Review: "Godzilla"

Director: Gareth Edwards
Runtime: 123 minutes

The second that Godzilla's iconic roar blasts out of the speakers, you know that you've just witnessed the glorious rebirth of one of cinema's most famous movie monsters. After decades of silly ups and downs, Gareth Edwards' new reboot knows how to remind us all that Godzilla will always be king. If only the rest of the film were worthy of joining him on the throne. Edwards and co. create some stirring sequences, and they also keep the tone balanced between serious and silly. However, a lackluster protagonist and an uneasy focus on various members of the ensemble proves to be a considerable hurdle that the film is barely able to clear.

Faults and all, though, Edwards deserves credit for his handling of the towering monsters (yes, there's more than just the big guy). Restraint isn't a word that comes to mind when talking about a film involving cities being leveled, but it's rather on point here. Edwards handles the big reveal of Godzilla (Gojira, if you're feeling formal) gradually. This is a summer blockbuster/creature feature operating in the vein of Jaws or Alien, where the buildup, and the gradual flashes are more important that showing something in its full glory. 

To accomplish this, Edwards and DP Seamus McGarvey capture most of the mayhem from the ground level. We get a bit of a tail sliding away, a claw-like arm smashing into the ground, or a glimpse of Godzilla's scaly back. It's an inspired choice, and ensures that we, as viewers, look forward to seeing the monsters, instead of quickly growing bored of them. And when it comes time to let loose, Godzilla steps back just far enough to deliver the ridiculous action the character's legacy promises. 

Of course, in handling most of the action from the ground level, this means we have to pay attention to some humans too. Despite a stacked cast that includes (hi, Juliette Binoche) Bryan Cranston (bye, Juliette Binoche), Ken Watanabe, Sally Hawkins, and  David Strathairn the roles aren't terribly interesting or fun to follow. Cranston, at least, has a genuinely compelling emotional core that's effectively set up in the 1999-set prologue. Cranston's character is obviously a stock character (he's the mad man/conspiracy nut who's actually onto something), but the development the film affords his character puts the role far above similar characters. Meanwhile, Watanabe has some fun dispensing loony revisions of atomic history and spouting vague philosophical lines about nature's brutal ability to restore balance.

Everyone else mostly just does their jobs, with the exception being Aaron Taylor Johnson as Cranston's military-trained son. Johnson is also playing a stock character, but his feels totally empty, and even lazy; Charlie Hunnam's role in last year's Pacific Rim looks rich and nuanced in comparison. And, unlike Hunnam, Johnson has no fun characters to play off of. When the story is following Johnson around, the movie becomes a little less interesting, and makes you wish the monsters would hurry up and start causing mayhem again. 

With this human component left half-baked, Godzilla sometimes struggles to engage as it keeps teasing you with the history of the monsters, as well as the mystery of what they're doing now that they've been awakened. Most of the ensemble are also far away from the center of violence, leaving us with only terrified extras to connect with. 

Yet even with the deficiencies in the human roles, Edwards is still able to pull out some powerful visual moments as he keeps you waiting for the big finish. A scene of fighter jets losing power and dropping into San Francisco Bay is smartly used to build the vague sense of dread as the monsters approach. Even better is a freefall sequence that sends Johnson and other soldiers plummeting into the ruins of San Francisco from 30,000 feet. Red tracers streak behind them as they pass through layers of clouds illuminated by raging fires. The mix of painterly wide shots and claustrophobic POV footage is awe-inspiring, and there's not a creature in sight. 

And when the big fights start coming, they are appropriately big and clumsy. Here, Godzilla is a force of balance, meant to wipe out the insect-like creatures attacking human civilization. Yet his role as nature's proxy has no clear regard for human life. In his wrestling matches at the end, the big reptile does his fair share of property damage, all because it's a means to an end (how he's ever going to pay back the city of San Francisco, I have no idea). In between the epic tussles, Edwards finds room to insert moments of satisfying cheesiness. I'll avoid details, but there are certain gloriously over-the-top fight moves that are designed to leave audiences both cheering and laughing. 

