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alexconsalvos
Reviews
Godzilla (1998)
My Personal Review of "GODZILLA (1998)."
OK, let me just start of by saying this: I am NOT going to try to force others to feel the same way about this film as I do, NO. But I do have to be honest here and just come out and say it: I am seriously SICK AND TIRED of all of the negative hardcore Godzilla purist BULL HONKY that "Godzilla 1998" keeps getting! I mean, to simply say "I don't like this movie," state your valid reasons why (in a NICE and RESPECTABLE manner), and just leave it at that, I can honestly accept viewpoints like that. But what I can't accept are many hardcore Godzilla fans taking the TriStar film WAY to seriously, OVER-BLOWING their negative opinions on it to RIDICULOUS levels, and treating the movie like it shouldn't have existed. THAT I CANNOT except, and trashing a movie like this in that exact manner SERIOUSLY CANNOT BE.
OK, with that said, I just want to say that I am a true fan of "Godzilla 1998" and I always will be. NOBODY is going to force me to think of this film differently, NOBODY. Now do not get me wrong, I WAS familiar with the classic Toho Godzilla and I truly LOVE the original Big G and everything that has made him a cultural icon. I like to think of Roland Emmerich's 100% American take on Godzilla (which is what it's SUPPOSED to be in the first place)as a very fun, entertaining movie that has a well-executed plot/story that actually makes sense (for me at least), very well-developed human characters that are relate-able as real people and move the narrative along, and a creature that IS a very realistic depiction of Godzilla.
Now I've heard about the scientific inaccuracies related to this film, and I say that conventional scientific thinking DOES NOT APPLY AND IT'S NOT SUPPOSED TO APPLY. You see, in this movie, even though Godzilla (or "Zilla" as the film's creature is now called) is a mutated marine iguana, that's just what he is, a MUTANT. He's MUTATED. Conventional scientific knowledge and facts about real-life marine iguanas honestly DOESN'T APPLY because Godzilla (a.k.a. Zilla) is a MUTANT. His entire anatomy and body structure has adjusted to suit a very different lifestyle & diet. His reproductive system has also developed in a way it which it's SUPPOSED TO BE DIFFERENT from how most other reptiles reproduce. Plus, "Zilla" has to have SOME WAY of spreading his species, so the way the movie handles it makes sense. And by the way, about the dinosaurs in "Jurassic Park?" If you remember from that film, SOME of the dinosaurs TRANSFORMED THEIR GENDER AND BECAME MALES. In "Godzilla 1998," he has the ability to REPRODUCE ASEXUALLY, there's a difference between the two. Finally, the Baby Godzillas (a.k.a. Baby-Zillas) are NOT rip-offs of the "Jurassic Park" Velociraptors! They look EXACTLY like their parent, only in baby form, people! SHEESH!
Now I don't know about anyone else out there, but I believe the main reason for the negative bashing from both the hardcore Godzilla fans and the critics is that people keep comparing this to the Toho Godzilla series when really, "Godzilla 1998" SHOULDN'T be compared with the latter and I don't think it's supposed to be compared with the Toho films at all. This, to me, is a 100% American, alternate universe version of the same character of Godzilla. I repeat: A 100% American, ALTERNATE UNIVERSE VERSION OF THE SAME CHARACTER OF GODZILLA. That's how I see it, and there may be folks out there who see this in a similar fashion. It's NOT supposed to be compared to the Toho films at all because when Roland Emmerich and Dean Devlin set out to make "Godzilla 1998," they had it in their minds to give America IT'S OWN GODZILLA while keeping their version true to the original in some ways.
For example, "Zilla (I personally call him Godzilla, but that's just me)" does have a breath weapon. I really DON'T CARE NOR SHOULD IT REALLY MATTER what exactly comes out of his mouth. In my mind, as long as something deadly comes out of his mouth, then Godzilla USA has a breath weapon just like his Toho counterpart. Also, most conventional military weapons really DON'T do any thing to stop him; they just leave tiny scratches on his body. Not even submarine torpedoes could kill him! And even though "Zilla" didn't completely destroy all of New York, he truly DID DESTROY stuff in general (vehicles, villages, boats and a fishing ship). Finally, there are plates on "Zilla's" back just like his Japanese counterpart. Should it really matter what exact shape the plates are? I say 'NO, NOT REALLY' to that. Bottom line, if this film's creature has a breath weapon, is near-invincible, and has plates on his back, then he's good enough for me as GODZILLA.
Most others will disagree with me on this review, but that's truly OK. I really do respect other people's opinions on "Godzilla 1998" even though I don't agree with them. All I wanted to do here is put in my own personal two cents about this film. And while it's fan-base isn't nearly as big as the one surrounding the Toho series, TriStar's film IS loved & supported by a good number of people (myself included). And really, that makes me smile!
So in conclusion, I personally give "Godzilla 1998" 5 out of 5 stars in all conventional areas of film-making, cinematic storytelling, character & relationship development, and action & creature design/animation.
So this is me, signing off. Enjoy!
Congo (1995)
My Review of "Congo."
Here is my personal review of the 1995 science-fiction/adventure film "Congo," directed by Frank Marshall and produced by Kathleen Kennedy, based on the novel by "Jurassic Park" author Michael Crichton.
To start this off, I'll lay down the basic plot of the movie: TraviCom is a major electronics/telecommunications company based in Houston, Texas that sends an expedition to the Congo rain forest in Africa. The expedition's goal is to search for a deposit of extremely valuable, rare diamonds that, in the hands of TraviCom, will change the telecommunications industry overnight. However, SOMETHING slaughters the entire expedition party, and that includes the son of the company CEO that TraviCom employee Karen Ross loves. At the insistence of her boss, Karen Ross links up with Peter Elliot, a California primatetologist and his female gorilla, Amy (whom Peter has taught to paint and speak sign language with the help of an electronic glove).
