Godzilla II: King Of The Monsters (2019)

The Low-Down: With Marvel raking in the cash and plaudits after creating the world’s most epic cinematic universe, every studio that can thread movies together – however tenuously – is hopping on the bandwagon. And so we have Godzilla II: King Of The Monsters: the third installment in Legendary Pictures’ MonsterVerse, following Godzilla (2014) and Kong: Skull Island (2017). It’s easily the most ambitious film yet, uniting several classic critters straight out of Godzilla lore and finding pretty much any excuse to have them fight one another. The final result is both bold and bonkers – good and bad, often in the very same moment.

The Story: Monsters break stuff, including people. It’s a fact of life that the broken Russell family must deal with after Godzilla’s epic battle leaves downtown San Francisco in ruins. Grieving and newly sober, Mark (Kyle Chandler) stalks wolf packs in another part of the world. Emma (Vera Farmiga), his ex-wife, continues to work on the Orca, a machine they created together that can emit soundwaves capable of calming or infuriating Godzilla-scale monsters. Madison (Millie Bobby Brown), their precocious daughter, is caught in between – especially when Emma’s decision to use the Orca sets off a chain of monstrous events that could lead to the end of the world as we know it.

The Good: The concept at the heart of Godzilla II, quite frankly, is off-the-wall wacky – so bold and audacious and weird that you have to give director/co-screenwriter Michael Dougherty some credit for effort, even if his execution of it is somewhat lacklustre. This is no mere story of monsters raining mayhem down upon mankind. Instead, the film moves its mythology quite firmly into the realm of faith; Godzilla, the film suggests, is as much god as monster. It’s actually quite remarkable to see a mainstream blockbuster movie embrace – rather than shy away from – religious iconography, folding in theologies and environmental philosophies from Greek myth to Thanos. As such, Godzilla and his arch-nemesis, King Ghidorah (a three-headed Hydra-esque dragon beast), aren’t just having their version of a bar-room brawl – their earth-shaking clash is a battle for the survival of humanity.

The Not-So-Good: It’s a shame that the film as a whole can’t keep up with its high-concept ideas. The writing ranges from inspired to insipid, with character motivations dancing ridiculously back and forth – dictated mostly by the rather demented plot. As a director, Dougherty exhibited some skill with subversive comedy in cult horror flick Krampus, but very little of that is evident here. It’s not just about sacrificing soul for scale – Dougherty occasionally struggles with telling such a massive story in visual terms. Some of the film’s action sequences are so choppy as to be downright confusing. It doesn’t help that Dougherty’s preferred aesthetic tends towards the grey and grim, which makes it even harder to figure out just what is going on while monsters are duking it out in frustratingly murky lighting.

The Monster Mash: The first Godzilla film in the franchise suffered for shoving its titular monster into the background, having him play second fiddle to human characters who weren’t all that well-written to begin with. Godzilla II tries to rectify that, somewhat, by flinging so many monsters at the screen that you’d be almost glad to get back to the human drama after a while. Apart from Godzilla and Ghidorah, fans will be glad to see old-school Toho favourites like Mothra and Rodan in action too. (If they could actually see them, that is. Seriously – the monsters are beautifully rendered, but the bruise-toned lighting does them no favours.)

God(zilla)-Level Casting: If Dougherty learned one thing from his predecessor, Gareth Edwards, it’s the importance of casting a bunch of top-notch character actors in an otherwise barmy creature feature. Veteran performers like Oscar nominee Farmiga, West Wing alumnus Whitford and Charles Dance (that’s Tywin Lannister to you) reel off awkward exposition and pseudo-scientific claptrap (“bio-acoustics”, “the Oxygen Destroyer”) like it’s actual real human dialogue. It’s quite remarkable to see Friday Night Lights’ Coach Eric Taylor in action anti-hero mode, but Chandler – just as Bryan Cranston did in the 2014 film – brings an everyman weight to a character whose narrative arc is muddled, to say the least. The MVP here, though, is Brown. She brings to Madison the same soulful blend of toughness and tenderness that made her such a breakout star in Netflix’s Stranger Things.

