A Big Ape, An Island, And Disgusting Monsters

I originally had my doubts about extensively reviving the Toho cinematic universe. With all those monsters, I feared it would disintegrate into a cluttered, implausible (I mean, REALLY implausible) mess. If Kong: Skull Island (2017,  Legendary Entertainment and Warner Brothers, directed by Jordan Vogt Roberts) is any indication, I need not have worried.

I can’t say this about every movie that Toho distributed, but some of them had mind-capturing, enduring concepts.  I come across them every now and then when I’m spinning channels, get interested, and ultimately end up disappointed by the special effects. But… oh, those concepts. That’s why I started watching the Legendary/Warner Brothers franchise. To date, the special effects have delivered, and the stories are interesting. I like the re-imagined take which pays homage to the original movies while adapting the plots and themes more to the expectations of a modern audience.

I like the background explanation of monsters living deep in the oceans and in earth’s crust, where they can feed on radiation. In this light, this latest iteration of the giant ape provides a backstory in a period piece format.  We get glimpses of World War II and Viet Nam war imagery mixed in with the Kaiju format, and I found the combination kind of refreshing.

The cast is very good, including Tom Hiddleston, Brie Larson, John C. Reilly…

… John Goodman as an underfunded leader of MONARCH in its early days…

… and Samuel L. Jackson in his own Heart of Darkness cinematic turn.

But the character interactions and the characters themselves provide a backdrop for Kong and other assorted monsters, some of which are absolutely disgusting. The latter are given some scenes to match their nature. Mostly, however, the visuals were innovative, fun, and “realistic”.

I thought the plot was good for a film in this genre, but I’ll forego giving a synopsis… Wait. You say you want one anyway? Oh, okay. Here:

By the way, he’s still growing…

Despite the success of the Marvel and Jurassic Park franchises (which I love, by the way) this has the potential to become my favorite (for strictly personal reasons). At any rate, it is a cinematic universe which this 64-year-old fifth grade boy looks forward to exploring.

 

 

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.

Mythical Movie Monsters: Just A Few Of My Old Friends

 

A scene from the film Creature From the Black Lagoon, with the monster “The Gill Man” (played by Ben Chapman) emerging from the murky waters onto a log.

When I was in elementary school, I got into trouble for drawing dinosaurs instead of doing my assignments. In case I haven’t made this clear, it happened more than once and over a number of years. Some years ago, I decided to begin feeding my inner ten-year-old and come out of denial. My love of monsters and monster movies never went away. It just needed more contemporary special effects to reawaken it.

I grew up on classics such as King Kong (1933)…

… Godzilla (1954)…

… The Creature from the Black Lagoon (1954)…

… and Them (also 1954: obviously a very good year).

It should come as no surprise that one of the features that attracted me to mythology at a young age was the inclusion of monsters and other fantastic beasts in the stories. That’s my somewhat weak line of justification for opening Mythical Movie Monsters as a new category on this site. These movie monsters are the stuff of modern, fabricated myths if you’re willing to stretch the definition a bit. Every now and then, I will indulge myself by posting about my childhood fantasies grown older. Stay tuned if you like spectacular visuals, stomping, roaring, and lots of teeth.