Apocalypse Now

The in Vietnam during the 60's and early 70's was a very turbulent time in American history.  We went there to eliminate Communism and liberate South Vietnam from the Communist North Vietnam.  It became clear early on, that this would no ordinary battle against the North Vietnamese army, also known as the Vietcong.  Why?  The Vietcong dressed and looked like civilians, so we had no way of telling one from the other.  Throughout the war, there have been numerous....incidents involving the murder of civilian Vietnamese.  Our people were outgunned and out-manned in a country where the Vietcong had the advantage.  Approximately, over 3.8 million people on all sides lost their lives by the time we had withdrawn.  There have been numerous films over the decades about the war in Vietnam, but one truly stands out among the rest: Apocalypse Now.

As the movie begins we see a strung-out soldier, Captain Benjamin Willard(Martin Sheen)being given orders to travel to Cambodia and terminate the rogue Special Forces Colonel Walter Kurtz(Marlon Brando).  Along the way, he meets up with Colonel Kilgore(Robert DuVall)so he can get upriver.  On the surface, the story seems like pretty one-dimensional about one man's mission, but as the film goes on, it starts descending into chaos, as Willard travels to Cambodia to confront Kurtz.  Apocalypse Now is an extraordinary look at how war affects soldiers on a psychological level.  While some soldiers are of sound mind, others start losing their sanity, and this is extremely evident when we finally meet Kurtz.  We also see Willard start unraveling as the film progresses.  While we see the first half of the film as basically a war film, with explosions and helicopters wreaking havoc on the Vietnamese, the second half becomes more psychological as the soldiers accompanying Willard start seeing some very strange things and it starts freaking them out.  The final part of the movie is just plain nuts.

Shamefully, I never actually saw this movie before today, and I'm not entirely sure why.  It's an experience like no other, because it's a movie like no other.  Francis Ford Coppola has crafted an incredible film which explores a soldier's decent into madness.  It would not have been as successful if the performances hadn't been top-notch.  Martin Sheen is fantastic as Willard.  We also have appearances from Harrison Ford and a very young Laurence Fishburne.  The two real standouts in this film are Robert DuVall as Kilgore and Marlon Brando as Colonel Kurtz.  DuVall gets the pleasure of having one of the most iconic lines in movie history:


Marlon Brando's character of Colonel Walter Kurtz doesn't actually show up until towards the end of the film, but his presence is felt throughout the entire picture. That's because Captain Willard's mission is to assassinate Kurtz.  But on the way, we start learning more about Kurtz and we start to understand why he went native, as it were.  It's a very interesting character study into how somebody with so much clout and so much power was able to manipulate his way into getting what he wanted.  His character takes on this kind of....father figure or savior for the local tribes and Brando's performance is nothing short of astounding.  He's very subdued and literally cloaked in shadow, but when he speaks, it's hypnotic.  Part of what makes the role so interesting is the way it was shot.  The shadows he was filmed in helped sell the character as mysterious.  It's a very effective technique.

A lot has been said about how troubled the production was when the film was being made.  There is a documentary on the latest Blu-Ray release called "Hearts of Darkness," which apparently goes into detail on how this film miraculously got completed.  Martin Sheen had a heart attack, Marlon Brando was overweight and doing his own thing, and a lot of the sets were destroyed during a typhoon in the Philippines where the film was shot.  I haven't actually seen the documentary yet, but when I do see it, I will review it.

One of the most unique things about this film was the soundtrack.  You had music from The Doors, Wagner's Ride of the Valkyries during the infamous helicopter raid, and the actual score from Coppola and his father Carmine really gave the film a bizarre and yet epic feel to the whole experience.  I loved it.  Apocalypse Now is one of those films that really defied expectations and went on to become one of the most iconic war films of the 20th century.  With outstanding performances from Martin Sheen, Robert DuVall and Marlon Brando, Apocalypse Now stands the test of time as a movie that explores the psychological effects of warfare on a soldier.  For fans of cinema, this is MANDATORY viewing.  It's an extraordinary piece of film-making and very important in terms of its scope and subject matter.  Movies rarely get better than this.  10/10.

