citing ominous messages from previous doomed explorers. Wilson orders Prescott to be locked up, claiming he's really a spy from a rival corporation. However, while being led to the brig, Prescott spots a small life raft in the ocean and convinces the crew to pick it up.

On the raft is a beautiful yet unconscious woman who, upon awakening, introduces herself as Dwan (Jessica Lange). Yes, her name is "Dwan." No, that is not a typo. I'm assuming that whoever came up with that name was either a.) a hippie, b.) an idiot, or c.) had a rather tenuous grasp on the English language. Maybe it was d.) all of the above. In any event, it is revealed that she was an actress aboard a movie producer's yacht when it suddenly exploded, but because she was on deck, she managed to get into a lifeboat. Turns out the only reason she was up on deck was because she didn't want to watch Deep Throat with the rest of the yacht's crew. I wish I was joking, but that's the real reason. Go watch the movie for yourself if you don't believe me.

The voyage continues as planned, and the ship finally arrives at the island. The expedition, with Dwan in tow, head for shore. Despite Wilson's unsupported belief that the island is uninhabited, they discover a primitive tribe of natives living behind a gigantic wall. The natives are in the middle of a ceremony where they plan on sacrificing a girl to their god, Kong. But when their leader (Keny Long) notices them watching, he stops everything and starts giving them grief over it. None of the expedition understands the native language, but they do understand when the tribe's leader proposes to trade six of their women for Dwan. They refuse, and when the tribe makes a move, the expedition gets out of Dodge as fast as their legs can carry them.

Back on the boat, nightfall comes, and the natives stealthily arrive at the ship and kidnap Dwan. They're like ninjas. Nobody even knows they're there until it's too late. They take her back to the island and lash her to an altar as a sacrifice, and from the looks of it, she doesn't really mind. Dwan doesn't even fight back or scream or anything. So anyway, they tie her to this altar thingamajig, and as everybody has probably assumed, we discover that Kong is a fifty-foot-tall ape. Kong picks her up, and she finally screams for help. Yeah, Dwan, that would have been a little more helpful had you done it earlier. But instead of biting her head off or squashing her, Kong just heads back into the jungle. Okay, whatever. Maybe Kong has a soft spot for airhead hippies with stupid names, I don't know.

While the sacrifice takes place, Prescott finds a native's necklace where Dwan had been, and that's when it hits the fan. With Wilson and the team close behind, Prescott returns to the island and breaks up the tribe's party. But alas, Kong has already made off with Dwan. He takes his new trophy wench back to his home in the jungle the following morning, where she promptly calls him a "chauvinist pig-ape" (whatever that's supposed to mean) and tells him to choke on her before she bonks him on the nose.

Kong doesn't like that, so she starts backpedaling and apologizes. She tries to make nice, which leads to the following line of dialogue: "I'm a Libra. What sign are you? I bet you're an Aries." Once again, I wish I was joking. She asked Kong his sign! He's a giant monkey, astrology serves him no purpose. He has people to eat, jungles to conquer. But as lame as it may be, Dwan's flirtatiousness spares her life, as Kong puts her down and makes goo-goo eyes at her. She promptly tries to run away and falls into a mud puddle, so Kong once again picks her up and carries her away. Gentleman that he is, Kong takes the muddy Dwan to a waterfall and gives her a bath. He even blows her dry. And judging by her reaction, hot monkey breath really scratched her itch, if you know what I mean.

Meanwhile, back at Wilson's base in the village, Wilson's assistant Roy (Rene Auberjonois) informs him that there is indeed a large deposit of petroleum on the island. But there's a catch: it'll be another ten thousand years before the oil will be worth anything. Not wanting to go home empty-handed, Wilson calls in reinforcements. Nightfall comes once again, and just as Kong starts putting the moves on Dwan and remove her top, they're attacked by an enormous snake. Prescott finds them, and while a battle between Kong and the snake ensues, they make a run for it. The fight is short, and Kong begins chasing the pair through the jungle. Just as they arrive at the village's giant wall, Kong is bombarded with chloroform and knocked unconscious.