Recommended? It depends. Godzilla II is a hot mess… but it’s a fascinating hot mess, and surprisingly fun to watch and even think about.

The Post (2017)

It’s an odd thing to say about a film set in 1971, but The Post is a movie that sits very firmly in the here and now. The battle royale at its heart – a face-off between the press and the President of the United States that’s almost half a century old – wouldn’t have felt quite as urgent or relevant just two years ago. The Post matters today, at this moment, because – at its very best – the film manages to tie past and present together in a way that will chill and thrill the spirit in equal measure. The power of its message makes it easier to overlook the ways in which The Post falters, from an occasional lack of nuance to its tendency to tell rather than show.

And what a lot of telling it does in its first half. We’re introduced – via copious amounts of exposition – to the film’s many puzzle pieces: Kay Graham (Meryl Streep), fretful widow trying to do right by her late father, husband and the newspaper she inherited from them; Ben Bradlee (Tom Hanks), her fiery editor-in-chief who’s desperate to take The Washington Post into the big leagues; and the Pentagon Papers, classified government documents that reveal just how much has been kept from the American public about the country’s decades-long involvement in the Vietnam War.

In the hands of a lesser director than Steven Spielberg, the first act of The Post would have been an interminable slog. It’s hard to conjure up tension when the narrative isn’t being very cooperative – which it isn’t, because, in reality, it was actually The New York Times that spent months cracking the biggest story of the year. For much of its first half, the film tries to find drama where there isn’t very much of it on hand. The most subterfuge we see is Ben’s decision to send an intern to infiltrate The Times to find out why his rival’s top reporter hasn’t published a story in months.

But Spielberg is nothing if not a master craftsman, and he uses the quieter moments at the start of the film to establish and explore character. We bear witness to the way in which Kay is routinely dismissed, as a person and a voice, by all the men who sit on the board of her own company. We laugh as Ben takes a stand against the White House, even on an issue as trivial as The Post being barred from reporting on the marriage of President Nixon’s daughter. We watch Kay and Ben interact – the former worrying about the bottom line, as the latter defends the paper’s headlines.

The film really comes alive when it shifts into higher gear about halfway through. Suddenly, it slips from amiable drama to heart-gripping thriller, as the big story finally comes to The Washington Post at a moment when the stakes for everyone involved couldn’t be higher. In the very same week that the newspaper is about to be listed on the New York Stock Exchange, assistant editor Ben Bagdikian (a terrific Bob Odenkirk) tracks down the source who leaked the Pentagon Papers. With The New York Times barred from further reporting by a court injunction, Kay must decide whether to defy the White House to publish – and risk irreparable damage to her family’s company and legacy.

At this point, The Post becomes an absolute thrill to watch. As The Post’s team of reporters – played by a stable of fine comedians and character actors like David Cross and Carrie Coon – struggle to pull their story into shape, Kay sits in the eye of a hurricane of men’s opinions: Ben urging her to publish on principle, as misogynistic board member Arthur Parsons (Bradley Whitford) and even trusted advisor Fritz Beebe (Tracy Letts) advise caution.

It’s a credit to Spielberg and his fantastic cast that they inject these defining moments with genuine doubt and suspense. Streep is marvellous, as always, radiating Kay’s worry and despair while also hiding her character’s quiet strength in plain sight. She’s so good that you can almost buy into a completely unsubtle scene – in which she descends the courtroom steps before a line of young girls gazing upon her with unvarnished adulation – that anoints Kay as a feminist hero. Hanks is similarly effective as a brash, principled newsman who takes the value of truth so much for granted that he needs to be reminded – especially in a lovely scene with his wife, Tony (Sarah Paulson) – that integrity does not come without its own incalculable costs.