Gojira(1954 Godzilla), Godzilla(1998) and Godzilla(2014)

Normally, I would say this is a unique situation, but I've done comparison reviews about the Total Recall and RoboCop movies.  However, what we've got here is still a little different.  This time, we've got THREE movies with the same name.  Godzilla.  If it seems like I've been a Godzilla run recently, it's because my interest in Godzilla has skyrocketed with the recent release of the Gareth Edwards film.  I recently picked up two more Godzilla movies, the 1998 film with Matthew Broderick and the original film, Gojira.  Of the three films, one really feels out of place.  Anyone who's a big fan of Godzilla will know exactly which movie I'm talking about.  But I'll get to that later.  Right now, I'm going to jump in with the original film, Gojira.

Gojira:



Gojira begins as a ship is returning home from a fishing trip when it's struck by a mysterious object and destroyed.  As word spreads that the ship has sunk off the coast of Tokyo, another ship is apparently attacked.  Unlike the first ship, this one has three survivors.  They say it was a monster that attacked them.  Later, during violent storm at night, a family is sleeping when the house begins to shake violently and collapses.  In the morning, the authorities arrive to discover a massive footprint in the ground, and determine that a gigantic animal of some kind was responsible for the destruction.  What they also discover is that there is radioactivity in the footprint, so they tell people to stay back because it's dangerous.  One of the local fishermen says it's a god named Gojira who has come to feed on people.

Anyone who hasn't seen this one has more than likely seen some of the other Godzilla pictures:  The cheesy, over-the-top films with wild monsters and visual effects.  This one is not cheesy.  In fact, it's played deadly serious.  Here's why:  The film was released in 1954, just nine years after Hiroshima and Nagasaki were destroyed by atomic bombs.  This film was created as a response to those events, and as a cautionary tale about the horrors of nuclear weapons.  For Japanese audiences, this was a particularly terrifying film.

The story is fantastic.  There is a very palpable sense of dread and mystery that permeates the whole movie.  What sunk the ships and destroyed the small fishing village?  The answer is both fascinating and terrifying.  A gigantic sea monster, apparently woken by nuclear testing, is apparently responsible.  This being 1954 Japan, they didn't really have the luxury, time or resources to do stop-motion animation, like the Americans did with King Kong in the 30's.  So, they had a guy get into a suit and stomp around miniatures.  By today's standards, this looks particularly archaic, but in 1954, this style of film was state-of-the-art.  The performances by lead actors, Akira Takarada and Akihiko Harata are great.  Takarada plays Ogata, a photographer.  Harata is a scientist who has created a potential super-weapon to counter Godzilla.  The effects, while dated by today's standards, still sells the scale of the beast and how he rampages across Tokyo.  Unlike the films that followed Gojira, this film is far more dramatic and really touches on how humanity reacts to a situation like this.  The film definitely delivers on the destruction and mayhem, and it's use of miniatures is incredible.  The creature's design was very unique in it's day and it's become iconic.  Also, iconic is the beast's roar.  Anyone who hasn't seen a Godzilla picture will still recognize that sound.  It's a part of pop-culture now.  Gojira has amassed an enormous following, and with 31 films out there, Godzilla's popularity shows no signs of slowing down.

There are a number of reasons why this particular is so important.  One, it ushered in a new era of science fiction and gave birth to the Kaiju movie genre, which is the giant monster movies.  We ended up with, Mothra, King Ghidora, and Monster Zero among others.  There are a lot.  And some of them ended up with movies of their own.  Not only that, Guillermo Del Toro released Pacific Rim as love-letter to Godzilla in 2012.  It was an impressive film.  So, the original Gojira has influenced movie-makers over the decades in terms of visual effects.  We see a lot of movies with monsters that have been inspired by Big G.  Hell, even the Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers were influenced, with their gigantic monsters and robots going at each other.  In other words, Godzilla is a cultural phenomenon cherished by millions of people all over the world.  The other big reason why this film is important is the message it's trying to send about the use of nuclear weapons and the consequences of said weapons.  When we dropped Fat Man and Little Boy on Japan, we knew they would be powerful, but we had no idea what the extend of the damage would be.  During the film, we see footage of Tokyo in ruins and it is very reminiscent of the destruction that the Japanese had witnessed during the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.  So, the question the movie asks, which is the real monster here?  Is it Godzilla himself or is he just the symptom of a larger problem:  the unknown dangers of using super-weapons?  The main scientist who inadvertently creates a super-weapon to defeat Godzilla is actually afraid of what could happen if it falls into the wrong hands and used for the wrong reasons.  There is a very serious moral implication about the use of these weapons, and you really don't see that in movies these days.