Since he won't be getting any of the oil he so desired, Wilson has come up with another idea to make Petrox millions of dollars. Drawing inspiration from both an offhanded joke made a member of his crew and Exxon's "put a tiger in your tank" advertising campaign, Wilson decides to transport Kong to the United States as a promotional gimmick for Petrox. Confined to a dark, empty compartment aboard an oil tanker, Kong is a miserable wreck until they reach their final destination of New York City. Prescott protests Kong's exploitation, theorizing that losing Kong will cause the entire island to turn to alcoholism because their way of life has changed so drastically. It's funny, because I figured that having an enormous man-eating ape living in my backyard would be a better reason to start hitting the bottle. Getting rid of him would be a good thing, right?

But in any event, Prescott protests, and tries to convince Dwan to avoid involvement herself. But the call of stardom is too tempting for her, and she agrees to do Petrox's "Beauty and the Beast" show with Kong, who is bound in chains and surrounded by an immense cage. Unfortunately, Kong mistakes the throng of reporters surrounding Dwan as attackers, and the extremely pissed off ape goes berserk. He breaks out of his chains and the cage surrounding him, and begins to demolish anything standing in his way.

Kong angrily squashes Wilson and demolishes an above-ground subway train, before leisurely strolling across the East River. He discovers and recaptures Dwan, making his way through the streets of Manhattan towards the World Trade Center. With his betrothed in tow, he climbs atop of the World Trade Center and stares down armed helicopters and men with flame throwers, staging what will be his last stand.

You know that whole stereotype of remakes paling in comparison to their source material? The 1976 iteration of King Kong reinforces that stereotype. The movie is nothing short of mediocre from start to finish. The acting is less than stellar, the script is silly, and the special effects are lackluster. And even the movie's tagline is screwy. The poster up there proclaims the movie to be "the most exciting original motion picture event of all time." Think about that one. I mean really ponder it for a minute. You done? Okay. Now that you've thought about it, I'd like to ask: What kind of moron in Paramount's advertising department decided to promote a remake as an "original motion picture"? Anybody that hasn't been living in a cave for their entire lives has heard of King Kong, so billing a remake as original smacks of absolute idiocy.

So let's go down the list of the really big complaints, shall we? The screenplay written by Lorenzo Semple Jr. is very much a sign of the times. A great big stupid sign of the times. There's the energy crisis, greedy corporations, characters using the "what's your sign" method of flirting. Even that idiotic pet rock fad is referenced in the name of the Petrox Oil Company. The screenplay does retain a basic skeleton similar to the original classic: a group of people discover an colossal simian on an island in the South Pacific and ship him to New York City, only for the ape to go crazy over a pretty blonde woman and climb a relatively new skyscraper (or pair of them, as is the case in the remake).

However, Semple makes numerous artistic changes to the story, some of them for the worse. Instead of the timeless idea of a film crew, the crew is an is an oil company hunting for petroleum reserves, something much more topical as America was still recovering from the oil crisis of 1973. And let's not forget Semple's complete and total omission of the dinosaurs living on Skull Island (which remains nameless in the remake). The various dinosaurs were the coolest part of the original movie, yet the only other wildlife on Skull Island is a very large, very immobile snake. Come on, guys, couldn't you have given us something worth watching on Skull Island?

Semper's dialogue is downright ridiculous as well. Dwan's line "did you ever meet anyone before whose life was saved by Deep Throat?" has to be one of the most absurd (yet oddly brilliant) snippets of movie dialogue I have ever heard. How Jessica Lange could deliver it with a straight face is beyond me. However, I should commend Semple for giving us a sequence that neither Merian Cooper or Peter Jackson attempted to offer. In neither of the other versions do we see how Kong is transferred to his American prison, but this film does.

Semple also develops the romance between his human leads better than the original story did. Ditto for the relationship between Kong and his betrothed. In the original film, Fay Wray existed simply as an object of Kong's lust. She loathed him, and he only kept her around because he thought she was cute. But in this updated version, Kong and Dwan seemingly have a bond. It takes her a while to warm up to him; in the early going, she appears to merely humor Kong's fondness for her in order to keep him calm. But as the movie progresses, and she realizes the depths of Kong's affection, her fear and dislike for him give way to sympathy. She knows that his rampage through Manhattan will lead to his demise, but she tries to save him and weeps when he takes the Nestea Plunge off the World Trade Center.

