Grade: A Directed By: Ishirō Honda Release Date: November 3, 1954 Starring: Akihiko Hirata, Takashi Shimura, Akira Takarada, Momoko Kōchi, Godzilla Related Reviews: "Godzilla: King of the Monsters" (2019), "King Kong" (1933) If you happened to have read my review of Godzilla: King of the Monsters back in 2019, you may recall that I discussed in length that I have never been a huge fan of Godzilla, not because I don't like the franchise, but rather due to the fact that I simply haven't experienced enough of it to confidently say that I have a firm grasp on the ins and out of its history in order to fully appreciate it. Of course, I know many of the basics, like a number of Godzilla's friends and foes from Mothra to Rodan, and the fact that Godzilla, at least in his initial debut, was a post-WWII metaphor for nuclear power, but ask me to rattle off a list of the series’ best films from a run that has spanned three dozen features across almost seven decades and I'd be at a complete and utter loss.
With the arrival of Adam Wingard's Godzilla vs. Kong this week, however, the fourth film in Legendary Pictures' MonsterVerse that kicked off with 2014's Godzilla, I decided there was no better time than now to go back to where it all began for both of the marquee monsters. At first, of course, I started with the original King Kong, a film that felt more like a trip down memory lane as I've seen it a number of times, and then followed up with Ishirō Honda's Godzilla – or Gojira, more appropriately, if you're so inclined – which was, at least compared to Kong, a fresh experience for me, as, like most of the franchise's films that I have seen parts of, I'd never seen it in full from beginning to end. To be clear, I did not watch the American edit of the film, which was edited and released two years after the original's debut as Godzilla, King of the Monsters! (not to be confused with the 2019 film) and famously starred Raymond Burr via newly-shot footage that was inserted into the pre-existing version of the film. I've seen moments from that cut of the film in the past, but I could honestly tell you nothing more about it, and as such it will have no bearing on this review of Honda's film, which – and I will wholeheartedly admit – took me by surprise in the best of ways. Godzilla begins nearly a decade after the conclusion of World War II, with several sea-faring vessels being mysteriously destroyed off the coast of the fictional Japanese locale Oda Island, dozens of people losing their lives in the process, only for a major disaster to strike the island and destroy an entire village soon after. While many try to chalk it up to various things – mines, a volcano, a tsunami – the true cause behind the events is quickly revealed to be Godzilla, a 165-foot-tall radioactive dinosaur that has emerged from its underwater sanctuary, dislodged into the world above due to hydrogen bomb testing. As the creature continues to wreak havoc and unconventional means of destroying it fail, an even more alarming issue is raised: What greater horror than Godzilla must be unleashed upon the world if the monster’s reign of terror is to be brought to an end?
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Grade: A- Directed By: Merian C. Cooper and Ernest B. Schoedsack Release Date: April 7, 1933 Starring: Fay Wray, Robert Armstrong, Bruce Cabot, Kong "Ladies and gentlemen, I'm here tonight to tell you a very strange story... a story so strange that no one will believe it. But, ladies and gentlemen, seeing is believing. And we, my partners and I, have brought back the living proof of our adventure, an adventure in which twelve of our party met horrible death. And now, ladies and gentlemen, before I tell you any more, I'm going to show you the greatest thing your eyes have ever beheld. He was a king and a God in the world he knew, but now he comes to civilization, merely a captive, on show to gratify your curiosity. Ladies and gentlemen, look at Kong, the Eighth Wonder of the World!"