Overall, this is an incredible film.  Yes, it has destruction aplenty, but it also comes with a message and a warning about nuclear weapons.  While the following films would eventually forget the message in favor of spectacle, the original Gojira remains a landmark picture that needs to be seen by anyone with a remote interest in cinema.  This monster of a movie gets a perfect 10/10.

Godzilla(1998)



Our film begins as a Japanese fishing boat is heading home during a storm, when it is suddenly and violently attacked by an unknown force.  There is one survivor who keeps uttering the word "Gojira."  Later, at Chernobyl in Russia, a scientist by the name of Nick Tatopoulos(Matthew Broderick), is studying irradiated earthworms that have grown to unusual sizes due to the radioactivity in soil due to the Chernobyl accident.  He is later reassigned by Colonel Hicks(Kevin Dunn)to investigate what appears to be a giant footprint and the remains of the fishing vessel that was attacked earlier.  Tatopoulos discovers that this creature was a result of nuclear testing and that the creature is making it's way to New York City.

I remember there was this HUGE hype about a new Godzilla movie being made.  I knew it was being made by Roland Emmerich, the guy who directed Independence Day.  The trailer that I posted above is absolutely fantastic and it really amped up the excitement for this movie.  Toho, the creators of Godzilla had sold the rights to Sony Pictures in the hopes that maybe an American film company could actually deliver on a Godzilla picture.  The result is a bit of a mixed bag.  Don't get me wrong, it's a spectacular film with grandiose visual effects and size of the monster is impressive.  The film is also loaded with big explosions and large action set-pieces that will definitely satisfy people who are into disaster movies.  There are a few problems here that really did the film a major disservice.  One: Emmerich jettisoned the original Toho creature design for something that looks like it came from Jurassic Park.  It's essentially an overgrown iguana.  This is NOT Godzilla.  Two: The whole baby Godzilla subplot was completely unnecessary and silly.  Three: Matthew Broderick is woefully miscast here.  While he was absolutely fantastic in Ferris Beuhler's Day Off, he doesn't have the screen presence to carry a major action film like this.  Four: The film accuses the French of being the ones responsible for this mess, and then relies on them to be the good guys later on.  That's some really.....interesting writing.  Five: This Godzilla doesn't actually breathe atomic fire like his predecessors.  You can't have a Godzilla movie and NOT have him breathe fire.  Yeah, there are scenes where he causes fire to be blown, but he doesn't create it himself, and it feels like they were tacked on to keep the fans at bay.

Here's what DID work:  The visual effects are incredible.  Utilizing a large budget, Emmerich definitely goes to town on wrecking New York City.  The creature itself is actually impressive in scale.  This is not a man-in-a-suit Godzilla.  The explosions and the destruction are nothing short of impressive.  The film is surprisingly well-paced with a pretty good sense of humor.  It definitely does NOT take itself seriously.  The secondary cast members are mostly amazing.  Hank Azaria plays Victor "Animal" Palotti, a camera-man for a local news network.  He's hilarious, especially when he nearly gets stepped on by the monster.  His reaction is priceless.  Harry Shearer is the sleazebag anchor, Charles Caiman.  Shearer knows how to play creeps very, very well, and Caiman is definitely a self-absorbed cretin.  He's fun to watch, though.  Kevin Dunn gets to play the hard-ass Colonel Hicks, and does so very well.  While most people remember Dunn from the Transformers movies as Shia LeBouf's father in those films, he really gets to be awesome in this one.  The guy that really steals the show in this film is Jean Reno, who plays the French insurance/secret agent, Phillipe Roache.  As much as the film dumps on the French for being responsible for Godzilla, the French guys are really fun to watch as they try to eat and drink American food and pretend to be American soldiers.  The musical score by David Arnold really makes the film intense.  The one thing the filmmakers did do right, was keep Godzilla's roar.  They modified it a little bit, but it's been modified a little bit over the decades anyway.