And then there's those very poor special effects. If Dino de Laurentiis had just waited a couple of years for George Lucas to conquer the world with Star Wars, then the effects could have been salvaged. But alas, what we get is average at best. The special effects won an Academy Award, proving that in the '70s, special effects didn't have to be all that special to garner praise. There apparently wasn't much evolution in the effects field in the forty-three years between the original and this one. The blue-screen shots are very noticeable and distracting (especially in the scene where Dwan punches Kong on the nose), while Kong is very obviously a guy in a costume. Rick Baker, the man in the monkey suit, doesn't even bother to walk or really act like an ape.

And to make things worse, the suit doesn't look all that realistic either. My guess is that the effects department decided that they would eschew any type of sophistication and play it like a Godzilla movie. That's the only excuse I can think of, because the suit looks just as awful as the worst Godzilla costume. There's also a life-size mechanical version of Kong in the movie, which is a great idea in theory. But in execution, it just looks completely fake. Maybe that's why it has only about ten seconds of screen time. And let's not forget Kong's epic brouhaha with the giant snake. Simply put, Kong's battle with the snake has to be the stupidest cinematic fight scene since Bela Lugosi took on a fake octopus in Bride of the Monster.

I should, however, compliment the sweeping musical score arranged by John Barry. It successfully establishes the mood needed for each scene, and I'd rank it as some of the most underrated work on Barry's extensive résumé. Also great is John Guillermin's direction and Richard H. Kline's Oscar-winning cinematography, which give the movie a much-needed epic scope. But Guillermin and Kline's work is nearly rendered ineffective by the lousy art direction at the beginning of the movie. The majority of the jungle sets look like they were leftovers from old episodes of Star Trek. Frankly, they just aren't believable at all.

And finally, there's the cast. You can tell they're all having fun, but that doesn't exactly mean the same for the audience. Jeff Bridges's hippie animal rights activist is a pain in the neck, and not once did I want to root for him. Charles Grodin is fun as an unscrupulous corporate executive, but the character exists solely to look pathetic and be proven wrong every time he says something. But Jessica Lange's performance leaves a lot to be desired. Throughout the whole film, Lange just preens for the camera, as if she's silently declaring, "Here I am, world. Check me out. Aren't I just so darn pretty?" She's like the Paris Hilton of the '70s, only not quite as skanky.

Granted, King Kong was her very first movie, but couldn't she have at least tried harder? During the whole sacrifice scene, Lange simply sat there. She didn't scream, she barely moved, and she didn't even bother to open her eyes for most of it. I wouldn't be surprised if she was as high as a kite, because she definitely looked like it. Seriously, if I was being sacrificed to a giant gorilla against my will, I would at least pretend to be a little perturbed.

I must admit that I'm not the least bit surprised that she took a three-year hiatus from Hollywood after making King Kong, as she didn't appear in another film until All That Jazz came out in 1979. If I'd been around in 1976 and had been asked if Jessica Lange would have had a fruitful career in Hollywood based on her performance in King Kong, I'd have probably said no. But she has two Best Actress Oscars (along with four other nominations) to her credit, so King Kong proves that everyone can improve upon something.

The remake of King Kong wasn't the complete disaster that history has made it out to be. It made a solid 52 million dollars at the domestic box office, which would be a huge 180 million dollars when adjusted for inflation. So King Kong wasn't a financial failure by any means. However, time has not been as kind to the remake as it has been to the original classic. As I said earlier, this movie reinforces the stereotype that most remakes are disappointing attempts to make a buck or two at the expense of a proven name. No, it isn't a bad movie, but it's not a good one either. A film's mediocrity can be forgiven if it is at least charming or entertaining, but King Kong doesn't really fit either of those categories. I wanted so much more out of the movie, but I just didn't get it.

Final Rating: **

King Kong (1933)

"Every time I'm in New York, I say a little prayer when passing the Empire State Building. A good friend of mine died up there."
—Fay Wray (1907-2004)

Monster movies are nothing new. Movies like Them!, The Day of the Triffids, The Giant Gila Monster, and The Killer Shrews populated drive-in theaters and late-night creature feature shows throughout the '50s and '60s. And many of the most prolific monster movies have come from the Far East, as Japanese studio Toho Company gained fame for their long-running series of films starring Godzilla and his kaiju brethren.

