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Two and a Half Men (2003)
Poor characters, poor plot, unfunny jokes...
I don't get how people find this popular. You have two brothers, one a narcissistic playboy who beds women like candy, and the other a scrubby freeloader/mama's boy. Rounding out the cast is a lump of a child (the scrub's son,) a housekeeper whose whole purpose is to snark, and whatever disposable piece of tail the playboy brings over. They all seem to hate each other, or love each other depending on the episode.
I wouldn't even call them characters as opposed to joke delivery vehicles. Characters need to grow and be likable, and none of these are, yes, including Charlie Sheen. Or even if they are unlikable, they need to be in a way that's hilarious. John Cleese in Fawlty Towers showed how this could work. But they never are, whether its the Sheen character chasing after some girl who is bad for him, ad nauseum, or it's the other brother hitting Sheen up for money in an oily, weaselly way. It's soulless crap, and one of the reasons I dislike the modern sitcom so much.
Even the theme song grates, because these are the unmanliest men you will meet, either overcompensating or being ineffectual. In fact, behind the laugh track is cynicism, a world full of unlikable people. I recommend passing on this.
Gojira vs. Supesugojira (1994)
Taking the worst aspects of the series in a single movie.
Give Godzilla a son, like panned movies Godzilla's revenge and Son of Godzilla? Check. He doesn't talk, but he has big goofy eyes reminding a person of the baby on the TV series Dinosaurs, and is the more jarring due to the realistic designs in the later movies.
Give Godzilla an badly designed opponent who doesn't make much internal sense, like Godzilla versus Megalon, or Godzilla versus the Smog Monster? Check. Space Godzilla is Godzilla with crystal shoulder pads and tusks, and flies through space in a crystal form. He has no real presence or consistency in motivation or attacks.
Give Godzilla a robot "sidekick" as badly made as Jet Jaguar? Check. Mogera is a homage to the Mysterians, but is poorly articulated, easily beaten, and forces us to deal with an especially annoying crew.
Have an idiotic human cast? Oh god, yes. The character Yuki is so idiotic as to be beyond belief, and the movie backs him. He befriends baby Godzilla, lays gas mines for big Godzilla, and spends most of the movie wanting to kill Godzilla with a laughably tiny weapon containing a blood coagulant. This is Godzilla, who walks through molten lava and is an H-bomb with feet. There are two other crew members who are just as bad.
You could look at it as a throwback to the campy,experimental films I listed above, but it tries to be serious, and with the bigger budget and better effects doesn't work well at all. If you are a completionist you should watch it, but it's one of the weaker G-films.
Gojira vs. Mosura (1992)
Battra makes the film watchable
A three way wrestling match between Godzilla, Mothra, and newcomer Battra, who is a mean, evil, spiky version of Mothra. The plot honestly is stupid. We have a gratuitous opening aping Indiana Jones, and Mothra's egg getting captured by some industrialist. There's a lot of retconning-Mothra's fairies are now called the Kosmos, and Mothra seems to be more the spirit of humanity than a deity on a specific island, who holds in check the deity of the earth, Battra. Meanwhile Godzilla wakes up, and gets in the middle of things yet again.
To be honest it's a lot of gibberish, even for a Godzilla film. What matters are the battles, and this is a mixed bag. Godzilla is fine, but Mothra looks incredibly cheap, almost toy-like, whenever its shown. Battra steals the show from both of them by being almost hilariously mean and angry in action. Where as larva Mothra spins silk, larva Battra fires lasers(!), goes toe to toe with Godzilla ending in another hilarious underwater battle which shows that Battra takes no nonsense from anyone. Another funny moment is in the usual transformation. Mothra spins a cocoon, and slowly changes to adult Mothra. Battra changes into adult Battra by sheer force of will, and proceeds to chase Mothra around like a large dog chases a small cat. Mean Battra is incredibly entertaining, but it's not to last.
For some reason, Mothra and Battra join forces to stop Godzilla, and defeat him in a manner aping Mecha-King Ghidorah's efforts in a previous film. People are happy, Godzilla is KO'ed at the sea bottom yet again, and so on. Honestly, if this weren't for Battra it's be unwatchable, but he makes it fun enough to tolerate.
Gojira tai Mosura tai Mekagojira: Tôkyô S.O.S. (2003)
Typical plot, but saved by some good directing.
