#71: EBIRAH: HORROR OF THE DEEP

 

STARRING: Akira Takarada, Kumi Mizuno, Chotaro Togin, Hideo Sunazuka, Haruo Nakajima and Hiroshi Sekita. Screenplay by Shinichi Sekizawa. Special effects by Sadamasa Arikawa. Directed by Jun Fukuda. Originally released in 1966. Running time 86 minutes.

This is was the first Godzilla film I ever saw, when it was shown way back in 1982 on Channel Four back when it showed eclectic movies. I'd been a fan of Godzilla for far longer, ever since I'd seen pictures in my various Octopus published books about science fiction and horror films, but this was the first time I got to see him in action and boy what a treat!

The story sees five random people drawn to a remote and mysterious island somewhere in the South Pacific, each with their own reasons, for one it's the chance to look for his lost at sea big brother, for another, an attempt to hide out following a successful bank heist, for another to escape a press-ganged slave gang, while the last two are just lug-headed friends who somehow got drawn into the whole crazy adventure. When the first four arrive on the island they find themselves hunted by a super-secret society hellbent on destroying the world and preparing to unleash atomic armageddon on an unsuspecting world. It turns out the island is the secret base of an environmental terrorist gang called: The Red Bamboo. As luck would have it again, the island just so happens to be the bedroom of Godzilla who's currently kipping under a mountain. Meanwhile off the coast lives a giant red lobster called Ebirah, who just so happens to be the Horror of the Deep and he's controlled by the Red Bamboo who use a special yellow liquid to keep it under control. Anyway, things lead to other things and before you can say, 'Oops, that wasn't very smart' Godzilla has been awoken and all hells broken loose, all culminating in the greatest film trope of all times, the activation of a self destruct mechanism that's going to sink the island, while Godzilla goes toe to claw with Ebirah. And that's before Mothra turns up late in the third act.  

What follows is 86 minutes of pure delight, an utterly guileless romp that's not ashamed for one second to be pure pantomine one second, brutal monster smackdowns the next, with elements of James Bond thrown in for good measure, and a jungle-based adventure romp! And when Godzilla and Ebirah finally get together for the first of their two massive battles the screen positively bounces from the sight of these humungous leviathans dishing out the smackdowns. The scale of the island and the ocean works well with the beasties and helps to sell the conceit perfectly. And the final utter annihilation of the island through atomic explosion in the climax is a sight to behold.

This utterly cemented my love of all things Godzilla when I first saw it all those years ago and watching it again 44 years later up on a big screen was a treat I never thought I'd get to enjoy. What an utter joyess experience, from the outrageously bonkers script and over exaggerated acting, to the peerless man-in-a-rubber-suit special effects and beautiful model work, and the bat-shit bonkers tonal shifts in story, pacing and action. Featuring four Kaiju monsters, an army of gun-crazy goons, an evil secret organisation hell-bent on destroying the world with home-made atomic weapons and the added pleasure of the Cosmo Twins, this was an utter and wonderful delight from beginning to end and I loved every single sodding second of it. 

The phrase 'They don't make films like that anymore' could not be any more truer and this film proves without a shadow of a doubt that when a man has become bored of watching another man in a rubber suit destroying scale models of cities of secret bases he is bored with life.

I love, love, loved this wonderful little film and simply cannot fault it. A note-perfect gem of a movie that should be seen on the big screen whenever possible. 

Godzilla thy name is perfection. 10/10

70: PREDATOR: BADLANDS

 

STARRING: Elle Fanning and Dimitrius Schuster-Koloamatangi. Screenplay by Patrick Aison, story by Patrick Aison and Dan Trachtenberg. Directed by Dan Trachtenberg. Budget $105 million. Running time 107 minutes. 

Well, that was a surprise. Who would have thought that the 7th entry in a series that wasn't needed should have been so goddam enjoyable. Hell, I'm not embarrassed to say that I bloody enjoyed this quite a bit. Finally, an attempt to do something different with the Predator franchise, very much like the last outing, Predator Prey. This new dollop of Predator mayhem doesn't drop popular lines from the mother-source, like: 'Get to the chopper', or 'Stick around.', or repeat popular visual tropes, instead it just tries to come up with something different and as a result is quite arguably the fourth best Predator film. Although that said, it's not exactly a high bar. And I'm including both AVP films and excluding the animated TV show.