But among all the monster movies that have been made, one of the most revered and beloved was a film produced by RKO Pictures in 1933. A spin on the classic "Beauty and the Beast" fable, King Kong has become a truly iconic motion picture in the seventy years since its first release. It has sparked the imaginations of innumerable people, and consistently turns up on the "Greatest Films Ever" lists of both critics and regular moviegoers. But has the King's crown lost any of its luster over the years? That's what we're here to find out.

Our story begins in Depression-era New York City, where we are immediately introduced to Carl Denham (Robert Armstrong). A stubborn, fearless filmmaker who specializes in nature pseudo-documentaries and adventure movies, Denham is ready to set sail to destinations unknown to make his latest film, but there's a few snags. First off, Captain Englehorn (Frank Reicher) informs him that they have to set sail immediately, lest the fire marshal discover his illegal cargo of firearms, explosives, and gas bombs. That wouldn't be such a big deal for Denham, but he's desperate to find a female lead for the movie because a "pretty face" would double his profits.

But the thing is, he can't find anyone for the role because of his recklessness as a director, not to mention his secretiveness in regards to where the film will be made. No agent wants to send an actress on a long sea voyage with an all-male crew, especially a voyage where not even the skipper and first mate know where they're going. When his agent voices his own concern over the idea, Denham wanders the streets in search for a suitable leading lady.

His search isn't a long one, as he stumbles upon Ann Darrow (Fay Wray), a destitute young woman caught trying to steal an apple from a fruit stand. The stand's proprietor threatens to call the police, but Denham breaks up the ruckus and pays for the apple. The starving Ann swoons into Denham's arms, at which moment he's taken aback by her beauty. He takes her to a coffee shop and offers her a job, but Ann is hesitant at first. If some guy I didn't know came up to me on the street and wanted me to star in a movie, I'd be nervous too. For all I know, that movie could be a snuff film, or porn. Maybe both, depending on how bad my luck is.

Denham chivalrously reassures her that there will be "no funny business," and she accepts. She needs the money, so why not? They leave port the following morning on the S.S. Venture, beginning their six-week cruise to the South Pacific. The idea of Ann tagging along doesn't sit well with first mate Jack Driscoll (Bruce Cabot), who promptly labels her as "that girl Denham picked up." He comes across as a total chauvinistic pig at first, but soon starts warming up to her as time goes on. His affection for Ann is so obvious, Denham jokingly questions his toughness, declaring him the Beast to Ann's Beauty.

As the time goes by and the voyage continues, Denham finally gets around to telling Englehorn and Driscoll where they're going. He's acquired a rudimentary map to Skull Island, an uncharted island in the Indian Ocean that is home to a mythical creature named "Kong." It isn't long before they arrive at Skull Island, discovering a giant wall and a tribe preparing a girl as a ritual sacrifice. The native chief (Noble Johnson) and the village witch doctor (Steve Clemente) notice them and claim that the ceremony has been ruined by the film crew showing up. Luckily (and conveniently) for them, Englehorn is somewhat familiar with their language and tries to talk sense into them. At Denham's urging, Englehorn assures the natives that they don't mean any harm, but the chief is still upset over their interruption. He proposes to trade six of their women for Ann, an offer that Denham declines while gently leading the film crew back to the ship and assuring the chief through Englehorn that they will "be back tomorrow to make friends."

Back on the Venture, Jack and Ann openly declare their affection for one another, but their romance doesn't get a chance to last very long. When Jack is called away on business by Englehorn, a covert band of natives in a canoe sneak aboard and kidnap Ann, dragging her back to the island and presenting her to Kong in a reprisal of the ceremony from earlier. Tied up and alone, Ann is even more terrified as the giant ape named Kong arrives, as he snatches his quarry and disappears back into the jungle of which he is king. But just about that time, the Venture crew discovers Ann's absence, prompting them to return to the village and subdue the natives while a portion of them go behind the wall to search for Ann and Kong.