This movie was intended to be the first in a trilogy of films, but it did so poorly and was not very well received, especially by Toho.  They yanked the rights away from Sony, because of this movie and released their response, Godzilla 2000, two years later.  I really can't blame them for making that decision.  Roland Emmerich's choice to redesign Godzilla left a sour taste in the mouths of Godzilla fans around the world.  When I first saw the film, I loved it.  16 years later, I still enjoy it.  It's got amazing visual effects with a great secondary cast.  The pace is intense the moment Godzilla hits New York.  It's also got a great sense of humor.  As a giant monster movie, Godzilla hits most of the right notes.  What it gets right, it does very well.  As a Godzilla movie, it fails miserably.  It lacks the charm and the creature design of the previous films. With an annoying subplot involving baby Godzillas, combined with the not-so-hot performance of Matthew Broderick, the film just....flounders.  It's a shame, too, because this could have been really spectacular, and the sequels could have been great.

After Toho reaquired the rights to Godzilla, they responded with Godzilla 2000, giving the world a proper Godzilla flick.  In 2004, Godzilla Final Wars was released.  In that film, we get to see the 1998 monster get obliterated by the actual Godzilla.  That was a moment of sheer awesomeness.  Don't believe me?  Check it out:

I give the 1998 Godzilla an 8/10 as a giant monster movie.  As a Godzilla movie: 2/10.  It's Godzilla in name only.
Godzilla(2014)



Since I had already reviewed the latest Godzilla movie, I'll post a link to that review here.  The latest film was released to theaters 60 years to the day that the original film was released in Japan.  The marketing campaign for the new film was nothing less than incredible.  When I first saw the teaser and the shadow of Godzilla himself, I was excited.  When the film was released in May, it was astounding.  I got to see it in 3-D.  If there was a movie to see in 3-D this year, it would've been Godzilla.  It was spectacular.  If you want more details, check out my review in the link above.  I want to shed some light on some of the criticisms that have been leveled against the new Godzilla.  The main criticism is that there wasn't enough Godzilla in the movie.  Here's the thing:  The monster in the original film, which so many people loved, wasn't in the movie for more than 20-30 minutes at most.  People don't complain about that, yet they complain about not enough Godzilla in the new one?  The best Godzilla movies are the ones where he doesn't take up the entire screen time.  It would ruin the final battle.  When the big guy shows up, it's got to have an impact.  Some of the near battles that you see throughout the film cut away so the anticipation for the final battle ramps up.  Godzilla definitely delivers on that.

The other criticism is that the human characters are bland and not much use.  I disagree.  Bryan Cranston's character of Joe Brody really gave the human element a much needed depth and an emotional anchor that gives Ford(Aaron Taylor-Johnson)the motivation to protect the people he cares about.  The human element in this film is just as important as the monsters.  The original film had a very strong and obvious message about the dangers of nuclear weapons.  The message is still there in this new film, but it's more subtle and behind-the-scenes.  Godzilla 2014 is a damn good movie, and doesn't deserve the derision it's gotten.  It's not perfect by any stretch of the imagination, but Godzilla is quite possibly one of the best action movies this year, and I believe it does right by the original film.  It certainly corrects the misfire that was the 1998 Godzilla.  Since the new movie did so well, a sequel is being planned for 2018.  It is apparently going to include some of the classic monsters of the previous films, such as Ghidora.  But it's too early to tell as information is scarce at this point.  It hasn't even reached the script phase yet, so patience is required.  But the King of the Monsters will be back.  That's for damn sure.

Godzilla: Final Wars

If there's a movie monster that needs no introduction, it's Godzilla.  He's been a pop culture phenomenon for 60 years.  He first showed up in the Japanese original film, Gojira, or Godzilla to the rest of the world.  He essentially invented the whole Kaiju movie genre.  Kaiju is the Japanese word for "strange creature" or "monster."  Kaiju movies involved creatures that where at least 500 feet tall or larger, and generally involved destroying cities.  Godzilla was known for regularly leveling Tokyo to the ground.  Strangely enough, the original film wasn't just a monster movie.  It was also a cautionary tale about the dangers of nuclear power.  The film was released 9 years after the Hiroshima bomb, so it really had an effect on Japanese audiences.  The film was re-released in the States as Godzilla: King of the Monsters! with new footage starring Raymond Burr.  For the next 60 years, Godzilla would appear in 31 movies including the recent Godzilla reboot starring Bryan Cranston.  Hell, one of those movies had Godzilla going up against another legendary movie monster: King Kong.  The famed movie reptile also inspired a number of offshoots and other monster movies such as Gargantua and Mothra.  Guillermo Del Toro himself made a movie as a love note to the Godzilla movies of yore, Pacific Rim.

