Godzilla

Godzilla - Dir. Gareth Edwards (2014)

“The arrogance of men is thinking nature is in their control and not the other way around.”

He was an entire nation’s anxiety about Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and the atomic age distilled into one giant monster. His name was Gojira or Godzilla, as he is more commonly known. His debut film in 1954, released by Toho, spawned dozens of sequels, comic books, action figures, video games, and a host of knockoffs though only Gamera, created by Daiei, would come close to rivaling the big guy’s popularity. Though there’s a general awareness of Godzilla in the States, he doesn’t have the prolific presence he does in Japan. The original movie was released in the U.S. with American actors (such as Raymond Burr) edited in. There was an awful animated series from Hanna-Barbera, which featured the annoying presence of the ultra-cutesy Godzuki. Of course, nobody could forget the disastrous 1998 remake by Roland Emmerich, as much as we want to. So, the bar wasn’t set too high for the new 2014 attempt from Warner Brothers and Legendary Pictures.

Warner surprised Comic-Con attendees in 2012 with a specially made Godzilla teaser utilizing ominous voice-over by Robert Oppenheimer (“Now I am become death, the destroyer of worlds”). To direct, WB chose Gareth Edwards whose previous film, Monsters, was made on a budget of $500,000 with Edwards personally editing and creating visual effects on a laptop. Just how does he fare with a budget over 300 times bigger?

Godzilla starts promisingly enough with newsreel footage of bomb testing and redacted documents. From there, we’re taken to the Philippines in 1999 where scientists Ishiro Serizawa (Ken Watanabe) and Vivienne Graham (Sally Hawkins) are called to investigate a mining collapse. There, they discover a massive skeleton and two egg-shaped pods, one of which has just hatched. The creature, eventually dubbed a MUTO (Massive Unidentified Terrestrial Organism), makes its way to the Janjira nuclear power plant in Japan. The MUTO causes a violent earthquake as it feeds on the power. Plant supervisor Joe Brody (Bryan Cranston) orders an immediate evacuation, but is forced to watch his wife Sandra (Juliette Binoche) die while attempting to shut down the reactor.

In the present, Joe has become obsessed with the tragic accident that the government has written up as a natural disaster. His son, Ford (Aaron Taylor-Johnson), has tried to move on with his life. He’s a bomb disposal expert in the Navy with a beautiful wife Elle (Elizabeth Olsen) and a son named Sam (Carson Bolde). Ford is forced to fly to Japan when his dad is arrested for trespassing. Together, they break into the plant to retrieve research from their old home only to discover a research facility has been built around a cocoon.  A fully formed MUTO springs forth and Joe is killed in the resulting chaos. The other MUTO, a female kept at a repository outside Las Vegas, has also hatched with the two creatures looking to mate and breed. Their presence has awakened an alpha predator in Godzilla, who has slumbered deep beneath the ocean.

Edwards proves he is up for the daunting task of revamping Godzilla. Godzilla still remains relevant as a metaphor for the destructive power of Mother Nature thanks to the Fukushima meltdown, Hurricane Katrina, and the Indian Ocean tsunami, among other recent disasters. Spielberg is a clear influence on Edwards’ directorial choices (Ford Brody? C’mon!) as he teases and teases the ultimate reveal of the King of the Monsters almost to the point of frustration.  The first glimpses we see of Godzilla in the film are back spikes cutting through the Pacific Ocean and passing underneath naval ships. Just as Godzilla tussles with a MUTO, Edwards boldly cuts to news footage of the wrestling match of the century. When Edwards finally lets go of the reins, the action is everything you want from a monster movie. Godzilla whips a MUTO against a skyscraper with his tail and breathes atomic fire. And Godzilla’s eardrum shattering roar must be heard through an IMAX sound system. There are great beats throughout Godzilla, such as a chain reaction of explosions at a Honolulu airport or the sight of red smoke trailing a squad of paratroopers.

Godzilla stumbles when it comes to character development. The screenplay is credited to newcomer Max Borenstein, but featured rewrites from David S. Goyer, Drew Pearce, and Frank Darabont. This is a surprising fact given just how thin the characterizations are. Everyone is a standard archetype from the scientists and soldiers to Elizabeth Olsen as the wife worried for her husband’s safety. Olsen’s beautiful and expressive eyes are perfect to look up in fear at the mere sight of Godzilla. Yet, she’s wasted in the movie along with her fellow female cast members: Juliette Binoche, who’s barely in the thing, and Sally Hawkins, who’s only there to spout exposition. While the trailers make it appear that Bryan Cranston is the main protagonist, he’s merely a supporting character, which is a shame because his loony conspiracy theorist is one of the highlights. The lead goes to Aaron Taylor-Johnson, a fine actor playing one of the blandest heroes to date.