Whether or not Warner Brothers decides to pursue a sequel, at the very least they've made an American Godzilla that can stand on its own (as well as erase the memory of the 1998 film). Most of that credit, however, belongs to Mr. Edwards, who has smartly brought the resourcefulness of his indie background to this big-budget extravaganza. The human elements get progressively weaker the further it goes, but Edwards still manages to hold our attention thanks to his inventive ways of never showing more than necessary. Faults and all, when this Godzilla roars, it's pretty damn hard to look at anything else. 

Grade: B-

Review: "Anna Karenina"

Director: Joe Wright
Runtime: 130 minutes

Shakespeare's immortal line "All the world's a stage..." has never applied to a film so literally as it does to Joe Wright's Anna Karenina, the latest adaptation of Leo Tolstoy's classic novel. Filmed almost entirely inside of a dilapidated theater, the film's characters walk across stages, climb through rafters, and move seamlessly from place to place as sets transform around them in real-time. It is, as the marketing has billed it, a bold new vision of Tolstoy's work. Yet is there a price to pay for such heavy artifice? The film runs a little over 2 hours, and Wright and screenwriter Tom Stoppard have obviously omitted or streamlined parts of the 1000 page novel. Yet do these changes, combined with the stylistic conceit, detract from the overall quality and impact? It's hard to say, as Wright's film is the rare sort of classic literary adaptation that is likely to inspire extreme division, between those swept up by the execution, and those turned off by what could be seen as a nuance-free adaptation.

For those not terribly familiar with the story, Anna is set in Imperial Russia in the 1870s, and charts the fall of the distinguished titular character (played by Keira Knightley) in high society after a passionate affair. Yet Anna's infidelity towards her husband (Jude Law) is not the story's first bit of romantic betrayal. We're first introduced to Anna's brother Oblonsky (Matthew MacFadyen), a husband and father who engages in a brief affair of his own. It is in Anna's journey to smooth over the relationship between Oblonsky and his wife Dolly (Kelly MacDonald) that she first meets the dashing Count Vronsky (Aaron Johnson), who inspires actual feelings of attraction in Anna, as opposed to her respectful but love-less marriage to Karenin. 

And now is as good a time as ever to admit that, outside of a few chapters, I have not read Tolstoy's novel. As such, I can't tell you how Anna Karenina "should" be played on screen, and if the character offers room for different interpretations. What I can say is that Ms. Knightley, in her third collaboration with Wright, presents her as a woman forced too early into maturity. Anna can be coy, flirty, or petulant at a moment's notice. As best as she tries to maintain the steely composure of a dignified member of the upper class, the facade cracks often as she struggles to reconcile her choices with the effects they have on her social life. She is, whether by choice or not, beyond being a girl, yet still not quite comfortable as a woman (I promise that this isn't a reference to that Britney Spears song). Where she stacks up against other big screen incarnations of the character, I can't say. However, despite the odd bump or two, Knightley and Wright's interpretation of the character is a success on its own terms, even if she is rendered less complex that she likely was on page. 

Yet even though Anna's troubled romance with Vronsky is the story's focus, it is the supporting cast who dominate the film. That is, when they're given enough to do, and have scenes that allow them to breathe. MacFadyen is particularly lively, with his portly joviality and walrus mustache accompanying his grandiose swaggering. It is thanks to MacFadyen (and Stoppard's script), that the film generates a surprising amount of laughs. Even though these lighter moments are mostly confined to the film's opening (which has fun sending up the performative nature of upper class rules and rituals), they lend Wright's film a liveliness and an energy that is then carefully slowed down as emotions deepen.

If MacFadyen is the comedic king of the supporting cast, it's Law who reigns on the dramatic end of the spectrum. Kept out of sight early on, the actor - severely de-glammed with a horrible hairdo - brings a sophisticated toughness to Karenin that refrains from making him a simple antagonist. Karenin is stern and abides by his moral code, yet he remains understandable, even though his attitude towards Anna can easily be seen as cruel.

