A pair of big screen spectacles by octogenarian directors that I’m pleased to have been able to see on the big screen.
Category: Movies
Takashi Yamasaki’s turn at rebooting Toho’s most famous radioactive lizard son takes the new tack of having Godzilla menace a Japan that’s freshly on the mend after its catastrophic loss in World War II. As I was just telling my dad, there’s something of all the early ’80s movies American filmmakers made that were about going back and winning Vietnam to it, only this movie is actually good; Godzilla in this film is so blatantly an avatar of nuclear annihilation that a Japanese populous who JUST had to deal with that in the actual historical record can now, with a can-do attitude and a bit of science (and what little military power the American occupiers will allow), actually swing back ’round and take down. I love that it gives you a monster attack right off the bat, in the prologue that introduces you to our protagonist: kamikaze deserter Koichi Shikishima (Ryunosuke Kamiki), whose self-loathing only grows when he finds himself one of two survivors of an attack by a pre-nuclear testing version of the big G. I also still love this ongoing trend of finding new, slightly different ways of doing the along-the-spines buildup towards Godzilla firing his atomic breath, and how what had become just another tool in his arsenal has become an EVENT. Interesting that the two theatrical Godzilla flicks Toho’s made since the Legendary/Warner Bros. series began have both been very different takes on the original “Japan Vs. Godzilla” formula as opposed to the later “Godzilla, protector of Japan, versus whatever new nonsense monster we have going on this week” model; I’m here for either one, but I do think it’s a lot easier to care about the story going on around all the devastation set pieces — here, Shikishima’s all-encompassing case of survivor’s guilt, driving every action he makes through the whole of the movie — in the earlier mode, where Godzilla is the disaster instead of the solution. A superb monster flick with engrossing drama and top flight effects; I was stunned it’s playing here in town, and would encourage anyone with a soft spot for movies where monsters flatten Tokyo get out there and give it a watch.
I hate to dismiss other folks’ opinions out of hand, but I can’t shake the feeling that the people hating on this flick are reviewing something that’s not actually the movie on the screen. Like, they got annoyed with one or two other Marvel Studios pictures in the last couple of years and are carrying that into this one, or they’ve internalized that “oh no, trouble at Marvel!” Variety article that was going around a week or two ago. What’s on the screen is a fun and touching story of bonding and regrets, making up for mistakes and lost time, with a first-rate cast and some truly terrific action.
Oh, and cats. Lots and lots of cats.
It takes a while to feel like a new year is finally happening — that, oh, right, we’re into this year. And sadly, I think the arrival of the first big, shiny, corporate IP tentpole flick is one of those signs that the year has finally arrived. Now, of course, I do love me some corporate IP-driven entertainment, but there’s a continuum these things ride, with one end being “this is film-shaped content,” with all the negative connotations that cursed word brings, and the other being, “oh wow, some poor fools poured their soul into this thing they don’t own.” Having just gotten a Marvel flick that fits more-or-less into the latter category, I guess — and yes, I suppose I’m tipping my hand here — the former was due.
DRAGON BALL SUPER: SUPER HERO is everything I wanted from a new Dragon Ball anime in 2022. The series’s star rivals Son Goku and Vegeta are sidelined for the duration, allowing other members of the long-running franchise’s super-powered roster of martial arts defenders to shine: primarily, former would-be world conqueror and present day babysitter Piccolo and his ex-pupil, former world savior and present day harried scholar Son Gohan, whose three year old daughter Piccolo has spent an AWFUL lot of time looking after. The story concerns the revival of the long-beaten Bond villain-esque organization the Red Ribbon Army; its current leader, Magenta, has decided they need a trump card, and the man to craft it for them is Dr. Hedo, the grandson of long-dead Dr. Gero. Gero’s crowning abomination, the living biological weapon Cell, was obliterated by reluctant hero Gohan when he was just a boy in one of the series’s more spectacular climaxes and Magenta wants an improved version of the monster. But with Magenta having convinced Hedo that Goku and his friends constitute a rival organization seeking to rule the world, what the Red Ribbons first wind up with are the superheroic androids Gamma 1 & 2. Smart use of the series history, using the fact that, oh yeah, Piccolo WAS once a well-known supervillain to give these androids, who are programmed to think themselves champions of justice, a solid initial target; by the same token, the fact that Piccolo’s “the smart one” among our present-day protagonists means once he’s thought to be out of the picture, he’s able to sneak into the Red Ribbons’ compound and pull together a plan to take them down, hopefully for good this time. Probably incomprehensible to anyone not up on the series’s lore (or, at the very least, they won’t have the same level of investment), but for aficionados, a funny, exciting good time that does shamelessly play on our memories of Gohan and the rest’s battles with the Androids and Cell, but in such spectacular fashion that I really didn’t care. Tetsuro Kodama’s film (from a script by Dragon Ball creator Akira Toriyama) is the first Dragon Ball animation to be entirely 3D rendered, and in the early going it’s very IN YOUR FACE about it, opening a swooping and swaying view of the world from the eyes of one of Hedo’s insect drones — but as the film goes on it settles into a more typical groove stylistically; the action is furious and flashy, new powers cool and slickly designed. I think the only weak spot is the fake Hans Zimmer score; it works in the moment, but god, as I was waiting for the post-credit scene, the repetition of the core theme got a little obnoxious. Overall, though, I came away just thrilled to bits that 2022’s entry in the Dragon Ball anime franchise was a fun throwback to my favorite part of the Dragon Ball Z story starring probably my favorite franchise heroes that ALSO added some fun new bits to the ongoing universe.