Spielberg cleverly finds tension and hope, as well, in moments that no longer exist in this age of digital media, when just about anybody can toss words into the vast vacuum of the Internet. There is an almost hypnotic, hallowed magic to the sheer effort it used to take to tell the truth, which comes through clearly in the clatter of typewriters, the pressing of ideas into hot type, and the storm and churn of men and machines producing stories and newspapers that have the power to change the world.

Taken altogether, The Post works precisely because it is a film very much made for and about this time. It’s not perfect – you probably won’t be able to completely shake the feeling that the final screenplay was a draft or two away from greatness. But, at this peculiar, particular moment in history when the incumbent President of the United States regularly challenges the very fabric of reality through his Twitter feed, there is a raw, incisive power to this film that allows it to rise above its flaws. In this world, at this time, The Post – and its spirited defense of truth, integrity and accountability – matters.

Basically: At any other time, The Post might be considered a minor entry in Steven Spielberg’s filmography. Today, right now, it’s a story that will thrill, inspire and resonate – as it rightfully should.

Saving Mr. Banks (2013)

There are very few movies in the world that are so universally beloved and well-known that they can serve as the emotional undercurrent of another film. Mary Poppins is one of that handful: after all, who doesn’t have the fondest memories of the practically perfect Julie Andrews singing songs about spoonfuls of sugar; Dick Van Dyke dancing in his trademark, gloriously elastic way with animated penguins; and stern, career-minded Mr. George Banks loosening up and flying kites with his children?

Nominally, Saving Mr. Banks tells the behind-the-scenes story of how Walt Disney’s silver-screen incarnation of Mary Poppins came to be, swooping as it did into the imaginations of children across the world in the guise of magical songbird Andrews. Actually, John Lee Hancock’s film is a finely-crafted, if rather heavy-handed, character study that doubles as a meditation on family, fatherhood and the healing power of fiction.

For years, Pamela ‘P.L.’ Travers (Emma Thompson) has jealously guarded the rights to her Mary Poppins novels, refusing to bow to the considerable charms and exhortations of media mogul Walt Disney (Tom Hanks) – a man who always get what he wants. When she hits a rocky financial patch in 1961, she’s finally persuaded by her accountant to spend a fortnight in L.A. discussing the project. Once there, she terrorises Disney’s entire creative team – including screenwriter Don DaGradi (Bradley Whitford) and composer brothers Richard (Jason Schwartzman) and Robert Sherman (B.J. Novak) – with her demands.

The story, it would seem, naturally lacks narrative tension – of course Travers gives in at some point, in some fashion. The existence of Mary Poppins in its everlastingly sublime cinematic form – despite Travers’ strident and ruthlessly documented (via audio-tape) objections to script, score, animation and character design – is proof of that final surrender.

But Saving Mr. Banks makes up for the inevitability of its outcome with some outstanding character work, allowing the darker and lighter sides of both Travers and Disney to peek through the conflicting personas – one prickly, the other genial – that they present to the world.

In this regard, Saving Mr. Banks benefits enormously from the skill and talent of its two lead actors. As good ol’ Uncle Walt, Hanks radiates a genuine charm that comes intriguingly laced with a hint of Machiavellian menace. In his business-minded courtship of Travers, Disney seems to reveal something deeper and sadder about himself and his soul – only for that glimmer of heartfelt intimacy to vanish as quickly as it appears. Hanks is masterful in playing the sweetness and steel of this complicated, media-savvy man, a warts-and-all portrait that’s all the more surprising for the fact that this film was shot under the aegis of Disney’s own studio.

Thompson, meanwhile, is nothing short of spectacular. Onscreen (and, by all accounts, in real life), Travers is abrasive and utterly unsentimental, merrily insulting everyone who crosses her path with little care for their feelings or stature. Thompson breathes life into this difficult character, disappearing into the stern lines of Travers’ face and the strict cuts of her dresses (not to mention that unflatteringly tight perm). Most impressive of all is the way in which Thompson plays the chinks in Travers’ armour. She skilfully unveils years of guilt and regret in moments of quiet, unexpected vulnerability, all of which hint at the depths of soul and imagination that helped her dream up Mary Poppins in the first place.

