Erecting Barriers (2)

The Great Wall (China Film Group, Legendary Entertainment, Universal Pictures) was a pretty good movie for its genre, but it wasn’t a great one. Were it not for the controversy surrounding this film, I would have devoted only one post to it. I did not have high expectations, but the longer I watched it, the more I began to appreciate and enjoy it for what it was.

First of all, it was a monster movie in a different kind of setting, which was intriguing at first presentation. So how did the monsters look? I certainly wouldn’t call their design iconic (like in Alien or Godzilla, for example), but they grew on me as I continued watching.

I didn’t like the design at first because I came into the movie with prior expectations. As I mentioned last week, this can interfere with our ability to appreciate something for what it is. It is easy to fall into the trap of criticizing something for what it isn’t trying to be.  The Nelson Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City has a fairly renowned Asian collection, and I have been there a number of times to see it. Using what I had seen there as a frame of reference helped me to recognize a quality in the creature designs that I initially missed.

The director, Zhang Yimou, re-imagined the Tao Tei from Chinese mythology, and this general approach is one that typically earns my respect unless it is poorly done. He also re-magined some 14th Century Chinese technological innovations. This, among other factors, made the Great Wall itself a kind of character in the plot, and the battle scenes on the parapets made for some spectacular visuals.

The use of aerial female warriors might not have made for the most tactical sense, especially in light of the casualties, but it allowed for some impressive stunt work utilizing stunt workers recruited from a regional temple.

It didn’t bother me that this movie sometimes lacked tight, Western plot logic because a lot of American movies also lack tight, Western plot logic.  It’s nice when it’s there, but this isn’t why I watch monster movies.

I liked some of the unusual visuals, such as looking down from hot air balloons upon a swarming horde of Tao Tei.

I also liked the plot device of the Nameless Order character played by Jing Tian having to provide some philosophical instruction to Matt Damon’s mercenary before he could get his full game on.

Even then, he couldn’t do it alone, and the Chinese characters did not seem forced into a subordinate role by the screenplay.

If you haven’t seen it, and if you can go into the experience with a relatively open mind, I’d at least recommend this one as a good rental.

 

Godzilla (2014)

In a monster movie of this scope, you get your first hints of how important the human characters are from the early exits of Juliette Binoche and Bryan Cranston and from the limited lines of Ken Watanabe and Sally Hawkins.

Oh, yeah – David Straithairn, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, and Elizabeth Olson are also in it.

It’s a good cast, but the real star is…

Godzilla (duh). It was produced by Legendary Entertainment and Warner Brothers and directed by Gareth Edwards. Let me say here that Edwards really gets his special effects right in all of the movies under his direction that I’ve seen. His visuals are realistic enough to make my mind race. Okay, monsters 350 feet tall aren’t realistic, but if they were, it’s not hard to imagine them looking like this. He does a good job of blending his CGI with real backgrounds and real foreground objects. He also makes good use of imperfect focus where needed. All of this keeps the CGI from looking too much like CGI.

So let’s get the negatives out of the way. Yes, the science is ridiculous. What did you expect? For me, the complaints that Godzilla wasn’t prominent enough in his own movie were greatly lessened with repeated viewings. Near the end, the time to get the nuke away from San Francisco is insufficient, but Christopher Nolan also made a similar mistake in The Dark Knight Rises. What do we watch monster movies for most: the plot logic or the imagery? The MUTOs (massive unidentified terrestrial organisms) that everyone complained about are actually pretty cool themselves, and the associated sound effects really work. This movie is just plain kid fun, and it does a good job of encapsulating and paying homage to past Toho movies while re-imagining the original concepts.

Okay, here’s a plot synopsis. A MUTO  hatches out of a type of chrysalis that scientists from MONARCH are studying, and then it escapes.

Another one comes back to life. Later, Godzilla appears, and there’s a HALO (high altitude low opening) drop which inserts some outmatched soldiers into the area.

Then, in a totally unexpected plot development (just kidding), there’s a big fight. This leads to what I considered the coolest sequence of the movie…

and…

goodbye.