PREDATOR (1987)
PREDATOR 2 (1990)
PREDATOR:PREY (2022)
PREDATOR: BADLANDS 
AVP (2004)
PREDATORS (2010)
THE PREDATOR (2018)
AVP 2: REQUIEM (2007)

The story sees our hero Predator, Dek (Dimitrius Schuster-Koloamatangi) cast out of his clan by his father cos he's the runt of the litter. To earn honour and respect he sets out to the planet Genna  aka 'Death Planet' there to kill the legendary Kalisk, a seemingly unstoppable apex predator who's been known to eat Predators, or Yautja as they're known in this film, for breakfast. Crash landing on Genna, Dek is quickly robbed of all his high tech weaponery and very nearly eaten by every single thing on the planet. As luck would have it, Dek stumbles across the top half of a torn-in-two Weylan-Yutani Corporation android called Thia (Elle Fanning). Dek and Thia form a partnership and set out to kill the Kalisk. Along the way the unlikely duo become a trio when they befriend a bug-eyed alien critter Thia nicknames Bud, and together they set off on a quest to kill the beastie. So far so Jabberwocky. Meanwhile Thia's old bestie, Tessa (also Fanning) who's also a Weyland-Yutani cyborg has been ordered to capture the Kalisk and she too sets out on a quest, which will bring her in direct conflict with her synthetic sister. And that's sort of the plot. 

What follows is a thoroughly enjoyable and action packed little sci-fi pic. With great effects both practical and CG and some lovely makeup. The film has a heart and the relationship between Dek and Thia gives the film it's heart and soul. There's something quite endearing about their banter and slowly the Predator begins to see the benefit of, if not a friendship, then a union of sorts. This rips along at a fair pace and features some excellent action beats. The weird thing is this didn't have to be a Predator film, cos it's only Predator in name, Dek looks so different from the usual and has been softened to make him look more human. The relationship between not just him and her is strengthened by the arrival of Bud. And it won't take a rocket scientist to work out it's relationship to the big bad beastie. 

This builds to two great showdowns, one on Genna the other back on Yautja Prime and ends with the mother of all sequel bates, if you'll pardon the expression.

Went in hoping to hate this but was won over and found myself entirely satisfied by it. One of the few films from this year I intend to buy and own, which will bring my grand total of 2025 films to three.

8/10 

69: THE RUNNING MAN

 

STARRING: Glen Powell, William H.Macy, Lee Pace, Michael Cera, Emilia Jones, Daniel Ezra, Jayme Lawson, Sean Hayes, Colman Domingo and Josh Brolin. Written by Michael Bacall and Edgar Wright. Directed by Edgar Wright. Budget $130 million. Running time 133 minutes. 

How strange in the same week two films turn up both based on original films made in 1987 and in both cases the originals directed by Paul Michael Glazer and John McTiernan were vastly superior. Although, that said both of these films, this and Predator Badlands, on which more in the next review, ain't so bad. Although of the two, this one is by far the weakest and most forgettable. 

It sees Ben Richards (Glen Powell), the Running Man of the title sign up for a brutal TV show called The Running Man that sees contestants trying to survive on the run for 30 days while they're tracked down by five hunters and the entire population of these United States of America. Ben is a good father to a very poorly daughter, and whose wife is forced to work triple shifts in a hostess bar to make ends meet. Ben been blacklisted for caring too much about his co-workers and is convinced by Josh Brolin's Dan Killian to take part in the show. And so begins the running. It's obvious that Glen is being positioned as the next Tom Cruise, whom he resembles, even if his eyes are too close together, so it's no wonder we get to see how well he runs, and run well he does. From one over the top action scene to the next in an escalating series of encounters with the show's Hunters, lead by Lee Pace. All the time, Ben is portrayed to the baying audience is the villain of the piece with no compassion for the multitude of collateral damage he leaves in his wake.

However the longer he runs the more popular he becomes and although once hated he becomes the face of a growing ground swell of rebellion that threatens to bring the establishment to its knees in fiery retribution. 

And that's in really. It's good fun, it's more satirical than the original and the sense of growing rebellion works well. Also because it doesn't have to make its lead character a super-bad-ass action hero it feels a little more grounded. Along the way Ben runs into several characters who help him run and survive until the enviable final act showdown with Gillian on live TV. 