It should go without saying that the scenes Hanks and Thompson share are the best in the film. When they meet, Saving Mr. Banks acts as a master-class in physics – irresistible force meets immovable object – and acting; together, they create fireworks both explosive and emotional. There are few scenes more delightful than the ones in which Travers flatly defies Disney’s flights of fancy (no red in the film!), or when Disney takes Travers for a ride (quite literally) in a personal tour of Disneyland.

Unfortunately, a substantial chunk of Saving Mr. Banks – necessitated by the script as its main narrative device – is preoccupied with unravelling Travers’ backstory and daddy issues. Far too frequently, the film cuts back to her yellow-washed childhood in Australia, where she – nicknamed ‘Ginty’ and played by the saucer-eyed Annie Rose Buckley – begins to realise that her sensitive dreamer of a dad (Colin Farrell) isn’t quite the hero she has always believed him to be. It’s not that this section of the film is bad, per se. In fact, it features a fine, heartbreaking performance from Farrell as a man who wildly loves his family but can’t resist the siren call of alcohol.

But the themes and ideas of these flashbacks are almost profoundly sentimental and hammered home in so blatant a fashion that one imagines Travers – whether the real or fictitious incarnation – would regard it with a furious disdain. As Travers herself grumbles in the film, when welcomed to L.A. by a roomful of Disney merchandise, the script could afford to “learn the art of subtlety”. For all that Thompson is excellent in the part, it’s sometimes tough to reconcile the open-hearted Ginty with the closed-up Travers. Hancock would have done better to trust Thompson to tell that story in the shifts and shadows of her enormously expressive eyes.

Nevertheless, Saving Mr. Banks powers through on the strength of its marvellous cast. Whitford, Schwartzman and Novak have great fun playing their reactions to Thompson’s Travers, ranging from exasperation to annoyance and, in one case, pure, unfettered anger. The unsung hero of the piece is Ralph (Paul Giamatti), Travers’ eternally upbeat chauffeur. For all that Disney tries to find his way to Travers’ heart, it’s Ralph who brings the audience there with him.

When it comes down to it, Saving Mr. Banks isn’t about who won in the battle between Disney and Travers. To keep her house and home, Travers pretty much knew from the start that she would have to sign the rights to her beloved magical nanny away. She went to L.A. to fight for the spirit of her story – for her Mr. Banks – and this is precisely what allows the film, buoyed by the undeniable magic of Disney’s final product, to take flight.

Basically: Thompson and Hanks lend magic to a slightly pedestrian script – the result is (mostly) supercalifragilistic… you know where this is going!

The Cabin In The Woods (2012)

I don’t do horror movies – it’s just not a genre I particularly enjoy, probably due to a traumatic weekend or twenty in my childhood when my elder brother (an afficionado of horror movies, the schlockier the better) used to lock us both into the television room as he gleefully rewatched his favourite slasher movies on a loop. So, as a rule, I never really seek out movies involving zombies, creepy basements, living dolls, dream monsters and the like, in which – as one of the hapless hunted – you survive longer the less blonde and more chaste you are. I do, however, make an effort to catch horror movies if it seems like they have something more to say than the typical slash-burn-crash-and-die gore-fest – I steeled myself to watch Let The Right One In (both versions!), for instance, and was duly rewarded for my bravery.

The same goes for The Cabin In The Woods – if it had been written by anyone except genre maestro Joss Whedon, most people (myself included) would have dismissed it out-of-hand as yet another movie soaked in blood, gore and a not-at-all-surprising lack of wit and intelligence. But because it was co-written by Whedon and Drew Goddard, his erstwhile collaborator on Buffy The Vampire Slayer and Angel, I took notice – as did a lot of critics who fell over themselves to praise Cabin as one of the smartest, worthiest examples of the genre to date. Allow me now to add myself to that host of unabashed fans of the film. I missed it in cinemas but finally caught it over the weekend, at the behest of all my siblings (who had each seen the movie at least twice), and I’m so glad I did.