But then there are those who move outside of the grand artifice of the theater. Levin (Domnhall Gleeson), a young man seeking Oblonsky's romantic assistance, rejects high society, and takes the story to a series of naturalistic settings. While the others fret about morals and manners, Levin makes his living out in the wheat fields, free from gossip and constricting social identities. As a result, Levin's relationship with young socialite Kitty (Alicia Vikander) feels, appropriately, more honest and heartfelt, whereas other relationships veer toward heightened melodrama. 

This marks, perhaps, the one key drawback to the film's structure and Mr. Stoppard's screenplay. Wright's Anna Karenina has energy, but it can also feel truncated. As well as much of the film flows along, it occasionally lurches forward with emotional developments, particularly when it comes to Anna and Vronsky's affair. And even though Knightley generally holds up her end of the relationship nicely, Johnson's Vronsky comes with a surprisingly lack of allure. The strange blonde dye job is forgivable. The fact that Johnson and Knightley sometimes seem to pretend that they're interacting with someone other than their scene partner? Less so. As such, neither Anna's fall from grace, nor her ultimate fate register as strongly as they could. Though the film descends from its outrageous stylization as it progresses, it can't quite hop off of the pedestal to become fully human. Wright strives for an epic romantic tragedy, yet he doesn't make it all the way there. Consider it a case of landing among the stars after shooting for the moon.

Where the film does fully succeed, to little surprise, is in its visual and sonic departments. The sets, whether realistic or purposefully stagy, are intricate and often create the effect of looking at a series of beautiful moving tableaus. Jacqueline Durran's costumes, with a wide array of colors, head ornaments, veils, and fur-lined garments, constantly top themselves the further the film goes on. Throw in cinematographer Seamus McGarvey to capture it all, and you have a truly sumptuous experience that sweeps your senses off of their feet, even as it sometimes leaves the heart behind. Usual Wright composer Dario Marianelli is also back after skipping out on Hanna, and provides suitably seductive, lush musical accompaniments that transform the story from classic romantic literature to full blown opera. Whatever your thoughts on Wright as a director, there's no doubt the man knows how to create beautiful (and often compelling) images even as he flirts with indulgence. From an aesthetic standpoint, consider Anna Karenina a two hour ride in a Rolls Royce outfitted by Chanel and Swarovski.

How fans of the book will react to this adaptation is, as previously stated, difficult to say. Some may find Wright's streamlined take enthralling. Others may find it to be a garish watering down of one of Russian literatures greatest works. Yet wherever you stand on the film (even if you haven't read the book), it's hard to not be impressed by the daring approach. Many adaptations are sunk by a slavish faithfulness to the source material. At the very least, Wright and his cohorts deserve a degree of admiration for creating such a wholly cinematic vision of a novel that, in its entire complexity, was probably never truly meant for the big screen.

Grade: B/B+

Trailer: Joe Wright's "Anna Karenina"

Teased as being a revolutionary take on Tolstoy's classic novel of forbidden love, Joe Wright's return to highbrow literary adaptations looks as (if not more) gorgeous as his previous films (we'll pretend The Soloist didn't happen). Wright's last outing was the deliciously strange Hanna (2011), a successful deviation that benefited from his lush style. Now that he's back in his comfort zone, expectations will likely be higher, considering both the source material and the execution. Using a series of sound stages, the fill will allow for unique transitions between and among locations, with doors opening out onto fields, trains running through the set, and more. Rumors indicate that the execution is both more and less avant garde than previously stated, but overall, Wright's Anna looks like a truly sumptuous and dazzling film. In addition to Keira Knightley and Jude Law, the film boasts a stellar supporting cast, including Emily Watson, Matthew Macfadyen (from Wright's Pride and Prejudice), and Olivia Williams. The British accents seem a little odd, considering the story's purely Russian identity, although perhaps it's for the best, considering that a film full of poorly executed Russian accents would be even more off-putting. Still, this minor quibble aside, Anna Karenina looks like an energetic and lush period film with the added benefit of its unconventional setting(s). The only question left is, "how many tracking shots will Wright manage to sneak in this time?"


Grade: A-