Godzilla: Final Wars starts off with a bang with an airship/submarine engaged in battle with Godzilla.  Godzilla eventually ends up getting trapped under a glacier and it appears that the world is free from giant monsters....for a while.  Years later, giant monsters start popping up all over the world and only one organization can deal them, The Earth Defense Force with it's special mutant soldier unit.  With one creature nearly defeated, it vanishes.  Soon, a mysterious planet-shaped ship appears over the city with mysterious beings called Xillians.  They apparently want to partner with the human race to destroy a giant object that apparently is heading towards Earth.  Little do the earthlings know, the Xillians have ulterior motives.....and giant monsters.  If that sounds extremely cheesy to you....it is.  This movie is one big cheese-fest.  Giant monsters, mutants AND aliens?  Oh, come on.  Really?   Yep.  However, one does not simply watch Godzilla for the story.  We are here for the mayhem, and it delivers in spades.  There are few moments in the film were cities aren't getting smashed, stuff exploding, or mutants engaged in super-acrobatic hijinks.  There is also Don Frye.

Final Wars was released in 2004 as the last of the Toho Godzilla movies.  The original plan was to put the big guy on hiatus for about a decade so they could just let it be for a while.  However, the rights to Godzilla were bought from Toho by Legendary Pictures and Warner Bros. shortly after Final Wars was released.  When I said this was still a Toho Godzilla movie, that means this is a man-in-the-suit monster.  Not CGI.  A lot of the visual effects in this picture involve miniatures.  Most of the monsters seen in the film are men in suits, with the exception of Mothra and Zilla(the creature from the 1998 film).  This film is packed to the brim with monsters.  It doesn't have all of them, but a good number of Godzilla's foes show up, including Rodan, Gigan, Kumonga, Hedorah and King Ghidorah.  For a two-hour film, this thing is loaded with action.  Big explosions, cities being ripped to shreds and general monster mayhem make this a really over-the-top affair.  The visual effects and miniatures really add to the whole cheese factor.

One of the Godzilla movies that people really didn't like was the Roland Emmerich film from 1998 which starred Matthew Broderick.  It took the design of the Godzilla and threw it out the window in favor of a 500-foot tall........iguana.  So when that version goes up against the beast that we all know and love, it doesn't stand a chance and gets obliterated in a confrontation that will make most Godzilla fans stand up and cheer.  It's awesome.  In fact, most of the monsters in this movie are just cannon fodder for the big guy.  His real confrontation comes in the form of the three-headed dragon, Ghidora.  Yeah, the cgi effects are pretty substandard, but they are functional.  In fact, I would argue that the cgi effects are part of the charm in this movie.  So, what about the actors and their....acting?  Don Frye.  This guy steals the show as the gruff American, Captain Gordon, who's original ship was responsible for trapping Godzilla in a glacier years ago.  His performance is perfectly dead-pan, and it's hilarious at times.  The acting is pretty much way over-the-top as you would expect from a Godzilla movie.  The villains are just plain ridiculous, with Kazuki Kitamura taking the lead as the black leather-clad Xillian leader.  He's fun to watch when he goes ballistic.  For the fans of the original film, Akira Takarada plays the UN Secretary General.  For people who don't know Akira is, his first movie was the 1954 Godzilla.  Also showing up is Kane Kosugi, the son of legendary martial arts actor Sho Kosugi.

As far as Godzilla movies go, Final Wars is quite possibly the craziest of the bunch.  It's just plain silly, but it works.  The whole cautionary message about nuclear power has been thrown out the window.  This is a movie about mayhem and destruction.  There are very few movies that are as straight-forward about what they want to deliver as Godzilla: Final Wars.  If there's a really negative aspect to this film, that I noticed personally, it's Minilla.  He's basically Godzilla's Mini Me.  He didn't really add anything to the film at all.  He was just.....there.  But at least he wasn't as irritating as Jar Jar Binks.  Minilla gets brownie points for that.  The action is exactly as I was expecting in a movie featuring Godzilla and it's one of the most spectacular movies of 2004.  Godzilla Final Wars is the only Triple-M movie that I've seen.  By Triple-M, I mean:  Monsters, Mutants and Mayhem.  If you're a fan of Godzilla like I am or of giant monster movies in general, you owe it to yourself to check out Godzilla: Final Wars.  It's awesome.  9.5/10.

