Search
Andy K (10823 KP) rated Pacific Rim: Uprising (2018) in Movies
Sep 22, 2018 (Updated Sep 22, 2018)
Transformers XII
As long as you check your brain at the door you can't help but get swept up on the action. You definitely feel like you've seen most of this before from the first Pacific Rim, Transformers XXVII and/or the recent Kong or Godzilla films; however, I was entertained enough to recommend.
Finn and the other actors do the minimum to move the story along, but it's all about the destruction.
Finn and the other actors do the minimum to move the story along, but it's all about the destruction.
Awix (3310 KP) rated Gorgo (1961) in Movies
Feb 12, 2018
The poster tagline 'Like nothing you've ever seen before' is really pushing it a bit considering this British suitamation movie is composed almost entirely of bits from other, better-known films. Generations of British people have grown up believing they've seen a proper Godzilla film when in fact they were just exposed to this in their childhood. On the other hand, Eugene Lourie also directed The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms, one of the original Godzilla's main inspirations, so you could say he's just repeating himself rather than actually being derivative.
Soundly scripted with a decent twist and pretty good performances, and the devastation of London by Gorgo's mum in the final reel is well-staged. Persistent rumour suggests that a young John Carpenter made an unofficial sequel, Gorgo Vs Godzilla, but no-one seems to know for sure if this even exists - shame, as on the strength of this outing Gorgo and his mum had potential for their own series. Only really of interest to fans of vintage monster movies, but a distinctive and rather distinguished entry to this genre.
Soundly scripted with a decent twist and pretty good performances, and the devastation of London by Gorgo's mum in the final reel is well-staged. Persistent rumour suggests that a young John Carpenter made an unofficial sequel, Gorgo Vs Godzilla, but no-one seems to know for sure if this even exists - shame, as on the strength of this outing Gorgo and his mum had potential for their own series. Only really of interest to fans of vintage monster movies, but a distinctive and rather distinguished entry to this genre.
Daniel Boyd (1066 KP) rated Kong: Skull Island (2017) in Movies
Jul 26, 2017
CGI (1 more)
Cast
A Fresh Take On A Classic Character
This movie has been polarizing and I can see why. Some of the creative decisions taken seem odd and feel slightly out of place is a monster movie blockbuster and more as if they belong in an indie art movie. Although I thought that for the most part these decisions worked in the movie's favour. Also, one thing is for sure, it's better than the last Godzilla movie that we got.
LeftSideCut (3776 KP) rated Superman: Man of Tomorrow (2020) in Movies
Feb 27, 2021
After the first 15 minutes, I was convinced this was going to be 90 minutes of Clark Kent being a little bitch and being called 'kid' by everyone. Turns out it's actually 90 minutes of Superman, Lobo, Martian Manhunter, and a Godzilla sized Parasite smacking the shit out of each other, and it's pretty great.
Really nice animation, a decent voice cast, and an interesting alternative take on the early days of Superman's career. Not much to grumble about with this one.
Really nice animation, a decent voice cast, and an interesting alternative take on the early days of Superman's career. Not much to grumble about with this one.
Andy K (10823 KP) created a poll
May 1, 2019
David McK (3495 KP) rated Godzilla: King of the Monsters (2019) in Movies
Jun 16, 2019 (Updated Apr 24, 2023)
OK, I'll admit it: I have a soft spot for the 1998 Matthew Broderick version.
This has nothing to do with it, but is (rather) a continuation of 2014's Godzilla movie that 'kicked off' what I'm going to call the Monster-verse, which now consists of 3 movies: 2014s "Godzilla", 2017s actually-quite-enjoyable "Kong: Skull Island", and now this.
The connecting tissue? The organisation known as Monarch, which has secretly being studying the Titans (as they are called here) ever since the events of that movie (set during the Vietnam War, remember). Kong is mentioned a few times, and appears on a TV screen in the background, but is not a character in this film.
What anybody really wants out of a movie like this, of course, is to see the monsters fighting each other whole destroying all around, and - in that respect, at least, this movie does not disappoint. It's just a pity that the human element doesn't really connect, with some clumsy eco-message exposition, although it does have some nice-looking vignettes when viewed in isolation (King Ghidorah on top of a mountain, with a cross in the foreground, for example).
This has nothing to do with it, but is (rather) a continuation of 2014's Godzilla movie that 'kicked off' what I'm going to call the Monster-verse, which now consists of 3 movies: 2014s "Godzilla", 2017s actually-quite-enjoyable "Kong: Skull Island", and now this.
