Category Monsters

Apr 2 2021

Godzilla Vs. Kong Is The Epic Clash We’ve Been Waiting For!

Ever since Godzilla and King Kong have made their way into recent films with modern fx technology we’ve been wating for the inevitable clash between these two legendary titans. Fans had their dreams answered with the new take of Godzilla vs. Kong, and boy does this film deliver!

First of all, let’s be clear. Godzilla vs. Kong is not Citizen Kane or even Blade Runner. It does not feature any deep, meaningful storylines or characters, it just gives viewers a classic slugfest between the two iconic film legends. What characters there are only exist to provide brief explanations, theories and to move the plot along. It is clear that Legendary Entertainment has figured out that from Godzilla, its first entry in their Monsterverse cinematic universe, that audiences have little patience for human drama in these films and only show up to see detailed and powerful battles between giant monsters as they destroy their landscapes. The fourth Monsterverse film wisely, depending on your point of view, puts aside human drama and intricate plots and just sprinkle these elements to service the film and give the giant monster legends a reason to fight.

The film begins with Godzilla unexpectedly showing up off the coast of Florida and decimating the location of Apex Cybernetics. While the world believes the mighty Alpha Titan has gone rogue, there is more to his attack. At the same time, the other Alpha Titan, Kong is introduced as being held inside a massive dome on Skull Island that recreates his primordial kingdom. Apparently at some point before this film, he was captured and placed there to protect him from Godzilla, who would otherwise seek out Kong and battle him since he is a competing Alpha Titan. But Kong wants out of his gilded cage and is somehow able to communicate with Jia (Kaylee Hottle) the young, deaf daughter of Ilene Andrews (Rebecca Hall), one of the many scientists studying the giant gorilla. Ilene meets another scientist, Nathan Lind (Alexander Skarsgard), who wants to use Kong to lead his team into the Earth’s core. Lind believes in the Hollow Earth theory, which he thinks is the home of the gigantic titans and the source of a new kind of energy.

At the same time, Madison Russell (Millie Bobby Brown reprising her role from Godzilla: King of the Monsters), her nerdy friend Josh Valentine (Julien Dennison), and Bernie Hayes (Brian Tyree Henry), a conspiracy podcaster find out that Apex is also interested in exploring the inner Earth and obtaining the energy source. How does this relate to Godzilla and King Kong and other kaijus that pop up? Watch the movie to find out.

Actually, the threadbare plot is nonsense and is not fully explained, but who cares? It’s just a means to get the two giant kaijus to duke it out. Director Adam Wingard delivers the goods when it comes to epic clashes. Godzilla vs. Kong lovingly revels in beautifully choreographed shots of massive battles between the titans and other creatures. Modern cities are just a playground for these giants to stomp around in and destroy during their battles as humans can only do their best to get out of the way.

Keep in mind, that despite the film’s thin plot and underdeveloped characters, the actors give it their all and keep things moving at a fast pace to the point that we don’t mind the human interludes in between monster scenes since every human interaction directly deals with either Kong or Godzilla. This actually helps inect some personality into the monsters, especially Kong. In reality, this is more of a Kong film with Godzilla as a feature character who pops up to challenge the giant ape throughout the film. The result is that Kong has more character than expected and is placed in unique situations that is outside of what is often given to the screen legend. Not only does this reveal that Kong is far more intelligent than we thought, but he’s humanized to the point that even if you are on Team Godzilla you can’t help but root for him during critical moments in the explosive battles. Honestly, it was hard to pick a side, Team Kong or Team Godzilla, as we have reasons to root for both monsters who get their standout moments and demonstrate why they are the kings of their domains.

Needless to say the film’s stunning visuals alone are worth taking a chance to see in theaters. Of course, only go to a theater if you are fully vaccinated since you can’t tell beforehand if you’ll be stuck in the theater with selfish maskholes! Otherwise, be sure to stream this in the best home theater environment possible because Godzilla vs. Kong is a pure delight for kaiju and action fans.

Godzilla vs. Kong is the culmination of nearly a decade’s worth of Monsterverse films and is, at the moment, the final film in the Monsterverse. Hopefully, being that the film has captured the imagination of so many and is being well received despite its faults, maybe we can revisit the Monsterverse since there is more to explore, especially with King Kong.