In conclusion:

Prisoners

Before I begin with this one, let me ask a question:  If you had a child and that child disappeared, and the only suspect in the possible crime is either unable or unwilling to cooperate, how far would you go to get answers?  What measures are you prepared to take to get your child back?  These are some of the questions that are asked of the audience in 2013's crime thriller, Prisoners.

The story begins in a forest when Keller Dover(Hugh Jackman)is taking his son hunting.  When they get home, they prepare to have Thanksgiving dinner with Dover's friend, Franklin Birch(Terrence Howard)and HIS family.  Birch's and Dover's daughters go outside to play, and when the time comes to sit down and eat, the girls are nowhere to be seen.  Frantically searching Dover's house AND Birch's house, they find no trace of the girls.  Detective Loki(Jake Gyllenhall)is called to investigate.  He finds a lone suspect in an RV which matches the description given by Keller's son, and they take the suspect into custody.  Unfortunately, the RV contains no evidence that links the suspect, Alex Jones(Paul Dano),to the crime.  Keller isn't so convinced.  As time wears on and desperation sets in, Keller is forced to take desperate measures to find the missing children.

Before anyone asks, this movie is not a Taken-style of movie, where the protagonist tears apart the town and beating the daylights out of people that are responsible for his daughter's abduction.  This is not an action film.  It's slow, methodical and deliberate.  It's also dark and bleak.  Outside of some of the opening scenes, there really isn't an ounce of humor to be found here, and that's ok.  When you're dealing with the abduction of little girls, all the jokes go out the window as it is an extremely serious matter.  This is not just a drama, but it is also a police procedural, and thriller all mixed into one and it works very well.  I won't spoil the film, but I can tell you that after the girls are abducted, the story takes on a life of its own and pushes many of the characters to the breaking point.  Taking the lead is Hugh Jackman, who plays a fairly normal person that happens to be caught in the middle of something tragic and sinister.  I've always been a big fan of Hugh's ever since appeared in X-Men.  This guy has really evolved as an actor, as evidenced by some of the movies he's been in.  Keller is a guy who is driven the edge of madness, because he fears for his daughter's life and over the course of the film, you start to see the desperation set in and watch him change into a different kind of person.  Gyllenhall's Loki is the foil to Jackman's Keller.  While Keller is willing to do whatever it takes to find his baby girl, Loki is more concerned about how to do it properly.  He's just as concerned about the abduction as Keller is, but is far more patient and methodical about dealing with it.  I've never really thought much about Jake Gyllenhall before Prisoners.  I thought he was an o.k. actor, but he really pulls out all the stops in Prisoners.  You see his character constantly blink as if he was on a caffeine high, and how he deals with potential suspects gets pretty brutal.  It's obvious, that Loki has his own issues that he's dealing with and throughout the story, you begin to see the cracks as he becomes desperate.

Caught in the middle of all this is Terrence Howard who plays Franklin Birch, who's daughter was also stolen from him.  He's as desperate to get his daughter back, but when he and Keller abduct Alex Jones, it doesn't really agree with him.  Howard is an interesting actor and he brings a very emotional depth to his character that really makes you feel for him.  In some ways, he's suffering more than Keller, because Keller is willing to torture somebody to get answers, but Franklin isn't.  It's an interesting dynamic that really allows the two to shine together.  Paul Dano is really good as Alex Jones, a man who doesn't appear to be quite right in the head.  All the actors in this movie, including Maria Bello who plays Keller's wife.  Even though Jackman and Gyllenhall are at the front, everyone gets their chance to shine, and that's what helps give this movie a life of its own.

For some people, the two and a half hour run time may seem a little....long.  Personally, I like it.  The longer it gets, the more it gets under your skin, and that's why it's an effective thriller.  The desperation of looking for a lost loved one really helps anchor the film.  It's also done in a fairly realistic manner, even though there are some strange coincidences.  With all the twists and turns in this film, it's hard to pinpoint exactly where it's going to go next.  I will be honest here:  This movie goes to some very dark and uncomfortable areas.  But i think that really help gives the film its unique....flavor, if you will.