Nearly 90 years have passed since Carl Denham (Robert Armstrong) introduced an enraptured audience to the mighty King Kong, yet the passage of time has done little to diminish the ape's pop culture status. Though the titular beast lost his life by the end of his 1933 debut, his legacy has continued to live on over the last century in the form of a direct sequel, a number of remakes and reimaginings, theme park rides, video games, comic books, and so much more. He'll even be returning later this month – March of 2021, if you're reading this in the future! – in Adam Wingard's Godzilla vs. Kong. All this is to say that Kong has an everlasting appeal, both the character and film inspiring generations of creative minds and influencing countless creations that followed in their wake (see: Godzilla). The impact of Merian C. Cooper and Ernest B. Schoedsack's King Kong is so grand that it almost feels redundant to even try and review the film at this point, as it's been dissected and analyzed the world over for decades. However, with the impending release of Wingard's big monster mash-up on the horizon, I found myself eager to toss my hat into the ring of conversation anyway, to break down why, in my perspective, the film as a whole remains such a vital piece of cinema history despite how – for better or worse – age has affected some of its individual parts. Before I get started, though, as usual, a quick refresher on the plot: Filmmaker Carl Denham (Armstrong), seeking to shoot an incredible new project, has the crew of the S.S. Venture – spearheaded by Captain Englehorn (Frank Reicher) and his first mate Jack Driscoll (Bruce Cabot) – take him and his newly-discovered lead actress Ann Darrow (Fay Wray) to a mysterious island, tempted there by a strange map given to him and the allure of a mysterious being known only as Kong. Upon reaching the island and encountering its natives, however, Ann is kidnapped and given up as an offering to the very real, very dangerous Kong, who takes Ann with him into the heart of the island, with Denham, Driscoll, and others setting out after them in an attempt to rescue Ann. Grade: B Directed By: Colin Trevorrow Release Date: June 12, 2015 Starring: Chris Pratt, Bryce Dallas Howard, Vincent D'Onofrio On June 11, 1993, Jurassic Park changed my life. I was just three months shy of my fourth birthday, and my mother took me on opening day because it's all I talked about. I wasn't alive in 1977 to have my world changed by Star Wars, or in 1981 when Indiana Jones became a hero kids all over the world wanted to be. Those movies - and others - played a huge role in my childhood regardless, of course, but they weren't "mine" in the way that kids (and even adults) in '77 or '81 were able to claim by simply being there from the beginning to see them reshape pop culture and grow as a franchise. But in the summer of '93, I got "my" movie.
To say that Jurassic Park matters to me more than any other film would be an understatement. It instilled in me a passion for storytelling, for writing in the hopes that – one day – I could sweep even just one person away on an adventure in the way that this story did for me. As a film and as a franchise, I love it, warts and all, and I spent the next decade consuming everything about it. I devoured Michael Crichton's original book, as well as its 1996 sequel. I played almost every video game I could, whether it be Jurassic Park 2: The Chaos Continues on the original Game Boy, the before-its-time Trespasser on PC, or the addictive park builder that was Operation Genesis. I owned the soundtracks. I wrote stories set in this universe, dreaming of sequel possibilities. I spent time on fan sites in the early 2000s leading up to the release of Jurassic Park III in 2001 and after, though in the years that followed, the franchise dwindled away, as a fourth film went from a sure thing to a pipe dream. It took fourteen years for the series to spawn another entry, the result being, obviously, Jurassic World in 2015. That same year, the Star Wars franchise was making a much-anticipated comeback with The Force Awakens, something I - like the rest of the world - was awaiting with bated breath, but at the end of the day, my highest level of excitement was aimed squarely at the return of the franchise I'd spent nearly a decade and a half hoping to see brought back from extinction, hoping that relative newcomer Colin Trevorrow – tapped to direct with only one feature under his belt, 2012’s Safety Not Guaranteed – would deliver on years of expectation. Seeing it opening night was an overwhelming experience; my packed audience clapped and cheered, while my nostalgia amped up every second of the film, allowing me to get swept away simply because I'd waited so long just to step into this world again. I saw the film two more times in theaters, as well as a number of times since, and through those repeated viewings, I've been able to set my nostalgia aside and see Jurassic World for the imperfect beast it is. In the three years that have passed since its release, I've seen many people attempt to rewrite the film's overwhelming success as a fluke, painting the movie with such hyperbolic labels as "the worst blockbuster ever," and that's fascinating, one reason why – on the eve of the release of Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom – I've decided to dive back into the film and break it apart. Grade: A Directed By: Ron Underwood Release Date: January 19, 1990 Starring: Kevin Bacon, Fred Ward, Michael Gross, Finn Carter, Reba McEntire Where do I begin in talking about Tremors, the 1990 horror-comedy movie about giant, subterranean worm monsters called graboids terrorizing the quiet, barely-populated town of Perfection, Nevada? For starters, it's a movie that I've seen countless times throughout my life, and I have fond memories of many evenings watching it on the USA Network or The Sci-Fi Channel, spellbound by its goofy charm in a way that has ensured that it'll always have a special place in my heart. Yet for nearly three decades, I'd never had the pleasure of seeing it on the big screen, surrounded by other people; that is, until last week.