The connecting tissue? The organisation known as Monarch, which has secretly being studying the Titans (as they are called here) ever since the events of that movie (set during the Vietnam War, remember). Kong is mentioned a few times, and appears on a TV screen in the background, but is not a character in this film.
What anybody really wants out of a movie like this, of course, is to see the monsters fighting each other whole destroying all around, and - in that respect, at least, this movie does not disappoint. It's just a pity that the human element doesn't really connect, with some clumsy eco-message exposition, although it does have some nice-looking vignettes when viewed in isolation (King Ghidorah on top of a mountain, with a cross in the foreground, for example).
Movie Critics (823 KP) rated Kong: Skull Island (2017) in Movies
Apr 14, 2017
In the final days of the Vietnam War, secretive organisation Monarch secures government funding to lead an expedition to a recently discovered island in search of new species. And they find them. Boy, do they find them.
Critic Review By Jonathan Pile - Empire
Original Score: 3 out of 5
Excerpt:
Two films in to the MonsterVerse and it’s been a mixed start — both Godzilla and Kong: Skull Island fumbling the human characters, but nailing the kaiju. There’s potential, it’s just yet to be fully realised.
Full review: http://www.empireonline.com/movies/kong-skull-island/review/
Original Score: 3 out of 5
Excerpt:
Two films in to the MonsterVerse and it’s been a mixed start — both Godzilla and Kong: Skull Island fumbling the human characters, but nailing the kaiju. There’s potential, it’s just yet to be fully realised.
Full review: http://www.empireonline.com/movies/kong-skull-island/review/
Ande Thomas (69 KP) rated Godzilla: King of the Monsters (2019) in Movies
Jun 9, 2019
Characters (3 more)
Dialogue
Plot direction
Fight scenes
Sigh. I was so excited for this movie. Following both the 2014 Godzilla reboot and Kong: Skull Island, I thought for sure we were in for a truly great franchise that gets the source material. The first attempt wasn't perfect by any means, but I thought for sure that they could learn from it and tighten up the screws. They tightened all the wrong ones.
Dialogue was awful, fights were incoherent, and an emphasis on hero humans was mind numbing.
I wanted so much more. Do better.
Dialogue was awful, fights were incoherent, and an emphasis on hero humans was mind numbing.
I wanted so much more. Do better.
Ghidorah, the Three-Headed Monster (1964)
6.8
Rate It
Movie
The three-headed extraterrestrial dragon known as King Ghidorah hatches from a fallen meteorite,...
Sandai Kaijū: Chikyū Saidai no Kessen Three Giant Monsters: Earth's Greatest Battle Ghidrah Kaiju Tokusatsu Gojira
Lee (2222 KP) rated Godzilla: King of the Monsters (2019) in Movies
May 31, 2019 (Updated May 31, 2019)
Well, I liked it!
Before heading into Godzilla: King of the Monsters, I saw a lot of wildly mixed reviews online. People were either hating it or loving it, with nobody really feeling anything in-between. Even those cinema goers who were fully prepared for nothing more than a bunch of big monsters fighting alongside insignificant human bystanders were coming away from it fuming. Well, I’m happy to say that I’m putting myself firmly in the ‘loved it’ category, although I do understand and appreciate a lot of the issues that the haters have with it.
Since his appearance in the 2014 movie, and his involvement in the destruction of San Francisco, Godzilla has been keeping a fairly low profile beneath the ocean. He is now closely monitored by monster organisation Monarch, who were introduced to us previously, most notably in the movie Kong: Skull Island. They have a number of outposts dotted around the globe, where they are also tracking various other ‘titans’, most of which are lying dormant. Monarch is currently involved in a conflict with the military, who would rather see the titans wiped out than try and co-exist with them in the way our ancestors did.
In a Chinese outpost, we meet Dr Emma Russell (Vera Farmiga), who is working on a device called ORCA, something which will hopefully allow us to communicate with and control the titans. She’s there with daughter Madison (Millie Bobby Brown) as they test out ORCA on newly hatched titan larva Mothra. Emma’s estranged husband Mark (Kyle Chandler), who helped develop the ORCA device with her, is currently leading a much simpler life, photographing wolves out in the wild having completely distanced himself from Monarch and the titans.
Things start to go wrong though when eco-terrorist Jonah Alan (Charles Dance) kidnaps Emma and Madison, along with the ORCA device. He wants to use ORCA to wake up the remaining titans and there’s a lot of talk about cleansing the earth, restoring balance etc, something which continues to be the motivational theme throughout the movie.
