Godzilla: King of the Monsters

I will be transparent and say that I have not seen every Kaiju movie there is related to all of these characters because that’s a crap ton of movies, but I know and have seen a fair share.  I’m partial to Mothra, because she’s the best there is, was, and ever will be. With that said, I have to get this out there. Godzilla? King of the Monsters my ass. How can you get whipped that many times in one movie and need to get bailed out three times? Mothra saved this weakling twice.  Kong is going to beat the breaks off him just wait and see.  Most kidding aside this was really enjoyable. You got everything you could want out of a Kaiju film. You got multiple monster fights and you got lots of destruction.  For all of those who complained about Godzilla (2014) not having enough Godzilla you cannot be mad at this one.  Godzilla, Mothra, Rodan, and Gidorah all had personality, which is more than I can say for a lot of the human contingent.  The movie only really suffers because of the humans. It’s not as egregious as say Transformers, but it’s noticeable. I think the biggest crime of this movie is the rationale of Vera Farmiga’s character. I just did not get the logic at all. It was nonsensical.  How does unleashing all of these monsters causing millions of people to die in any way honor the memory of your deceased child?    This movie accomplished something that I never thought was possible. I could not stand Vera Farmiga in this movie and I think that woman can do no wrong in anything.  The movie would have been better off if she was just a typical mad scientist with a God complex and nothing more. It’s a tired trope but I could have accepted it more readily.  Last, I know it’s a Godzilla movie, but I needed more Mothra. I was happy to get what I did, but still I wanted more.  Great watch and now the wait for Godzilla versus Kong is on!

Python (2000)

Who doesn’t love a good (I use that term loosely of course) creature feature?  Here is the time-tested tale of the mutated or highly evolved serpent wanted by the United States government but manages to get loose and invade a small town.  Heard this all before? Of course, you have. Seen this before on SyFy? More than likely.  Did that super snake summon its’ own stomach acid at will to spit on impending victims? More importantly did all of those other occasions have William Zabka? No, no they didn’t and that’s what separates this from the rest. Casper Van Diem and Robert Englund had top billing and this had been sitting on my shelf (yeah, that’s right I bought this) for years. Today I decided to give it a watch and I was not disappointed. Low budget creature features like this should know where their proverbial bread is buttered and this one did. Everything was here from your wackadoo scientist (guess who that was), your head strong military leader, your small-town a-hole cop abusing his power, and on and on.  A mix of over the top acting not to be outdone by an awful CGI snake made for a fun 90 minutes. William Zabka starts out as d#ck, but redeems himself with a lot of film left to go. The even better part of this movie were the false finishes.  This is easily one of those movies that’s so bad it’s actually good. The tell-tale sign, was me not asking myself is this over yet.  To my delight there is actually a sequel to this and I can only hope they can recreate the same magic, but I won’t hold my breath.

Thank Primus for Michael Bay?

Time can give perspective even for a fan(atic) of something. I am a Transformers fan and there are plenty more out there like me. This was our “thing” as a kid and never left us in adulthood. Fade maybe, but never left. When 2007 hit and Transformers was coming to the big screen it seemed all our dreams had come true. A live action Transformers film? Enter Michael Bay, the scourge (pun intended) of a franchise. In looking back, I did not outright hate the 2007 movie. Megatron, a plane? I can forgive. Him being a pistol was not practical. Devestator, not a combiner? Annoyance initiated. With each passing film it felt like 10 pounds of death in a 5-pound bag. My loathing of Michael Bay grew. It was obvious he didn’t give a rip about the source material or better yet continuity. Megs, dead in one movie, revived and reformatted as Galvatron the next, then back to Megatron with no explanation. Seems legit.  The amount of offenses is so vast Michael Bay should be sent to Garrus-9.

I’m not going to bash the movies (now) because it has been established that they’re awful with few bright spots.  I could say Michael Bay “ruined my childhood”, but please that’s nonsense. I am reversing field and thanking Michael Bay. I was a staunch G1 person and I’m talking Transformers ended after rebirth….initiallly. I did watch Beast Wars and Beast Machines as well. I knew about the Japanese trilogy, RID, and the Unicron trilogy, but never actually sought them out. This all changed after watching Revenge of the Fallen.  If it wasn’t for Michael Bay’s crimes against Cybertron led to a rebirth of my fandom. Finally getting Headmasters, Masterforce, and Victory gave me more context with characters and introduced me to new ones. With each passing craptacular Michael Bay movie I’ve only added to my fandom; collecting, searching for the show soundtracks, buying the games, watching RID (you know the new one where Bumblebee is the leader), and the IDW comics. Without these awful movies I would have never questioned if there was more than this as a Transformers fan and thankfully there was. Overlord, Star Saber, Dai Atlas, Tarn, the Jointrons, Whirl, Drift, a Wheelie that’s not annoying, the list goes on and on.  This abomination known as the Bayverse has served a larger purpose for me. Again I say thank you and we shall meet again Michael Bay for I am reborn.