Godzilla starts off strong and packs a powerful third act, but everything in between is shaky. However, the film remains the type of pure spectacle you have come to expect from a summer blockbuster.

Rating: *** (*****)

Lincoln

Lincoln - Dir. Steven Spielberg (2012)

Lincoln opens with a Saving Private Ryan-esque scene of battlefield brutality. Men are impaled by bayonets and strangled in the muck and rainwater. From there, we cut to Daniel Day-Lewis as Abraham Lincoln seated as if he were the D.C. monument come to life. He’s addressed by two black soldiers, one of whom (Colman Domingo) looks up at him with awe. The other (David Oyelowo) is bluntly asking the President about equal pay for black and white troops. Two white soldiers (Lukas Haas and Dane DeHaan) arrive and, with great reverence, begin to recite the Gettysburg Address.  The scene feels lifted right out of a Frank Capra movie and it’s wise of Spielberg to get the mythologizing out of the way first.

President Lincoln is pressured to end the Civil War rather than focusing on the Emancipation Proclamation. Even his closest aides feel the issue will be dead upon arrival at the House of Representatives. Not everyone will be swayed by a heartfelt speech so a great deal of wrangling and backdoor deals is necessary. A trio of lobbyists (James Spader, John Hawkes, and Tim Blake Nelson) is dispatched to curry favor with opposition in the Democratic Party. This includes promises of jobs in the new administration or outright bribery. The House itself is a hotbed for filibustering and childish insults. Have politics really changed that much in the last two centuries? Kushner brings these sequences to life with a steady stream of Sorkin-like dialogue and a surprising amount of humor. Irony isn’t lost in the portrayal of Republicans as the more progressive and compassionate party. The vote for the Proclamation is the centerpiece of Lincoln and a textbook example of classic filmmaking. The outcome is already known, yet there is still palpable tension as each Representative is called upon to vote “Yay” or “Nay.” It’s also interesting to see everyday citizens traveling from far and wide to the White House to seek audience with the President.

Less effective is the delving into Lincoln’s personal life, particularly his rocky marriage to Mary Todd Lincoln (Sally Field). She has been left in a shaky mental state following the death of her son, Willie, at age 12. The scenes shared by Day-Lewis and Field are strong, but showy which means they’ll play well for the Academy voters. There’s also their eldest son, Robert (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), who feels a burning obligation to serve in the Union army, despite his father’s best attempts to keep him out of the war. While the presence of Gordon-Levitt is always appreciated, his part could have easily been cut from the film with little impact.

It speaks volumes for the A-list ensemble cast that Joseph Gordon-Levitt is one of its lesser components. The most noteworthy are Jared Harris as Gen. Ulysses S. Grant, Jackie Earle Haley as Confederate Vice-President Alexander Stephens, David Strathairn as Secretary of State William Seward, Gulliver McGrath from Dark Shadows as Tad Lincoln, and Lee Pace as Fernando Wood, the leader of the Democratic opposition. There’s also Hal Holbrook, Michael Stuhlbarg, Walt Goggins, Gloria Reuben, Bruce McGill, S. Epatha Merkerson, and Gregory Itzin. In this sea of talented performers, Tommy Lee Jones has gained the most notice for his performance as the fervent abolitionist Thaddeus Stevens. His views on racial and gender equality brought him no shortage of enemies in the Democratic Party. A Best Supporting Actor nomination is almost a lock for Jones though James Spader shouldn’t be forgotten as the oiliest of the lobbyists.

Lincoln hinges entirely on the performance of Daniel Day-Lewis who has effortlessly transformed himself yet again. You wonder if his method acting required him to actually travel back in time to shadow the real Lincoln. Physically, he is everything we imagine Abraham Lincoln to be: tall and lanky with the weathered face of a president hard at work. His soft-spoken manner belies the booming voice that many have portrayed him to possess.  His folksy sense of humor leads him to tell several homespun stories to amuse his staff during dire times.

Each shot is beautifully realized by Spielberg’s superb direction and the gorgeous cinematography of Janusz Kaminski whose work includes night scenes illuminated only by candle and the congressional floor backlit by hazy sunlight. The film is set to a score by John Williams that never drowns out the drama.

Lincoln is the film that Amistad should have been. It is Spielberg's best work since Munich and lacks the saccharine sentimentality that plagued War Horse.

Rating: *** ½ (*****)

The Bourne Legacy

The Bourne Legacy - Dir. Tony Gilroy (2012)

Continuing a franchise without its lead actor isn't always a wise choice, most of the time the decision yields nothing more than a forgettable piece of direct-to-video cinema. But, Universal is treating its Bourne series like gold since the original trilogy raked in close to a billion dollars in box office revenue. The studio kicked in a big budget and signed up an A-list cast to compensate for the loss of Matt Damon and Paul Greengrass.