Jonah and his team, with help from Emma, break free a three-headed monster called Ghidorah from within the Antarctic ice, and that’s when things really kick off. Ghidorah assumes the position of King of the Monsters and he and the other titans begin wreaking havoc on planet Earth. When word reaches Mark that his wife and daughter are in danger, not to mention the rest of the world, he returns to work with Monarch. Meanwhile, Godzilla has resurfaced and is en route to Ghidorah, looking for a fight. At the same time Mothra takes herself off to a waterfall, cocooning herself so that she can gloriously emerge a bit later on in the movie.
Godzilla takes a bit of a pounding from Ghidorah, sustaining some serious damage and leaving the fate of the world in jeopardy. But, the fact that the title of this movie declares Godzilla to be the King of Monsters, along with the promotional material for next years ‘Godzilla Vs Kong’ movie that has begun emerging online, should give you a pretty good idea as to whether or not he makes a comeback.
Unfortunately, a lot of the action takes place in murky, rainy darkness, which is disappointing considering all of the marketing artwork that depicts the monsters and their battles in bright, vibrant colour. At times, far too many quick cuts make things difficult to follow – zipping between the action, the destruction and the humans that are in danger because of it. Cutting to the human cast does help to give us a sense of scale and panic but, at this point, they’ve all just become a little irrelevant. A lot of time is spent early on in the movie, introducing us to a lot of characters, with even more to come later on, but the majority of them just have very little to do or be concerned about when the monster fighting begins.
On the flip-side to all of that though, there are more than enough occasions where we find a downtrodden and seriously pissed off Godzilla handing out a satisfying series of beatings to the pretenders to his throne. I became fully invested in the huge scale of it all and what was at stake for the world. Overall I just found the whole thing really enjoyable.
Since his appearance in the 2014 movie, and his involvement in the destruction of San Francisco, Godzilla has been keeping a fairly low profile beneath the ocean. He is now closely monitored by monster organisation Monarch, who were introduced to us previously, most notably in the movie Kong: Skull Island. They have a number of outposts dotted around the globe, where they are also tracking various other ‘titans’, most of which are lying dormant. Monarch is currently involved in a conflict with the military, who would rather see the titans wiped out than try and co-exist with them in the way our ancestors did.
In a Chinese outpost, we meet Dr Emma Russell (Vera Farmiga), who is working on a device called ORCA, something which will hopefully allow us to communicate with and control the titans. She’s there with daughter Madison (Millie Bobby Brown) as they test out ORCA on newly hatched titan larva Mothra. Emma’s estranged husband Mark (Kyle Chandler), who helped develop the ORCA device with her, is currently leading a much simpler life, photographing wolves out in the wild having completely distanced himself from Monarch and the titans.
Things start to go wrong though when eco-terrorist Jonah Alan (Charles Dance) kidnaps Emma and Madison, along with the ORCA device. He wants to use ORCA to wake up the remaining titans and there’s a lot of talk about cleansing the earth, restoring balance etc, something which continues to be the motivational theme throughout the movie.
Jonah and his team, with help from Emma, break free a three-headed monster called Ghidorah from within the Antarctic ice, and that’s when things really kick off. Ghidorah assumes the position of King of the Monsters and he and the other titans begin wreaking havoc on planet Earth. When word reaches Mark that his wife and daughter are in danger, not to mention the rest of the world, he returns to work with Monarch. Meanwhile, Godzilla has resurfaced and is en route to Ghidorah, looking for a fight. At the same time Mothra takes herself off to a waterfall, cocooning herself so that she can gloriously emerge a bit later on in the movie.
Godzilla takes a bit of a pounding from Ghidorah, sustaining some serious damage and leaving the fate of the world in jeopardy. But, the fact that the title of this movie declares Godzilla to be the King of Monsters, along with the promotional material for next years ‘Godzilla Vs Kong’ movie that has begun emerging online, should give you a pretty good idea as to whether or not he makes a comeback.
Unfortunately, a lot of the action takes place in murky, rainy darkness, which is disappointing considering all of the marketing artwork that depicts the monsters and their battles in bright, vibrant colour. At times, far too many quick cuts make things difficult to follow – zipping between the action, the destruction and the humans that are in danger because of it. Cutting to the human cast does help to give us a sense of scale and panic but, at this point, they’ve all just become a little irrelevant. A lot of time is spent early on in the movie, introducing us to a lot of characters, with even more to come later on, but the majority of them just have very little to do or be concerned about when the monster fighting begins.
On the flip-side to all of that though, there are more than enough occasions where we find a downtrodden and seriously pissed off Godzilla handing out a satisfying series of beatings to the pretenders to his throne. I became fully invested in the huge scale of it all and what was at stake for the world. Overall I just found the whole thing really enjoyable.