Godzilla: Tokyo S.O.S takes place shortly after Godzilla against Mechagodzilla, with MechaG still being repaired from the last battle. As they do, the twin fairy goddesses of Mothra appear to, in a nice touch, the person who helped them in the original Mothra movie in the sixties. "People made a weapon out of the bones of Godzilla. That was a mistake." They say, and then warn them that unless MechaG, who uses the skeleton and DNA of the first Godzilla, is dumped into the sea Mothra will declare war on the human race.
It's a nice start, but the middle is somewhat dull, as we follow the man's relative,who is one of the mechanics of MechaG. Millennium-series Godzilla films tend to have a very formulaic plot: person in military has issues, Godzilla appears, military tries to fight him off with the help of other monsters, they win. Person resolves their issues. This doesn't break the trend, and honestly you'll wish they just dropped the mechanic altogether at times.
What saves it is some very nice direction. Tokyo S.O.S. has some striking shots for a Godzilla movie. Mothra, outside on a mountain as the snow falls, MechaG ducking behind a building to fire its missiles at Godzilla, who retaliates by firing his breath through it. Mu favorite is just a simple long shot of mechaG with all three white heron craft hovering overhead, staring down Godzilla.
The designs are also nice. The White Heron craft and MechaG are nicely made, and this version of Mothra seems much better than in other movies, like Mothra and Godzilla: the battle for earth. The battle is okay, but like in Godzilla against Mechagodzilla, Godzilla is a bit too immobile and nonreactive. Though he is better here than in that film. That sense of polish is why I rate it a 7 rather than a 5, as apart from it, it really is an average Godzilla film unlikely to convert anyone into being a G-Fan.
The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension (1984)
Quirky doesn't always mean good.
Some cult films are cult because they tackle different subjects than normal films, or they have an oddball perception or style, or because despite their low-budget status, they strive for and even achieve a level of greatness. The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai is quirky, but its too random, disjointed, and unfunny to be worth watching.
I get the sense they wanted to take Doc Savage and modernize him, fusing 30s style pulp fiction with 80s cinema in the way Raiders of the Lost Ark did for movie serials. And on paper, it sounds like it would be very cool. But it just doesn't work at all, and you have to see the film really to understand why.
Stoic scientific badass main character? Played by Peter Weller like he's near comatose.
His backup band/posse in the Hong Kong Cavaliers? Not only are they lifeless to the point of being only identifiable by clothing (zoot suit guy, latino cowboy, cowboy.) they don't really do anything cool. They get upstaged by a child actor, for heaven's sake.
Love interest? The film is better when she is offscreen. Worst backstory in the history of love interests, too.
Set design and effects? Bland except for when they rip off David Cronenberg.
Humor? None, except for John Lithgow trying desperately to add life to it by making his villain character over the top. What's scary about this film is how many name actors are in it, yet how lifeless they are.
It's a career low point for Jeff Goldblum too, who spends most of the film in a red-ryderish bright red us calvary officer top and a huge pair of bushy chaps. If you want to see quirky done right, Terrorvision and Six String Samurai achieve what this film desperately wants to. It's a bore otherwise.
The Tomorrow People (1973)
Original themes but zero-budget production values
The Tomorrow People is an unusual series about the next evolution of humanity. Children are being born with the abilities of telekinesis, teleportation, and telepathy, and call themselves Tomorrow People. They cannot kill anyone, and hide their abilities from the saps (homo sapiens, the normals) while getting drawn into adventures by aliens and time travelers determined to exploit their abilities.
It's a startling and refreshing take on kids shows at the time. The Tomorrow People are fully aware of what they are when they "break out" and gain control of their powers, and are aided by Tim, their biological computer. It's very much like a kid's version of Doctor Who but with less horror and nihilism. Good performances from the cast of children actors help as well.
There are problems though. The budget and production values are bad even for seventies television, most noticeable in any monster or spaceship shots. There's a weird homoeroticism to it as well, most noticeable in the story arc "The Medusa Strain" with a bit part from Star Wars actor David Prowse as a loincloth wearing android. Many of the early arcs are split among four or more episodes which lead to a lot of padding and wasted time.
The stories are still oriented towards a kids audience, so adults may find themselves wishing for more depth. While the plots are still fresh the show is dated fairly heavily now, and a lot of the impact is lost since many kids shows cover SF themes. Still, for those of us that watched it as kids on Nickelodeon in the late seventies/eighties, it was a mind-expanding experience, right down to the psychedelic opening sequence. Worth a rental if you like British SF or want to remember it if you watched again, but there are too many flaws to make it a classic.