This is French-Canadian director Denis Villeneuve's first English language effort, and it's masterfully done.  It is one of the most intriguing thrillers that I've ever seen.  By the time the credits roll, you are left with a very thought-provoking film that stays with you long after you switch off the TV.  I would imagine that a movie like this would be more intense for people who have children, because it deals with a parent's worst nightmare.  It's an intense film that is a slow-burner, but the payoff is worth it.  With Oscar-worthy performances, a great story, and some very unique twists and turns, this is film that I can EASILY recommend to anyone who's a fan of mysteries and thrillers.  10/10 is my final verdict for Prisoners.  Comments, suggestions?  Let me know.

Total Recall(1990) Vs. Total Recall(2012)

My first comparison review was of RoboCop 1987 and RoboCop 2014.  I did that because the 2014 film was a remake of the 1987 movie.  That wasn't the first time we had two movies of the same name that involved the same plot.  In 1990, Paul Verhoeven, who directed the original RoboCop, released Total Recall, starring Arnold Schwarzenegger.  Like RoboCop before it, Total Recall was an exceptionally violent film.  In 2012, a new film with the name Total Recall was released.  It appeared to be a remake of the Schwarzenegger movie, however, this is a misnomer.  While RoboCop 2014 was indeed a remake of Paul Verhoeven's movie, the Total Recall films were actually based on a short story by legendary science fiction writer, Philip  K. Dick called "We Can Remember It For You Wholesale."  I've discussed the differences between re-makes, reboots and adaptations in a previous post.  What we've got here are two films based on the same story, but they take a different approach.

Total Recall(1990)


Total Recall begins as two people are exploring Mars, Douglas Quaid(Arnold Schwarzenegger)and Melina(Rachel Ticotin).  Suddenly Quaid slips and falls off the edge of a cliff and smashes the headgear he's wearing exposing him to Mars' harsh atmosphere.  It's a dream as Quaid suddenly wakes up screaming.  This wakes up his wife, Lori(Sharon Stone).  After breakfast, Quaid goes to work and asks his friend Harry(Robert Costanzo)about ReKall, a place that specializes in artificial memories.  After being warned against going there, Quaid still goes to ReKall.  After selecting a vacation that has him going to Mars as an undercover agent, something goes wrong and Quaid goes crazy.  After being tranquilized, it becomes apparent that Quaid HAS been to Mars, but had his memory erased.  It's a pretty good story, with twists and turns all culminating into a pretty unique conclusion.

All the writing in the world wouldn't have helped the film if the cast wasn't up for it.  This is a very solid cast.  Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sharon Stone top off the cast of incredible actors.  Michael Ironside plays Richter, a Mars agent out to kill Quaid.  Ronny Cox brings his A-game as the film's main villain, Chairman Cohaagen.  Rachel Ticotin plays Quaid's love interest, Melina, who is one tough chick.  Marshall Bell plays the rebel leader, Kuato.  Overall, the cast does a fantastic job bringing Mars to life.

This being a Paul Verhoeven picture, you would expect a certain degree of violence, and Total Recall is no slouch in that department.  It's jam-packed with action.  This movie is not for kids.  It gets VERY bloody.  One of the biggest stars of this movie is not even actor.  He's a special effects artist.  If you've seen John Carpenter's The Thing and the original RoboCop, then the name Rob Bottin should be familiar.  He designed all the mutants features and all the practical effects that were used in this movie, and they are incredible.  The man is a legend in the special effects world, second only to the late Stan Winston.  So, yeah, some of the effects are gruesome, especially when people are blown out the airlocks into Mars' atmosphere.  The music by the late Jerry Goldsmith gives the film a very fast-paced and exciting tone, which really elevates Total Recall above most movies.

If there's really any failing to Total Recall, it's that some of the blue-screen effects seem dated by today's standards, and while the film takes place on Mars, the short story didn't.  These are minor nitpicks to what is otherwise a stellar action flick.  Perfect casting, great make-up effects, wild story and great musical score really make Total Recall a bit of a classic science fiction film in my opinion.  This sucker gets a perfect 10/10.  Loved every minute of it.

Total Recall(2012)


The new Total Recall opens as Douglas Quaid(Collin Farrell)and Melina(Jessica Biel)are being chased by cybernetic cops when Quaid is captured, and Quaid suddenly wakes up.  It appeared to be a nightmare.  Quaid's wife, Lori(Kate Beckinsale) appears to be concerned about him.  Later, Quaid is on his way to work with his friend, Harry(Bokeem Woodbine).  After making it work in the United Federation of Britain, Quaid hears about an interesting place called ReKall where they implant memories into people's minds.  After getting back to The Colony(Australia), Harry and Quaid are at a bar discussing stuff when Quaid brings up ReKall.  Harry's quick to warn him against going there, but Quaid ends up going anyway.  After choosing the memory he wants, he suddenly has a gun pointed at his face.  The police show up and gun down everybody else, and Quaid appears to surrender when he suddenly eliminates all the cops in the room.  Surprised, he goes home and tells his wife what had happened, and before you know it, she's also trying to kill him.  Aided by a local rebel, Melina, Quaid sets out to find out who he is and why people are after him.

