MovieComment

Godzilla: Final Wars

Posted by Player under Foreign

Godzilla is still the king of all monster movies, and in Final Wars, he is definitely back to save the earth again. This time aliens are threatening to level humanity back to the stone age and have unleashed various giant monsters to get the job done, but of course they did not expect Godzilla to wake up and do some destruction of his own.

Unlike other Godzilla movies where you sit through three fourths of the movie waiting for the star to show up, Final Wars actually manages to throw in some interesting action by the humans. In order to protect the world against monsters the Defense Force has banded together special mutants and trained them to be an elite fighting force. However when the aliens show up and end up controlling the special mutant army of humans, the earth is left defenseless. This is where Godzilla becomes their only choice. The human mutant fighting though is interesting to see, as clearly Final Wars borrows heavily from other Asian action films and even does some Matrix like action sequences. However, unlike the Matrix films, Final Wars was made with a smaller budget and it shows in some places. The main alien mothership’s orange background is just plain strange when compared to the black Matrix style cyberpunk look of the main alien character.

But the second half of the film is where Godzilla comes in and battles monster after monster and this is really why we watch Godzilla movies! One of the first monsters is in fact the lizard like Godzilla of the terrible American made Godzilla film. I guess the director could not resist making fun of the Roland Emerich film, and Godzilla quickly tosses aside the weak imposter Godzilla. After a few more monsters, the main monster shows up. A three headed dragon beast that manages to weaken Godzilla, but you all know who has to win this right?

While some younger movie fans may not understand what the Godzilla fascination is all about, true fans will appreciate Final Wars as one of the better Godzilla films and perhaps the last one to be made, as Godzilla is being retired.

A Better Tomorrow

Posted by Player under Action

John Woo’s 1986 film, A Better Tomorrow, about two brothers at opposite ends of the law, is supposed to be Woo’s actual version of Face/Off. The film features Ti Lung as Ho, and Leslie Cheung as Kit, Ho’s younger brother, but most American audiences will recognize only Chow Yun Fat as Mark, Ho’s best friend and partner.

The film starts out as Ho and Mark are rich and cool, working for the gangster organization as counterfeit money runners. Ho’s father is ill and his father requests that Ho quit the business, so that Kit who is in police academy training does not end up arresting his own older brother. Ho thinks it over and decides to run one last job. Kit does not know that Ho is an underground gangster. As fate would have it, Ho’s last job ends up being a setup and he is arrested. Mark finds out that he was double-crossed and he goes after the gang that tried to cheat and kill Ho.

Years later Ho gets out of prison and tries to rebuild his life, but the pull from the gangster life keeps harming his family. His father is now dead and Kit blames Ho for it, and so the two are no longer friendly brothers. Mark is a cripple and a beggar, and Ho tries to help him, but Mark only wants to regain his dignity and money.

The rest of the movie ends up being a gun fight between everyone involved.

The film is a little bit too sentimental in some scenes, but the gun fights and action sequences more than make up for the cheesy moments and background music. By far the best scene is when Mark makes Kit see Ho as a true brother and someone who has always cared for him over everything. It’s the best scene, not because of the dramatic lines of Chow Yun Fat, but because of the cool gunshot and ensuing blood that takes place during his speech. Woo captured the scene perfectly!

If you are in the mood for watching a cool classic film with blood and gunfights, then you can’t go wrong with this John Woo classic.

Friday Night Lights

Posted by Player under Drama

American Football is as classic as the American Sports movie, and what better way to celebrate both football and sports movies than with another football movie. Friday Night Lights tries to capture the essence of Texas High School Football, and after watching this film, you will never doubt the grandness of highschool football or more specifically small town Texas highschool football to be exact.

Unlike feel-good sports movies that show how cool it is to be a jock or quickly show you how some characters help eachother out during the tough times, Friday Night Lights gets to the heart of the matter, namely Winning is EVERYTHING! You see the pressure on the coach, played by Billy Bob Thornton, the pressure of fathers, mothers, the whole town in fact. The film covers some of the racial overtones which are depicted in the book, but it never spotlights them like the book and instead focuses on the struggle to win no matter what.

While not as depressing as say Monster’s Ball, or cheesy like the Denzel Titans movie, Friday Night Lights feels realistic, gritty, like you are actually there in small town Texas, like you can almost kick the dirt and smell the air around you. The characters feel real enough, the scenery is equally depicted, even if some parts feel stereotypical or familiar, you still get it.

Friday Night Lights has been called the best damm sports film of all time, and I had to say it comes close as far as feeling it and being there, but while the film captures the essense of the struggle to get to The Game, it does nothing to make you like any of its characters or to even like the game of football and all its grandness or dare I say exaggerations. In the end, you feel like you’ve seen how the pressure and expectations all lead up to one play in one game in one minute of your life that adds up to one great moment of either the grandest of successes or the most devastating failure. But not once did I really feel I wanted to play football and that is what is missing from the film. The love of the game.

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Posted by Player under MovieComment

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