 

Glass

In re-watching this recently I feel the exact same as when I left the theater. Hack, quack, SHAM. Oh, M. Night you sorry excuse for a creator. I watched this movie because I’m anal retentive and a “completionist”. For context I had no intention of ever submersing myself in this universe. I saw Split under duress, went back and watched Unbreakable, and mercifully (?) ending with Glass.  Poor choice of words, painfully ending with Glass. I don’t think M. Night SHAMylan is that good. He thinks he’s smarter than he actually is and wants so badly to be Alfred Hitchcock and insert himself in his films. Sixth Sense is without doubt one of the most overrated movies of all time and if you had any sense you would know what the alleged twist in the film is within the first 15 to25 minutes.

I digress, back to Glass. The fact that I had to see his face in the first 25 minutes agitated me to no end and it caused me to formulate a hypothesis of what this film would be and the last 25 minutes or so confirmed it.  I honestly do not know what’s worse; his pretentious delivery of explaining his film or the stroking of his ego for the last 20 minutes of this movie.  It is really unfortunate because I can concede that he actually built interesting main characters in Glass, Dunn, and Crumb but Shamylan’s seemingly unquenchable thirst to tell the audience how great he is causes him to defecate all over his own creation(s).  The sadder fact of the matter is this in my opinion was this was the best out this trilogy despite the fact that M. Night clearly thinks of himself as Mr. Glass; smart, cunning, misunderstood…..Etcetera.  Deep down I’m basing that on the potential this movie had with these three characters having their worlds collide.  The redeeming part of this movie was James McAvoy. He truly outdid himself.  With that said the only real villain is this charlatan of a film maker. Now that he’s done patting himself on the back maybe, just maybe he can go away for a longer period of time.

Bumblebee 2019

First and foremost, as someone who grew up on G1 one thing that I must say is that whether it’s the Bayverse or this Travis Knight version I will still never get fully used to Bumblebee being a legitimate threat as a warrior. It’s so difficult to remove that image of him getting a wheel blown off in the first 5 minutes of More Than Meets The Eye Part 1. Despite his movieverse, IDW, Transformers Prime, and Robots in Disguise iterations I just cannot stop thinking of him as borderline useless.

The first 5 minutes of this movie was worth the price of admission and worth the purchase of the blu ray. For the first time in a live action Transformers movie I was able to sit down and watch a sequence without an infestation of flesh creatures and it was great.  I was more satisfied with those five minutes than 5 previous Bayverse movies combined.  Everyone looking like their G1 selves? Battles where you can make out who is who and it’s not just a CGI metallic mess? Thank Primus. The nostalgia, the homages show that Travis Knight cares unlike that son of a glitch Michael Bay.

Those first 5 minutes put me in the mindset to give this film a chance and for what it was it didn’t disappoint. The human involvement and interaction were significantly less annoying than the other movies. Mercifully, the Charlie character had depth to her which was refreshing.  Still I could have done without all the attempts at humor, but it was far from bad comedy like with Sam.  For one off characters Dropkick and Shatter were fun.  They were deceptive, treacherous, and ruthless; all qualities a Decepticon should have.

With that said, this movie was far from perfect, but that’s ok.  Should the scout have been able to beat Shatter and Dropkick by himself? Not in my opinion. Could there have been one more Autobot to help out Bumblebee? I thought so (perhaps a throwaway character like Hubcap?) Were there plot holes? Yes, but to be fair as much as I love the G1 cartoon I would usually be left with numerous unanswered questions, but I didn’t care. Because we’ve been fed cosmic rust for 5 films I was refreshed with Bumblebee and for the most part didn’t care too much here.  I was able to shut my brain off a bit and just enjoy what I was watching unlike Bayverse films causing me to question what I’m watching at damn near every turn.  I obviously have no clue where this franchise is going to go but I will say I’m not opposed to a mixing and matching of continuities as long as it makes sense.  Speaking of; here’s my wishlist of things: 1) Ultra Magnus, 2) an IDW inspired Prowl, 3) plant seeds of faction(s)!, 4) make Decepticons harder to kill, and 5) to hell with Drift and give us Bludgeon.

My final thought here would be that whether you’re an OG fan like myself or you somehow liked the Bayverse I think this movie can be liked by both fan contingents.  Travis, my hat is off to you. We’ve achieved something.