This doesn't quite nail the ending but it's entertaining enough, although it features almost none of the glorious visual flair that Edgar Wright is known for and is rather pedestrian to be honest. That said, Powell is entertaining as the lead, and so is Michael Cera who really seems to relish the role he's given.

All that said, this won't be round for long, making a dreadful $17 million in its opening weekend, so if you want to see this on the bigscreen don't leave it too long. 

7/10 

68: MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE III

 

STARRING: Tom Cruise, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Ving Rhames, Billy Crudup, Michelle Monaghan, Jonathan Rhys Meyers, Keri Russell, Maggie Q, Laurence Fishburne and Simon Pegg. Written by Alex Kurtzman, Roberto Orci and J.J. Abrams. Directed by J.J. Abrams. Originally released in 2006. Budget $150 million. Box office $398.5 million. Running time 126 minutes.

Super-agent Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise), now retired from active service, spends his days training future Impossible Mission agents and his evenings with his super-nurse fiancee Julia Meade (Michelle Monaghan). However when one of his favourite agents Lindsey Farris (Keri Russell) is abducted by super-baddy Owen Davian (Philip Seymour Hoffman) while on a mission, Ethan is coxed back into active service by his boss Declan Gormley (Billy Crudup) to lead a rescue mission and bring her back alive. 

Sadly Ethan fails and Lindsey is killed remotely by a tiny bomb hidden in her head, which in turns a series of events that will see Ethan run his little socks off across the globe, from Berlin to Rome, South Korea and China, to abduct Davian, capture something called the Rabbit's Foot, rescue his kidnapped super-nurse fiancee and clear his name and avoid Laurence Fishburne (I.M.F boss)'s army of 'not quite as good as Ethan' spies.

After the awfulness of Mission: Impossible II film, which had been directed into the ground by John Woo whose overuse of white doves, ludicrous motor cycle stunts and Dougray Scott really screwed the pouch, even if the film did become the highest grossing film of 2000 with a world wide gross of $546 million.

ANYWAY, I:M2, as it was known was shit and I hated it. This outing, however, I absolutely bloody loved! It's packed with superb stunts, great action beats, a tightly written and gripping script, and most importantly the best villain of the entire series in Owen Davian played with perfection by Philip Seymour Hoffman. If I had a quibble, and it's a minor one, then it would be Simon Pegg who sticks out like a dirty great big sore thumb. What bugs me mainly is that he goes on to appear in all of the following I:M outings and he's too much the comedy foil.

There are so many excellent action sequences in this film it's hard to pick a favourite, but the Florida Keys attack is outstanding, as is the brilliant Vatican extraction. Oh, and the attack on the disused Berlin factory is also great. Damn it, the whole film is knock-out!

I was lucky to see it on the big screen a couple of weeks ago but sadly it's gone already so if you didn't see it then maybe it'll come back, if it does go and track it down, it's damn fine!

10/10 



  

#67: ONE BATTLE AFTER ANOTHER - TAKE 2

 STARRING: Leonardo DiCaprio, Sean Penn, Benicio del Toro, Regina Hally, Teyana Taylor and Chase Infiniti. Written and directed by Paul Thomas Anderson. Budget $175 million. Running time 162 minutes.

When Willa Ferguson (Chase Infiniti) goes missing following a police raid on the night of her high school prom, her permanently stoned single-parent father and ex-revolutionary, Pat Calhoun (Leonardo DiCaprio) races off on a relentless search to rescue her from Colonel Lockjaw (Sean Penn) an obsessive, psychotic hard-core marine who's convinced that Willa is his daughter. With only Willa's sensei, Sergio St. Carlos (Benicio del Toro) to help him, Pat sets forth on a rescue mission whose outcome is anything but certain. 

Here's a link to the original review. 

https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/474873268835444248/3915445226366393064

Went to watch this again, before it disappears from our screens. It's often a very rewarding experience to rewatch a film you've enjoyed, sometimes you become aware of a film's flaws and faults and dramatically revise your original score, like Die Another Day when you realise, much to your shame, that rather than being a thrilling and fantastic spectacle worthy of a 9/10 it is in actuality a rather piss-poor, badly plotted, over-the-top, piece of crap worthy of probably a 7/10.

I should point out that for me, a 7/10 is a middling film. I realise that some of you might consider a 5/10 to be middling. But I think all films should aim for a 7/10 as their basic minimum score. 