Any comparisons between this film and the Schwarzenegger film will be talked about later, so I'm just going to judge this film by its own merits.  Story-wise, it's still a great story, being based on Philip K. Dick's short story.  There are twists and turns in this movie, but some of them are only apparent when you watch the extended cut of the film on Blu-Ray.  I'm not going to spoil them for you, but some of them are pretty interesting, if not entirely original.  The cast is pretty interesting in this film.  Collin Farrell plays Quaid, who appears to be the kind of guy that you end up working with.  He does a pretty solid job with what he's given, and he can handle the action with the best of them.  Kate Beckinsale is fantastic as Lori.  Not only is she beautiful, but Kate's been given a chance to actually play a villain, and she does it with such tenacity, that makes her somewhat scary.  Jessica Biel doesn't fare nearly as well as Melina, but she gets the job done.  Bryan Cranston of Breaking Bad fame plays the lead villain here, Chancellor Cohaagan, a former military commander who's taken command of Britain.

Action-wise, this is a very solid film.  It's got some great fight sequences, and some of the chase sequences are breath-taking.  Combine that with the visual aesthetic of the film and we have a pretty decent action movie here.  Collin Farrell and Kate Beckinsale do a lot of their own stunts, so it doesn't come across as fake.  Kate Beckinsale just excels, mostly because she has experience doing action movies before with the Underworld movies.  The rest of the cast is just serviceable.  The music just isn't bad, but there's nothing there that really comes across as memorable.

This is a visually striking film.  It's very slick.   The city designs are incredible as they span hundreds of miles, for both The Colony and UFB(United Federation of Britain).  Because of that, the scale of what happens in this movie really opens up.  The one unique thing that this film has that the other one didn't is called The Fall.  This is essentially an elevator that transports people from The Colony to UFB.   It goes right through the center of the earth and it changes gravity half-way through.  The action sequences that take place in The Fall, are spectacular.

This is not a bad movie.  Not at all.  It's actually a good movie.  It's got great action, slick visuals and still manages to tell a compelling story that has some decent characters.  Taken on it's own, it's a solid sci-fi movie.  I give it a 8.5/10.

One of the biggest changes that the new Total Recall makes, is shifting the action from Mars to Earth, and is actually a little more in line with the short story.  It still follows the same lines as Schwarzenegger's film, but it does it on a much bigger scale.  One other things that you notice, is that the film is a bit more.....sterile.  It's not nearly as grimy or dirty as the first movie was, and some people have issues with that.  I'll give them that.  The new Total Recall, while it is a slick film, lacks the personality that drove the first adaptation.  Collin Farrell is good and does what he can with what he's been given, but Schwarzenegger's performance as Douglas Quaid is damn near iconic.  Schwarzenegger just has more of a physical presence than Farrell.  Bryan Cranston's character of Cohaagan only shows up in commercials in the film until towards the end of the film.  Instead of being a corporate bad-guy, Cranston's version of the character is a former military leader who isn't afraid to get his hands dirty.

One of the other things that I noticed about the new film, was it's surprising lack of humor.  While the Schwarzenegger film had a pretty dark humor about, with cheesy one-liners and over-the-top violence, the new movie plays it seriously.  There are no catchy one-liners or anything that would give you a chuckle.  Strangely enough, the new movie does refer to the previous flick a little bit, most notably: The three-breasted hooker.  For the most part, this is a stand-alone film.  If the Total Recall movies weren't based on the short story, the new film would fare better as a remake than Robocop did.  The Robocop remake was underwhelming and just simply didn't live up to its name-sake.  Total Recall however, actually manages to be a decent film with a good story, even if the characters aren't as strong as the first film.  Like the original Robocop, the original Total Recall still beats the new movie on every single count and then some.  But that doesn't mean the new film is completely disposable.  I enjoyed it immensely, while I still prefer the original Total Recall.