Now, before I get into both that experience and the movie proper, I have to acknowledge something straight out of the gate, which is the fact that Tremors, despite being almost thirty years old, launched an entire franchise that is still going to this day. In 1996, it received its first sequel, Tremors 2: Aftershocks, a direct-to-video film that I've seen just as many, if not more, times than its predecessor. It's an underrated and underappreciated gem, one that I'll hopefully cover on here one day, and the one-two punch of Tremors and Tremors 2 in the '90s ultimately gave way to Tremors 3: Back to Perfection in 2001, the short-lived Tremors: The Series in 2003, Tremors 4: The Legend Begins in 2004, and Tremors 5: Bloodlines in 2015. And that's still not the end of it, as another sequel, Tremors: A Cold Day in Hell, is arriving later this year, while a second TV series is being developed with Kevin Bacon set to lead, the actor returning to the franchise for the first time since appearing in the original film. It is, quite simply, stunning that the Tremors franchise has lasted this long, and though the subsequent films that followed Tremors 2 stumbled in quality, in my opinion, they've mostly gotten by purely on their charm, taking the original film's cue in being self-aware enough to not take the goofy premise at their core too seriously. I say all of this because it is important to note that outside of the first film, the Tremors franchise has been relegated entirely to the small screen, and when I had the opportunity to finally see Tremors on the big screen last week, I was pleasantly surprised that the house was nearly packed, with an audience turnout that was evenly balanced across all ages. Before the film even began, I was able to hear an elderly couple talking about how they had seen the film back when it had first been released, a woman my age excitedly telling her partner how she, like me, had grown up watching the Tremors movies on TV, and a father convincing his young children that they were going to have a blast. And throughout the course of the film, it was easy to see just how deeply Tremors has resonated with the people who came out to see it for the hundredth time and how effective it still is for people experiencing it for their first, as every well-placed joke had everyone laughing, every clever reveal garnered an audible "Oh, no!" from several people, and every big, crowd-pleasing moment, like the show-stopping rec room scene or the moment when we learn whether graboids can fly or not, earned applause. Retro Reviews are frequent looks back at films I've already seen to conclude whether or not they still hold up, taking into consideration both the time period and circumstances during which they were made and how they work in the modern day to offer a more in-depth exploration of the film itself than those found in my standard first-time reviews. Related Reviews: Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (2001), Chamber of Secrets (2002), Prisoner of Azkaban (2004) Retro Reviews are frequent looks back at films I've already seen to conclude whether or not they still hold up, taking into consideration both the time period and circumstances during which they were made and how they work in the modern day to offer a more in-depth exploration of the film itself than those found in my standard first-time reviews. Related Reviews: Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (2001), Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (2002) Grade: B Directed By: James Wan Release Date: October 29, 2004 Starring: Cary Elwes, Leigh Whannell, Tobin Bell, Danny Glover Two men - Cary Elwes' Dr. Lawrence Gordon and Leigh Whannell's Adam - wake up chained to opposite sides of a grimy bathroom with no memory of how they got there, only to discover that they're now part of a game designed by the mysterious Jigsaw Killer, a psychopath under the belief that he's teaching his victims to appreciate their lives by putting them in life-or-death scenarios. Under the gun of a ticking clock, the goals they are tasked with are simple: Adam's aim is merely to find a way to escape, while Dr. Gordon's is to kill Adam before time runs out or let his kidnapped wife and daughter die if he fails to do so. Such is the simple premise for James Wan's little horror film Saw, and I don't think anyone could've anticipated the pop culture phenomenon it went on to become when it was released back in 2004. Aside from spawning six sequels - with a seventh on the way next year, bringing the series back to the big screen for the first time since 2010 - it gifted horror fans with a new genre icon on par with Michael Myers, Jason Voorhees, and Freddy Krueger in Jigsaw, the series' devious mastermind. I have to admit off the bat that I have somewhat of a soft spot for the Saw franchise. I didn't see the original film until several months before the release of Saw III in 2006, but once I did, I immediately consumed Saw II in order to prep myself for III. After that, it became a yearly tradition among my friends and I to binge the entire series in anticipation of the next sequel. In many ways, the Saw franchise, with its tightly-knit narrative continuity and annual releases, was our modern day Friday the 13th or Nightmare on Elm Street series; that is, a yearly horror event to look forward to to see what would happen next with Jigsaw and all those caught up in his grand design. Though the series only became increasingly ridiculous the longer it went on, particularly in terms of the over-the-top traps most people