ANYWAY. What of One Battle After Another? I took Petra who'd I'd tried to take when it first opened but she was reluctant, she seems to have taken against my film suggestions and so it took the combined might of her entire office telling her she should see it to finally make her agree to experience it. 

I was suprised how much of it I had forgotten, or how my brain had editorially broken it down and subtly restructured it. I was immediately stuck by the music, which starts before the opening credits and before the film proper has even begun, both the choice of classic rock and pop music tracks, and later the unsettling discordant strings are used throughout this are simply fantastic. 

The acting too is outstanding, that's across the board, it goes without saying for the likes of del Toro, Sean Penn and DiCaprio, who are acting royalty, but it's Chase Infiniti who deserves special attention. She is the real revelation, she holds our attention and her performance easily matches the three male leads, which considering this is her first film role is astonishing. I think the future is bright for her, I bloody hope so! 

The action throughout is superbly handled and the intense car chase in the final act is truly inspirational. Likewise, the humour is spot-on and although some critics have complained about the Christmas Adventurers Club I think it was perfect. At the end of the day, this film is a social commentary of the utterly corrupt and abhorrent Trump administration, and as such it nails it perfectly. 

The story, simply structured in nevertheless deeply engaging and the 162 minutes speed past and I was completely captivated. I simply can not fault it and watching it again made me realise this is quite possibly The Film of the Year, although you'll have to wait to the end of December to find out if it managed to  finally knock The Phoenician Scheme off the top spot. No spoilers.

Once again this scores a 10/10 from me, and from Petra, who loved every second. Maybe she'll start trusting me again, when it comes to film recommendations. 

#66: TRON ARES

STARRING: Jared Leto, Greta Lee, Evan Peters, Jodie Turner-Smith, Hasan Minhaj, Arturo Castro, Gillian Anderson and Jeff Bridges.  Story by David DiGilio and Jesse Wigutow. Screenplay by Jesse Wigutow. Directed by Joachim Rønning. Music by Nine Inch Nails (NIN). Budget $200 million. Running time 119 minutes.

So, 15 years have passed since Tron Legacy and in the present Jared Leto plays Ares – a programe who dreams of being human, imagine a digital Pinocchio who's also a one man killing machine. He's a program created by the Grandson of David Warner's Dillinger from the first Tron movie, and he's found a way to 3D print digital weapons and soldiers, but they only have a life span of 29 minutes. Meanwhile there's this scientist lady called Eve who's the owner of all of Kevin Flynn's, played by Jeff Bridges in the original, company and tech and she and Dillinger are mortal enemies. Anyway she finds this old Flynn code that will make all the 3-D printed stuff last indefinitely. Dillinger and his mum, played by Gillian Anderson want it, girl genius wants it and so does Ares. But when Ares escapes into the real world he teams up with genius girl, and Dillinger sends another digital warrior after Ares to get it back. And then there's this big chase and battle somewhere in an American city and Ares ends up in the original Tron world and chats with Jeff Bridges and then more stuff happens and it ends, with a post credit sequel bait sequence and there you have the synopsis for the most unnecessary sequel, since the three Star Wars prequels and sequels, the three Matrix ones and all the Terminator and Alien ones after the second. 

I left the cinema less than an hour ago and I'm desperate to get my thoughts down before I forget I've ever saw this. Interestingly enough the four other members of the audience for this film walked out after ten minutes, while I stayed to the very end and I'm rather glad i did, because I rather enjoyed it. 

Just make sure to switch your brain to neutral, disable your critical facilities, and lower your firewall and just enjoy the visual and audio spectacle because this was a mostly entertaining and exciting little romp that didn't outstay its welcome and didn't offer a world threatening global extinction event. Jared Leto, an actor I have very little enthusiasm for, did well and offered up a mostly reserved and likeable character in Ares, the effects all reds and blacks were very well done, but the highlight of the whole event was a return to the original world of Tron in a most unexpected way, I wish we could have stayed there longer, seeing the original light bike was a total delight and worth the admission price alone. The music by NIN is very good, powerful and raw and very much suited the visuals. The pacing is good, the direction won't win any Oscars but was very competent and there's a very funny bit about 1980s music which had me laughing. The great thing about being the only one in the audience is not only can you whoop and cheer with impunity, but you can also sit there in your underpants and string vest as if you were at home. 