Despite its troubled production, The Bourne Identity was a hit and updated the spy genre into a gritty, real world setting. The film's success certainly played a role in rebooting the Bond franchise since Die Another Day (which also came out in 2002) was derided for its overuse of CGI and silly contrivances like invisible cars. Neither Damon nor Greengrass were that keen on returning for a fourth picture so the directorial reins were given to Tony Gilroy, who co-wrote the script with his brother, Dan. Rather than rebooting the series or ignoring the events of the previous films, The Bourne Legacy is a side-quel that takes place simultaneous to The Bourne Ultimatum.

In case you missed it, Jason Bourne is running roughshod in Manhattan and threatening to expose Treadstone, a CIA black ops program involving illegal activities and assassinations. Retired Col. Eric Byer (Edward Norton) is the shadowy government official in charge of all the various cloak and dagger operations, including Treadstone's sister program, Operation Outcome. In order to protect themselves, Byer orders the elimination of Outcome's assets and anyone else who may have damaging knowledge. This leads us to one of their best and brightest, Aaron Cross (Jeremy Renner), who narrowly escapes a UAV while training in the Alaskan wilderness. Unlike the psychological manipulation of Treadstone, Outcome utilizes genetic engineering to gift its foot soldiers with enhanced abilities, both physical and mental. Think of a modern day Captain America with the side effect of requiring regular doses of pills (chems) to keep the enhancements permanent.

After losing his supply of chems, Cross seeks the aid of Dr. Marta Shearing (Rachel Weisz), who has also escaped an attempt on her life. One of her co-workers (Zeljko Ivanek) is given the Manchurian Candidate treatment and coldly guns down his colleagues with Dr. Shearing the only survivor. The globetrotting adventure cuts between the boardrooms and control centers of the CIA to the streets of Manila as Cross and Dr. Shearing search for the drugs our hero desperately needs.

Tony Gilroy has done a seamless job weaving The Bourne Legacy into the mythos that was previously created. Gilroy's directorial style is a meshing of Limon's and Greengrass's. Thankfully, Gilroy's shaky cam isn't as nauseating. The workplace shooting is one of the most effective sequences in the film. It would be chilling enough without the context of current events. The other action scenes are pulled off in gripping manner. The opener will recall The Grey as Cross evades a hungry wolf and a missile strike. Another tense set piece sees Cross rescuing Dr. Shearing in her remote home from a CIA kill squad. The most exciting and frenetic action is reserved for the third act as the protagonists run along the rooftops and crowded streets of the Philippines.

Gilroy falters in the actual story. Those who haven't seen the earlier Bourne films will be lost as much of the first act almost recaps the major plot points of Ultimatum in an effort to establish the timeline for Legacy. We get brief cameos from familiar faces like Scott Glenn, Joan Allen, David Strathairn, Albert Finney, and Corey Johnson while introducing new characters such as Norton's Col. Byer and Stacy Keach as the latest in a long line of gravelly voiced authoritarians. There is also a lot of exposition and techno-babble about the intricacies of Outcome. The script is at its weakest when attempting to sketch out the lead characters.

Jeremy Renner is more than capable of succeeding Matt Damon. He brings the same quiet intensity to the role of Aaron Cross as he did to his conflicted bomb diffuser in The Hurt Locker. Unfortunately, his motivations aren't as interesting as Jason Bourne's. Bourne was all about discovering his true identity and finding redemption when he learns he wasn't that nice of a guy, sort of a serious take on the Total Recall concept. Bourne is also concerned with bringing his puppet masters to justice. Here, Cross knows exactly who he is and is primarily occupied with self-preservation. He is motivated by finding more meds. In a take on Flowers for Algernon, we learn that Cross dreads what will happen should he lose his mental faculties. Before joining Outcome, his IQ was so low that his army recruiter had to fudge the numbers to meet minimum requirements. This is an intriguing twist that is never fully developed. The same can be said for Dr. Shearing. Rachel Weisz gives a strong performance, but the character is merely the damsel in distress. She's there to be rescued by the hero, then tagalong for the ride until they fall in love. The most fascinating element about Shearing is her participation in the grey area of human experimentation. She seems willfully ignorant about the sinister implications of her work. Again, this is glanced over. The relationship between Cross and Shearing actually isn't as interesting as the brief relationship between Cross and an unnamed Outcome agent played by Oscar Issac. The agent runs a safe house on the training grounds where Cross finds respite. Isaac is reticent about opening up to the talkative Cross and both men are constantly sizing up the other in subtle fashion.

The Bourne Legacy eventually fizzles to an anticlimactic conclusion that obviously leaves room for a Cross-led sequel while leaving the door open for Damon's return. Legacy just doesn't do enough to expand the mythology of the Bourne franchise and the results are an entirely conventional action pic.

Rating: ** ½ (*****)