Story-wise, every single review I’ve read has warned people to avoid spoilers as far as humanly possible before you watch the movie. On that count, I will heartily agree – the less you know about Cabin going in, the better. Suffice it to say that the film is populated with the bog-standard set of characters in any horror movie who live only to die, in as horrifying and blood-soaked a fashion as possible. So we meet ditzy blonde Jules (Anna Hutchinson), her jock boyfriend Curt (a pre-Thor Chris Hemsworth), and their friends – egghead Holden (Jesse Williams), pothead Marty (Fran Kranz) and good girl Dana (Kristen Connolly)… all of whom are heading up to Curt’s uncle’s titular cabin in the woods for a weekend of rest, relaxation… and oops, mayhem.

So far, so standard horror movie, right? Well, no, not really. The twist that serves double-duty as the premise of Cabin is ingenious, and you’ll find yourself impressed and entertained in a way you could never have expected from a mere slasher flick. As anyone who has followed Whedon and Goddard’s work on Buffy would know, you’re in for a great time as the writers cheerfully subvert and celebrate in equal measure the genre in which they’re operating. Yes, of course terrible, horrible, very bad things happen to the protagonists – they always do in movies of this kind – but I don’t think it’s too much of a spoiler to say that this film takes a far deeper, more insightful look at why these bad things happen, more so than any horror movie to date that has tried to explain the dark motives of its antagonist(s). The story is absolutely littered with tropes of the genre – gang heads into the dark cellar (NO! WHY!?), blonde girl traipses out into the woods to sex it up with her boyfriend (NO! WHY!?), the pothead character is the only one who seems to know what’s going on… it’s all been done before, but it’s never been done better.

Even if you guess the twist at the heart of Cabin fairly early on (and it actually comes clear pretty early in the film’s running time), the movie still has a great deal more to say. Most horror movies these days practically come with a guarantee that you’ll enjoy yourself as long as you check your brain and good taste at the door – well, Cabin encourages you to do the exact opposite. If the movie works for you as it did for me, you’ll find yourself asking questions about why the genre has continued to flourish as it has. It lends weight to the genre and, if you buy into its mythos, does the same for all the horror movies that have come before and will come after it. It even manages to sneak some religious symbolism in the back door when it waltzes cheekily by the choices the characters make and show us in appropriately gruesome fashion what fates they have thereby brought upon themselves.

If this entire review thus far has turned you off Cabin for, ironically, being too smart and cerebral for a horror movie, rest assured that Whedon and Goddard still cook up enough scares so you’ll find yourself watching the movie from behind your fingers or anything handy nearby, like a box of popcorn or a cushion. For a movie that so relentlessly unpicks and mocks the conventions to which it slavishly adheres, Cabin is packed with nasty jolts as effective as those you’ll get in any other fright-fest of a movie on release now.

My only criticism of the entire enterprise is that the gory, blood-soaked climax comes almost too easily and too conveniently – there wasn’t any other way, really, to achieve the outcome the writers needed to conclude their story, but it does deflate the story somewhat even as the film veers happily into nightmare territory. Nevertheless, I would contend that this is a small enough flaw as to be almost negligible. When it comes down to it, Cabin is an intelligent, quippy horror movie, functioning both as a creepy slasher flick and its smarter, self-deconstructing cousin. If for nothing else, the terrified child inside me will always be grateful for Cabin because it means I’ll never have to watch another horror movie again – it’s hard to imagine that anyone else will be able to top the audacity and brilliance of this one.

Basically: Game over. Whedon and Goddard have won, and the genre is unlikely to be this smart or self-reflexive ever again.