The original Tron came out in 1982 and beyond its ground-breaking special effects had very little less to offer, the story was bog-standard and very Disney-esque. Tron Legacy arrived 28 years later and was an overblown affair mostly remembered for the terrible CGI de-aging of Jeff Bridges. This new sequel, which if it is to be believed has been in development since 2010 makes no effort to resolve the ending of the last film, which saw Sam Flynn and Kiora the female program drive off into the sunrise, or sunset, although their existence is hinted at in this and their possible involvement should there be another installment. That possibility seems very likely since for some inexplicable reason, despite their poor box-office returns, Hollywood just keeps on producing more Tron films. 

To sum up, this wasn't totally ch-TRON-ic, and it did sort of ARES-ise above expectations.

7/10

#65: GOLDENEYE

 

STARRING: Pierce Brosnan, Sean Bean, Izabella Scorupco, Famke Janssen, Joe Don Baker, Alan Cummings, Dame Judi Dench and Samatha Bond. Story by Michael France. Screenplay by Jeffrey Caine and Bruce Feirstein. Directed by Martin Campbell. Music by Eric Serra. Special effects by Derek Meddings. Running time 130 minutes. Budget $60 million. Boxoffice £356.4 million. Originally released in 1995.

And so it came to pass that after a six-year absence James Bond did return for his 17th cinematic outing, in the guise of Irish actor Pierce Brosnan. Featuring a new Miss Moneypenny, now played by Samatha Bond and a new female M played by the superlative Dame Judi Dench, this was the Bond franchise Rejuvenated and invigorated. It was also the first Bond film not be based, in any small part on the works of Ian Flemming, the first without Cubby Broccoli's involvement and with a new director replacing long-time stalwart John Glenn. It marked a new beginning for series and was the first to seriously try and update the whole template of Bond. There was a lot riding on this one and its success would herald a new era of Bond which would go on to see some of the best entries of the entire series and also some of the absolute worst. 

The story sees little Jimmy Bond going up against the Huge Janus crime syndicate run by Sean 'Bastard' Bean's in a post Soviet Union collapse (rather amusing in this day and age) he's got his hands on the Goldeneye EMP device and Jimmy's keen to get it back before his old work buddy Alec Trevelyan 006 can steal loads of stuff from his super-duper secret satellite dish complex in Cuba. Along for the ride and to be his reward for a job well done is Natalya Simonova (Izabella Scorupco), a Goldeneye computer game programmer. 

Actually, come to think about it, this film is very female-centric, what with Dench's M, Samantha Bond's Miss Moneypenny who's not tolerating any of Bond's leery innuendo, Trevelyan's henchwomen Xenia Onatopp (Famke Janssen) who gets sexually aroused by murder and killing and the aforementioned Natalya. See, strong female characters. 

Despite the reboot, this new Bond film still features many of the tropes that made the series so successful, the visit to Q Branch and its head Q (Desmond Llewelyn), the gun barrel, the iconic Bond March, the gadgets, guns and cars. 

And where as time seems to have been rather kind to Goldeneye, it's not a perfect film. The music by newbie to the series Eric Serra is, in a word, shit. Ghastly 'whaa-waa' twanged disco funk that sits badly with the action and makes you crave a good-old meaty John Barry score. 

I've not seen this up on the big screen since 1995 so it's a nice coincidence that the screening I saw just so happened to be the 30th anniversary of Goldeneye! What a nice surprise.  

This starts extremely well, with one of the best pre-credit sequences ever, that valiantly tries to out-do sublime The Spy Who Loved Me and fails. It introduces the new Bond perfectly even if Bronson doesn't quite feel comfortable in the role and he brings some lovely little tweaks to the mythos of Bond, the straightening of his tie, the way he pouts when peeved and some youthful energy. However he's also a rather seedy, tad creepy and rather predatory Bond and some of his innuendo schtick is rather icky. Martin Campbell, who directs, brings some much needed energy to the proceedings, and helped to kickstart this post-Berlin wall Bond. Special mention also to the special effects of Derek Medding and his crew. using models and practical effects, the film action set pieces are downright superb and some of the best of the series.

While this is definitely not my favourite Bond film, that honour belongs to The Spy Who Loved Me, Goldfinger and Casino Royale, this is my favourite Pierce Bronson Bond and it was an absolute treat to see it writ large on the silver screen again. 

8/10