Unfortunately for them but fortunately for we the viewer, the island's jungle isn't exactly the happiest place on Earth. Most of the crew gets thinned out by a number of dinosaurs, while Kong himself fights of a Tyrannosaurus Rex, some snakes, and a pterodactyl in order to protect Ann. It is the distraction provided by the pterodactyl that gives Driscoll his opportunity to rescue Ann, and the two manage to escape unharmed. But the big ape doesn't give up that easily. He breaks through the village's wall and creates all kinds of havoc in search of Ann. He destroys the village and kills most of the natives, but is knocked unconscious by one of Englehorn's gas bombs. Ever the opportunist, Denham comes up with the idea to bring the unconscious Kong back to New York City and make millions exploiting him.

An unspecified amount of time later, we learn that Ann and Driscoll are engaged to be married, and Denham has earned fame as the man that captured a monster that he fully plans to make a huge box office attraction. Denham presents the chained-up Kong to a packed theater audience, declaring him the "eighth wonder of the world." But when he mistakes the irritating flashbulbs of photographers for an attack on his beloved Ann, the furious Kong breaks free from his restraints and charges into the streets of Manhattan.

Ann and Driscoll flee to her apartment, while Kong frantically searches for her. He stumbles upon her after climbing a skyscraper, reaching into her apartment window and snatching her out of bed. Kong marches through the city with Ann in tow, destroying a subway train in his path. The local law enforcement calls in airplanes to stop him and save Ann, and it all comes to a head in one of cinema's most legendary scenes, as Kong makes a climactic last stand atop the Empire State Building against the airplanes that seek to bring him down.

King Kong is a magical movie in spite of its disadvantages, which only exist due to how filmmaking and special effects have evolved since 1933. Though the movie's $670,000 budget looks meager, you have to remember that it was in 1933 money. When adjusted for inflation, it's right around nine million bucks in 2006 money. You could probably make a decent monster movie for that kind of money, right? They don't all have to be multimillion-dollar Spielberg-produced epics driven by computer graphics.

The special effects are primitive and outdated when compared to the standards set by the technological marvels of today's cinematic adventures. There is still something ageless, however, about seeing Kong in action that makes everything work. In this age of animatronics and CGI, Willis O'Brien's stop-motion animation projected behind choreographed actors almost seems anachronistic today. Over seventy years of advancements in the field have nearly rendered the effects obsolete, but its primeval nature is so charming that it makes you want to believe. And had a category honoring special effects existed in 1933, I'm sure King Kong would have won a very much deserved Oscar for it.

While the movie's basic plot is strong and effective in its simplicity, parts of the script written by James Creelman and Ruth Rose doesn't really hold water. Upon discovering that Ann has been kidnapped, a character proclaims, "Crazy black man been here!" I know the civil rights movement was another three decades away, but holy crap. And let's not forget the one-dimensional clichés that make up the supporting cast, from the Chinese cook who speaks broken English (played by the uncredited Victor Wong), to the natives on Skull Island. They're the kind of natives you'd expect to see in a Bugs Bunny cartoon. You know, those "unga bunga" jungle cannibals that had those big kettles full of boiling water.

There's also the practically non-existent character development. Denham is ruthlessly money-hungry, Driscoll is a surly tough guy who's really a big softie on the inside, and Ann is the cute girl that screams a lot. There are no real arcs for anyone, no growth or change or serious depth to anybody. Everyone is pretty much exactly what they are on the surface and that's it. I guess I could chalk the characters being loosely defined archetypes and the weird racial stereotypes up to it just being how movies were made in the 1930s? Now that I think about it, judging something by standards that are markedly different over seventy years later might not be the best of ideas.

I also have to point out something that I just didn't get. Why would the tribal natives build a wall to keep Kong away, yet install a door big enough for him get through? Yeah, I know all about how the producers decided to recycle sets from other movies to pinch a few pennies (the wall itself was taken from Cecil B. DeMille's 1927 movie The King of Kings and redressed to fit King Kong's needs), but come on now. If the natives really needed a door to the other side, why not just build a man-sized one and let that be that? I'm also curious about how much was known about dinosaurs while the movie was being produced. The crewmen are attacked and eaten by dinosaurs that are known herbivores. I understand that a movie about a gigantic ape climbing the Empire State Building requires a little suspension of disbelief, but as someone who loved dinosaurs in his youth, I just don't know who came up with the idea to turn the vegetarian dinosaurs into man-eaters. I guess it's one of those times I should just shut up and enjoy the movie for what it is.