Once the new expedition reaches Africa, they bring on board Monroe Kelly, a "great white hunter who happens to be black" and a Romanian philanthropist named Herkemer Homolka. The expedition faces its fare share of obstacles before finally reaching its destination; the fabled lost city of Zinj, home to the same rare diamonds that the first TraviCom expedition was looking for. Unfortunately for the protagonists, the city of Zinj is home to something deadly: genetically mutated carnivorous gray gorillas, created and trained by the ancient people of Zinj to guard the valuable diamonds. Once the gray gorillas make themselves known, the explorers learn that in the African Congo, YOU ARE THE ENDANGERED SPECIES! If you love Michael Crichton or any movie that takes place in the jungle, this is the movie for you! The story is a well-translated yet slightly different telling of Crichton's story. The characters are well-defined and the acting is on a scale of 1 to 10, a 7. The late special-effects wizard Stan Winston uses amazing, realistic costumes with animatronic masks to breathe life into the signing gorilla Amy and the terrifying gray gorillas. Amy herself is a great character brought to life by both Stan Winston's robotic ape mask and the suit performer who brought out Amy's signing skills out really well. All in all, I love this movie, and everyone who gave it a negative review needs to find a better line of work! Most of "Congo" is flawless with two exceptions. One: for a suspense movie, there were only a few scenes of pure suspense and mostly action. There needed to be more scenes of suspense (such as the gray gorillas picking off people without anyone else knowing or more scenes of pure quiet that could've suddenly exploded with a scare). Also, the origin story of the gray gorillas was merely brushed over and not explained in full. There needed to be a fully-detailed explanation of the gray's origins, such as clues throughout the city that would lead up to the discovery of their origins or an autopsy scene to determine what kind of ape they really were.
Besides those two flaws, the rest of "Congo" is pure Crichton, pure adventure, and pure fun. I highly recommend this movie to anyone who loves Crichton and good-old-fashioned jungle adventure stories.
Cool World (1992)
My Personal Review of "Cool World."
This is my review of director Ralph Bakshi's 1992 live action/animated film, "Cool World." In contrast to everyone else's opinions about this movie, I have to say that to me,"Cool World" is a half-good, half-bad film. There are elements in it that truly do rock, but there are other elements to it that truly do suck. One part about it that's awesome is the animation; sure it doesn't look 100% convincing combined with the live actors, sure there are WAY TOO MANY DOODLES that do absolutely NOTHING for the progression of the poorly-laid out plot, but I do think that all of the animated characters were drawn and colored really well, and the way they were animated is one of the good things other people DO praise this movie for because the hand-drawn visuals really do look great.
About Kim Basinger's performance as Holli Would; she did a pretty good job voicing her, I have to say that I was (and still am) impressed with how good Kim's voice-acting was. Yet, when she played the noid Holli,Kim really lagged. I think she was trying to portray how an animated character that's become flesh-and-blood behaves in trying to adjust to life in the real world, but when I watched the movie, the real-Holli performance out of Kim was not convincing at all. Gabriel Byrne's character of Jack Deebs was supposed to be THE main protagonist in the movie, but he was the least developed main character in the history of main characters in film. Brad Pitt (as Frank Harris) was the only actor out of the whole cast who truly DID act. He actually did a pretty good job at portraying this man whose life turned tragic (you'll have to see the beginning of the movie to know what I mean) and how the real world didn't feel real to him anymore, but Cool World did.
"Cool World" has so many great storytelling/plot elements to it that are either hardly ever explained in the film or just not explained at all. One of these full-of-holes plot elements that isn't explained in full are the mechanics as to how sex between a noid and a doodle ruptures the inter-dimensional fabric between Cool World and the real world (and how noids can spontaneously turn into doodles when both worlds collide). Another one is how the "Spike of Power" artifact really works as far as opening up a portal between both worlds and how it gives noids and doodles the ability to teleport back and forth between them. One more missing plot element: Jack Deebs's whole story. We know that he's been sent to prison for a crime of passion (again, see the movie to find out what I'm talking about), but that part right there could have been elaborated on more. And how exactly DID he get visions of Cool World in order to create a comic book series about it? How exactly was Holli repeatedly bringing Jack there and misleading him to thinking that he's getting visions/dreaming about Cool World? These things really need(ed) to be explained in full, NOT in pieces.
All in all, I don't think "Cool World" is a terrible movie at all. It is a good, entertaining movie, but one that's full of holes and only partially complete. Since I see things in this film that need to come out more as far as plot and character development. I seriously hope that there will be a remake of this film sometime in the (hopefully) not to distant future. A remake of a "bad" movie like "Cool World" (doesn't matter when exactly) can actually "save" the film so to speak by making the plot and characters of the original much, much better. For example, the 1986 fantasy film "Troll," directed by John Carl Buechler, opened to mostly negative critical response when it first came out, yet, Mr. Buechler IS remaking it for a theatrical release later in 2012. Another example is the 2003 live action "The Cat in the Hat," which got enormous negative response when it premiered. Now, the studio that made "The Lorax" is planning on doing a CGI remake of "The Cat in the Hat." And often, a remake of a "bad" movie fares a lot better (financially and critically) than the original. That is why "Cool World" is an excellent candidate for a remake because there are a lot of missing pieces to it that can be filled in, can be explained, the characters can still be developed in full, and that will make sense out of the story.