Ghost in the Shell - Movie Review

Starring Scarlett Johansson, Takeshi Kitano, Juliette Binoche, Michael Pitt, Pilou Asbaek, Chin Han and Danusia Samal.
Written by Jamie Moss, William Wheeler & Ehren Kruger.
Directed by Rupert Sanders.

★★

I remember liking the original, but it's been 20 years, so I didn't have that necessarily bouncing around in my mind the whole time. I couldn't recall much about the story beyond what the trailers already told us.

Scarlett Johansson is Major, a cyborg where her entire body is synthetic except for her brain. (This concept feels more close to being a reality than in it did just a couple decades ago.) Major is now used as a super-soldier to stop criminals and cyber-terrorists. But it winds up turning into a quest for her to discove her real identity.

For those going in fresh, this may bring Blade Runner quickly to mind. Although some of the characters' races have been changed, the setting is still downtown Tokyo. In fact, Takeshi Kitano plays the chief Aramaki, and he says all of his lines in Japanese while everyone else says their lines in English, and everyone acts like they understand each other.

I liked the explanation for Major being a person that looks like ScarJo - her shell may be Caucasian, but her brain is Japanese. My main problem with the movie is how instantly forgettable it is. It's all visuals with no soul.

Godzilla - Movie Review

Starring Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Ken Watanabe, Elisabeth Olsen, Bryan Cranston, Sally Hawkins, Juliette Binoche, David Straithairn, Richard T. Jones and Victor Rasuk.
Directed by Gareth Edwards.

★★½

Tone is an important element in a movie that introduces fantastical elements. This film wisely eschews the campy dumb fun the 1998 movie tried to have and plays it straight and serious. I liked that, and if anything it would have helped this movie to have a moment or two of levity.

Normally I wouldn't mind that it takes a while for Godzilla to show up. It gives us a chance to get to know the human characters and raise the stakes when people start dying and cities start getting destroyed. Unfortunately I didn't care about most of the characters.

The marketing campaign makes it look like Bryan Cranston is going to be one of the central characters, so I don't think I'm giving away too much by saying the movies should have focussed more on him and less on his soldier son played by Aaron Taylor-Johnson (Anna Karenina, Kick-Ass).  Johnson's a blank slate, and it just felt like another big-budget action movie putting Generic Young Guy as the hero. Was Taylor Kitsch too busy?

I know. You don't go to a Godzilla movie for good acting. But you do hope it'll be there.

You also go to a Godzilla movie for thrilling visuals, and on that front, the movie delivers. I felt that little-kid surge of excitement when halfway through the movie, we see that first sign of a giant monster on the loose. ("Mayhem's about to start!")  Godzilla isn't in the movie as much as you'd think, but I liked his design, I liked the effects, I just liked the character. If a sequel is greenlit, I'll be excited for him to return, even if (or especially if) a whole different cast is assembled to watch stuff get smashed.

Don't get me wrong. All of these actors have been excellent in something else, but Watanabe spends the whole movie slack-jawed, Straithairn carries the air of authority while the script makes him a woefully inept leader, and Olsen is there to be the wife that Taylor-Johnson calls from time to time.

It's much better than the 1998 film. The ride of the second half is quite fun.

Random Movie Stuff - 7/5/12

- Inside Llewyn Davis will now open February 8, 2013.  It's the next movie from the Coen brothers, and it's about the folk-music scene in 1960's New York.  Justin Timberlake, Carey Mulligan, Garrett Hedlund, Oscar Isaac and John Goodman star.

- Gerard Butler, Aaron Eckhart and Angela Bassett will star in Olympus Has Fallen.  Butler will play an ex-Secret Service agent who defends the President (Eckhart) when terrorists attack the White House.  Bassett will play the head of the Secret Service.  Antoine Fuqua (King Arthur) will direct.

- Ashley Tisdale (High School Musical) will star in Scary Movie 5.

I've caught a couple 2011 titles recently.  First my wife and I were looking for a romantic movie to watch on Netflix Instant, and I remembered Certified Copy had good reviews.  Well, it's one of those movies that shouldn't be listed as a "romance" just because it stars a woman and a man.  That's like calling Revolutionary Road a romance.  So because it wasn't what we expected, my wife hated it.

Not the movie's fault, but Certified Copy (★★½) is one of those talky, well-acted foreign films that has an interesting hook, but it becomes increasingly unpleasant as it unwinds.  Juliette Binoche stars as Frenchwoman who goes to meet a British author in Tuscany, and most of the movie is their conversation as they tour the city.  We know only what the movie tells us, and as their conversation continues, we start to question the relationship between the two.  Do they already know each other? Is this some odd flirting ritual?

Also, the Scera theater has kid movies every Wednesday afternoon for cheap, and we bought season tickets.  Since the 4th was a holiday, I was able to accompany them.  Unfortunately the movie was Hoodwinked Too: Hood vs. Evil (★½), one of the ugliest animated movies I've ever seen on the big screen.  It is cheap, television-level quality and never should have made it to theaters.  Having said that, it had a couple good lines here and there, buried among the crap, and my kids really enjoyed it.