Though not exactly the most noteworthy or outstanding by today's standards, the direction by Merian C. Cooper and Ernest B. Schoedsack is competent and I can't really complain. Meanwhile, Max Steiner's musical score is exciting, entertaining, and is perhaps one of the strongest parts of the movie. I believe that movies are dependent on music and sound design in order to set the proper mood for a scene, and Steiner's music is admirable.

Unfortunately, I do have some complaints about the movie. Even by 1933 standards, the cast oftentimes seems wooden and flat, as if they were simply reading off cue cards. However, in their defense, I must say they weren't exactly given all that much to work with.

But I would be remiss if I didn't at least make mention of the cast's most well-known member. Many actors have at least one signature role that they will always remembered for. Anthony Hopkins has Hannibal Lecter, Robert Englund has Freddy Krueger, Christopher Reeve has Superman, et cetera. And then there is Fay Wray, who has been forever immortalized as the woman that stole the heart of a savage beast. Wray's been dubbed one of Hollywood's earliest "Scream Queens" thanks to her appearances in thrillers such as The Most Dangerous Game and Mystery of the Wax Museum. But it is King Kong that etched her place in Hollywood history. Sure, most of her scenes involve her either screaming her lungs out or standing around looking pretty, but Wray has a wonderful charisma that makes we the viewer want to follow her along for the ride. The image of Wray struggling to free herself from Kong's grasp has become one of Hollywood's most indelible moments, and it is perhaps that that has made her just as legendary as Kong himself.

King Kong resides upon a lofty perch, rivaled only by Godzilla as the greatest movie monster of all time. (In that regard, I guess it made sense when Toho produced King Kong vs. Godzilla in 1962.) Despite its outward appearance as an antiquated, outdated movie, King Kong remains an invaluable piece of movie history. In the seventy-three years since its premiere screening, the movie has lost none of the charm and magic that makes it so special. King Kong is among such movies as The Wizard of Oz and A Christmas Story on the short list of timeless classics that can be enjoyed by moviegoers of all ages in any decade, a spot that it most certainly deserves.

Final Rating: ****½

Godzilla (1998)

Monster movies have been around almost as long as cinema has existed. However, the genre didn't really venture into the realm of sci-fi until World War II ended and the Cold War began, when filmmakers saw the potential in monsters created by nuclear weapons. Of all of the giant monsters spawned in that era, one emerged from the depths of Tokyo Bay to become one of the most beloved monsters in movie history: Godzilla.

Born in the wake of Hiroshima and Nagasaki's destruction during World War II, and fueled by the fear of America's hydrogen bomb tests in the Pacific Ocean, Godzilla (née Gojira) has spawned almost thirty sequels, several video games, and dozens of similar movie monsters since his 1954 debut. Forty-six years after being unleashed by Japanese film studio Toho Company, Godzilla was given a complete American makeover by Columbia Pictures and the producers of Independence Day. Gone were the veiled social commentaries of the early Godzilla movies. What resulted was a run of the mill "let's destroy a major city" popcorn movie that became what many consider to be the biggest cinematic disappointment of 1998.

Following a series of French atomic bomb tests in the South Pacific, a massive creature begins to cut a path across the South Pacific and is spotted passing eastward through the Panama Canal. The U.S. State Department is called in, and they enlist nuclear biologist Niko Tatopoulos (Matthew Broderick) and a team of scientists to help them figure out what they have on their hands. Nick is kinda like what Matt Broderick's character from War Games would be like if he was an adult and really liked lizards. So now you know the character.

Anyway, by simply judging by the location of the first sighting and correlating it with his study of larger-than-normal earthworms at Chernobyl, Nick determines that they're up against a gigantic lizard mutated by fallout from the bomb tests. The next day, Godzilla hits New York City like a freight train. Looking like the bastard child of a komodo dragon and a Tyrannosaurus Rex, he comes ashore and decides to go sightseeing. He's what you'd call the proverbial bull in a china shop. Thanks to Godzilla and the general ineffectiveness of the military, half of Manhattan ends up as a big pile of rubble. And guess what, folks? That isn't the worst of it.

