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2C | LAWRENCE JOURNAL-WORLD | SUNDAY, MAY 18, 2014
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Jon Ralston, features editor, 832-7189, @jonralston, jralston@ljworld.com
‘Godzilla’ does a mean monster mash
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hat kind of a movie would waste the talents of Oscar nominees Sally Hawkins, David Strathairn, Ken Watanabe and Juliette Binoche? A “Godzilla” movie, that’s what kind. Another way to look at it is that “Godzilla,” the newest reboot of a franchise that started in Japan in 1954, didn’t waste these fine actors’ talents at all, but rather used their formidable reputations and screen presence to “class up” a genre that’s become synonymous with kitsch. Sure, most of them aren’t doing much more than delivering a bunch of junk-science exposition, but they deliver it convincingly and without a hint of irony. The challenge for “Godzilla” director Gareth Edwards — the man who made the indie monster movie “Monsters” for $500,000 and did all the CGI effects himself on a laptop to save money — was to utilize the big studio budget to respect the tenets of the kaiju film, take the premise dead seriously, and create some actual awe-inspiring cinematic moments. Considering the limitations of the genre, I’d say he more than succeeded. Bryan Cranston sinks his teeth into what I’m calling the Richard Dreyfuss “Close Encounters of the Third Kind” role — the guy who knows something big and ominous is coming to the planet, and yet no one will listen to him. His name is Joe Brody (a nod to Chief
nominated screen legend Max Von Sydow, who as the evil Brewmeister Smith, says things like “What the stink are they doing in there?” My brother and I used to watch this movie as kids and “steamroll” each other. We’d wrap our arms around our chests and act out the scene where Bob and Doug get thrown in the Royal Canadian Institute for the Mentally Insane and are put in straitjackets. What can I say. I was 12. AP Photo/Warner Bros. Pictures ‘Strange Brew’ The movie remains a “Godzilla” At 8 p.m. Friday, seriously overlooked and Liberty Hall pays tribute underrated comedy, and to the 1983 comedy “The a product of a time when There are even a couBrody from “Jaws”?), and huge — and unstoppable. ple of bravura cinematic Adventures of Bob & fringe comedians had the first half of “Godzilla” To Godzilla, we are is a series of glimpses that insignificant, like insects. set pieces, like a thrilling Doug Mackenzie: Strange the opportunity to make low-budget studio picallude to a mythical back- We’re just tiny creatures skydiving sequence, shot Brew” (shortened on home video to “Strange with the smoking ruins tures and have complete story and build anticipainhabiting the Earth at Brew”), one of the most of a city below. Alexancreative freedom. tion. this point in time. He’s bizarre, meta movies of dre Desplat’s score is Some clever misdirec- been here much, much — Eric Melin is the editorits decade. Using Shakealso a standout, creating tion from screenwriters longer and sees a bigger in-chief of Scene-Stealers and speare’s “Hamlet” as a dread and menace with Max Borenstein and Dapicture — literally. on-air film critic for KCTV5. unsettling string arrange- template, writer/direcvid Callaham toys with This concept comes tor/stars Rick Moranis ments, and punctuating an audience that’s waitacross naturally from and Dave Thomas bring the shocking moments ing with baited breath for the plot mechanics, but LIBERTY HALL CINEMA their beer-loving Canadiwith big bursts of brass the Godzilla reveal. But Edwards strengthens it FOR SHOW TIMES AND MORE INFO PLEASE VISIT WWW.LIBERTYHALL.NET and taiko drums that play an brothers from “SCTV” Edwards is in full Spielvisually as well, framing (R) 93min berg mode, alternating every shot of the monster like a darker take on clas- to the big screen with a LeWeek-End FRI-SUN (LT) 4:20 9:05 / (MT) 1:30 7:05 level of absurdity that sic ‘50s sci-fi/horror. between monster teases with scale in mind. We MON (LT) 4:20 9:05 / (MT) 1:30 rivals Monty Python and To pay tribute to the and a straightforward see Godzilla through a TUE (LT) 4:20 9:05 WED (LT) 4:20 9:05 / (MT) 1:30 7:05 “Blazing Saddles.” legacy of “Godzilla” story about a military car or bus window, over THU (LT) 4:20 9:05 Bias alert: I have seen lieutenant (a bland Aaron the shoulder of a human, without completely reTheGrandBudapestHotel (R) 99min this film probably 100 Taylor-Johnson) returnfrom a bridge, and every inventing it, one must FRI-SUN (LT) 1:45 6:45 / (MT) 4:00 9:20 times. have a certain amount ing home to his family. other perspective you MON (LT) 1:45 6:45 / (MT) 4:00 9:45 TUE (LT) 1:45 6:45 I have almost every of humans frantically This foreboding aura can think of. WED (LT) 1:45 6:45 / (MT) 4:00 9:20 scrambling to wrap their line memorized, even finally manifests itself, In “Pacific Rim,” when THU (LT) 1:45 6:45 LT = Little Theater / MT = Main Theater the expositional dialogue and what Edwards and a giant machine fights a gi- heads around the giant 644 MASS ST For accesibility LAWRENCE, KS 66044 from supporting characcinematographer Seamus ant monster in the middle monster phenomenon info call MOVIE LINE - 749.1912 785.749.1972 ters — especially Oscarand shouting clunky McGarvey are so good of the ocean, there’s no at doing throughout all reference point to reinforce the hugeness of the of the giant monster objects. But when Godzilla scenes is keeping them emerges from the ocean in perspective. For the and there are people in the CGI Godzilla to be truly foreground on a bridge jaw-dropping, a sense of watching his giant iconic scale has to be present fins go by right in front at all times. To us, this of their eyes, you feel the towering dinosaur-like creature’s size. beast is unfathomably dialogue. But Edwards has cast his reboot well, and does a fantastic job of building suspense and preying on the audience’s apprehension. Once the monster appears, it delivers on virtually every level. Driving around after the screening, it was impossible not to visualize a giant monster towering above and tearing through the Kansas City skyline as if it were trash on a floor. Mission accomplished.
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