undoubtedly associate with the franchise, I can't say I wasn't entertained for most of it. That said, my interest in the series still rests more with the earlier films, which often embraced the power of psychological tension more than the violence inherent in elaborate traps, a fact no better demonstrated than right here in the original installment. Retro Reviews are frequent looks back at films I've already seen to conclude whether or not they still hold up, taking into consideration both the time period and circumstances during which they were made and how they work in the modern day to offer a more in-depth exploration of the film itself than those found in my standard first-time reviews. Related Review: Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone Just a year after Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone hit theaters, Chamber of Secrets arrived, free of the burden of launching the film franchise. Sorcerer's Stone had a lot of ground to cover in introducing the Wizarding World to audiences, and thankfully it satisfied many book readers and appealed to many non-book readers to get the franchise started on footing that, while not entirely perfect, remained solid. In contrast to its predecessor, Chamber of Secrets is a much more confident film, one that immediately feels as comfortable with itself as the returning actors do slipping back into their characters. Harry's return to Hogwarts is just as welcoming for viewers as it is for the Boy Who Lived himself, and the film - just like the book - benefits from being able to hit the ground running now that so many core concepts are in place and characters are established. Whereas the first film had elements that were "scary," such as the very notion of Lord Voldemort's existence, the sense of danger was still very restrained, particularly when put up against some of the later films. Chamber is really the film that starts pushing the idea that there's more to fear in this world than Dark Wizards and that the existence of magic doesn't mean safety is a guarantee. It's not an overtly grim film by any means and (appropriately) doesn't deal in death yet, but it's a far more mature story than what came before, a natural next step along Harry's journey that starts to bridge the gap between the wide-eyed innocence of these younger years and the darker aspects of the ones that followed. Continuing along in my trip down memory lane with the films in advance of Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, I invite you to come along with me again as I reopen the Chamber of Secrets and sort out whether what's contained within still holds up nearly 14 years later. Let's find out! Retro Reviews are frequent looks back at films I've already seen to conclude whether or not they still hold up, taking into consideration both the time period and circumstances during which they were made and how they work in the modern day to offer a more in-depth exploration of the film itself than those found in my standard first-time reviews. It's hard to believe, but nearly 15 years have passed since the first Harry Potter film hit theaters in November of 2001. At the time, the anticipation for it was tremendous, with a staggering set of expectations set on its shoulders by fans the world over who'd spent the years since Harry's first adventure was published in 1997 falling in love with J. K. Rowling's incredibly accessible storytelling and endearing characters. It's a testament to the franchise's popularity that it has continued to endure. A decade after the first film released, fans said goodbye to the series by making the final film - the second half of Deathly Hallows - not just the highest grossing entry in the franchise but the highest grossing movie of the year. The stage production of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child - a canon sequel, of course - continues to draw in fans, as does the franchise's theme park presence at Universal Studios. Not to mention, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them is on its way to theaters in just a matter of weeks, the inevitable success of which will blow open the doors to further cinematic expansion of the Wizarding World for years and years to come. All this is to say that Harry Potter and everything that comes with him is important on both a grand cultural scale and on an individual basis, and I'm a part of that. I began reading the series in 1999, the year Prisoner of Azkaban was published, and haven't stopped since; not a year has gone by where I haven't revisited the books, and I'll continue to look forward to whatever's to come, whether it be for the characters who I grew up alongside or for the Wizarding World at large. In 2001, I - like everyone else - was looking forward to seeing the series brought to life on the big screen, and spent the next decade being both thrilled by and disappointed with the various film adaptations. In honor of the original film's 15th anniversary and our upcoming return to the Wizarding World via Fantastic Beasts, I'll be taking a look back at each film in the series to examine how they've held up, and I invite you to come along with me as I do. Retro Reviews are frequent looks back at films I've already seen to conclude whether or not they still hold up, taking into consideration both the time period and circumstances during which they were made and how they work in the modern day to offer a more in-depth exploration of the film itself than those found in my standard first-time reviews. |
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