Through some insane stroke of genius, Nick discovers Godzilla is (get this) pregnant. He's kinda like one of those Tribbles from Star Trek, only a zillion times bigger and more reptilian. Nick tries to tell the military that they'll probably have to deal with the pregnancy too, but since the military is ran by trained helper monkeys (isn't that always the case in movies like this?), Nick ends up partnering with a team of shady French secret service agents led by the even shadier Phillippe Roaché (Jean Reno) and starts hunting for Godzilla's nest.

Nick also ends up getting a little help from his former girlfriend and aspiring television reporter, Audrey (Marie Pitillo), and her cameraman, stereotypical Brooklyn resident Animal (Hank Azaria). After delving through the sewers, the crew happens to stumble upon a massive batch of man-sized eggs in Madison Square Garden. And just their luck, the eggs start hatching. After all of the French guys but Phillippe are wiped out, the climactic finale sees the four remaining survivors trying to escape not only the wrath of Godzilla, but two hundred pissed-off baby Godzillas as well.

Well, there's good and there's bad about Godzilla. The Godzilla here is similar yet far removed from his Japanese cousin. Sure, he's a huge lizard. Sure, he's got those funny-looking dorsal fins on his back. Sure, he crushes a major metropolitan area. But two things separate them. One is the fire breath. One of Godzilla's trademarks is his atomic fire breath, and this movie lacks that. I mean, you've got a 200-foot-tall mutant lizard terrorizing Manhattan, so it's not like the movie would be too unrealistic if he breathed fire. The fire breath was loosely inspired by the burning of Tokyo during World War II, and outside of his trademark roar and his dorsal fins, it's his most recognizable feature. Godzilla missing his fire breath is like Superman without the ability to fly, or Wolverine not having his claws.

The other big difference, the most important one, is how Godzilla is portrayed. In Japan, Godzilla is portrayed as an unstoppable force of nature. He serves as an allegory for the horrors wrought upon Japan during World War II, and the most diehard fans have come to think of him as Japan's god of destruction. However, our Godzilla really doesn't serve as any kind of allegory. He's just a big reptile that squashes stuff. The Toho brains have even taken to referring to the American Godzilla as just plain "Zilla." Why? With Godzilla's reputation as the god of destruction, they felt Columbia Pictures having him be just another monster took the "god" out of "Godzilla." It's like the producers took the plot from The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms, added the T-Rex and raptors from Jurassic Park, and slapped the "Godzilla" name on it. While the American monster has a similar look to the Japanese one, it's definitely not the same monster.

The movie itself won't go down in the annals of cinematic achievement. The script by Roland Emmerich and Dean Devlin won't be considered a paragon of Western literature by any means, especially with those out-of-place parodies of Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert, and none of the actors deserved any awards (though I did like Matthew Broderick, even if he's not up to the War Games/Ferris Bueller level here). But who cares about that? It's a monster movie! You don't go see a movie like this for well-crafted plots or Oscar-caliber performances. You see them for wanton acts of carnage and destruction. At least, that's what I do, anyway.

The CGI effects actually aren't too bad. They could have gone the route of the Japanese movies and used a guy in an ugly rubber suit, but the larger budget and better technology was used to Zilla's benefit. If Zilla's anything, he's definitely better looking than the other Godzilla. The action on-screen is rarely boring, and the work of Emmerich's direction and Ueli Steiger's cinematography makes the movie look great. When combined with David Arnold's score and the occasional song, the movie is actually rather well-made. What I didn't like was the upset reaction of the critics and fans. The movie was just supposed to be a big, wild, fun action ride, and that's what it is. A big, wild, fun action ride. Sure, the criticism isn't entirely unmerited, since the movie promised a lot and was just mediocre at best, but all the vitriol and hatred from Godzilla's bashers is a little exaggerated.

Despite the rather "blah" response from moviegoers, Godzilla came awfully close to being everything I could have expected. Yeah, there was the whole lack of fire-breath thing, and the fact that Zilla is unable fill the huge shoes of his Japanese counterpart, but I didn't think it was completely awful. And while I will admit that it is kinda hard to lump it in with the Toho movies (despite the name and occasional similarity), you'll be okay if you look at it as a movie featuring a huge dinosaur-looking monster instead of the actual Godzilla.

Final Rating: **