José Soto

Dec 30 2020

Top Ten Films & TV Shows Of 2020

2020 has certainly been a strange and troubling year with the COVID-19 pandemic disrupting the entertainment industry.

As the film studios and theaters suffered greatly from the mass closures for public safety, the television arm of the entertainment industry saw a boon since they had literal captive audiences eager for any new content.

Films

Even though many films scheduled for 2020 were postponed for the year, there were many other films that either had limited theatrical releases or managed to come out in the early months of the year before COVID-19 created the lockdowns. Hopefully as the now-availalbe vaccines are administered throughout the population, 2021 will see more of a return to normalcy as theaters will be able to safely re-open.

Please note many films that were released solely digitally or through streaming platforms were not considered for this list; a film had to have some kind of theatrical release even if it debuted in few theaters at the same time they were released digitally. Here are the ten best theatrical films of 2020.

10. Onward

Pixar’s other animated cinematic offering for 2020 was an uplifting and fun adventure that took place in a world where mythical and magical beings and creatures exist today. In the film, two elf brothers set out on a road trip across the country to temporarily resurrect their deceased father. As with most Pixar films, the characters and their emotions took center stage as the two realized their brotherly love for one another. 

9. The New Mutants

The sole Marvel film of 2020 turned out to be the coda of the Fox X-Men films, which was a surprise given it has been delayed so many times. Fortunately, The New Mutants turned out to be a decent superhero film about teenagers coming to grips with their superpowers and life as the film was tinged with chilling horror elements.

alone at the midnight sky

8. The Midnight Sky

George Clooney directed and starred in this introspective sci-fi film based on a book by Lily Brooks-Dalton. Clooney played a lone scientist in an arctic outpost who tries to warn the crew of a returning spacecraft not to come to Earth because it has undergone an extinction-level event. The film was a quiet and captivating character study of the scientist and the spacecraft crew as they struggled to survive in their hostile environments.

7. Underwater

Director William Eubanks is perhaps the most underrated director of sci-fi films today and his latest film continued to demonstrate this. Underwater may be filled with the usual tropes of a crew in an underwater research station being hunted by unknown, Lovecraftian creatures, but it was well crafted, claustrophobic and had the right amount of jump scares and unexpected character studies which elevated this film. 

6. Greenland

Gerard Butler starred in a surprisingly effective disaster film that smartly focused on a single family when cometary fragments crashed into the Earth. By staying with the family as they tried to make their way to safety, Greenland was able to directly show how the catastrophic event affected the family as they grappled with fear, uncertainty and confusion. 

5. Sonic the Hedgehog

Who would have thought that 2020 would have given us a winning film based on a popular video game character? It is more remarkable given the negative reaction to the first trailer which led to Sonic being radically re-designed more to fans’ liking. The effort paid off as Sonic the Hedgehog was a fun and endearing road trip/buddy film that delighted many viewers and not just fans. The road trip/buddy aspect of the film may be familiar but it worked as Sonic, the cartoonish alien, experiences life on Earth for the first time. 

4. #Alive

This South Korean film took a tired zombie/survival trope and reinvigorated it. In the film a young adult gamer is trapped in his apartment during a zombie apocalypse and as he undergoes bouts of loneliness and struggles to keep his sanity, he learns about survival and finding one’s inner strength. This character study made the film very engaging as we found ourselves rooting for the young gamer.

 

3. Color Out of Space

Nicolas Cage was in rare form in this macabre adaptation of the H.P. Lovecraft short story. This horror/sci-fi yarn was quite unsettling in its first half which told the story of a crashed meteor’s unearthly physical effect in a nearby farm. By the second half, Color Out of Space metamorphized into a vivid and disturbing body-horror ordeal that was literally mind bending and shattering as the meteor’s alien influence transformed all life surrounding it, including the hapless farmer and his family. 

love and monsters dog

2. Love and Monsters

This exciting and more light-hearted post-apocalyptic film was a actually a coming-of-age story about a young man who learned to believe in himself as he set out across the ruined landscape of the U.S. to find his supposed true love. Sometimes it is compared to Zombieland, though that is not entirely accurate. In truth, Love and Monsters focused less on laughs and more on its endearing characters and imaginative, giant mutated animals that the film’s hero and his companion dog had to face during his difficult journey.

1. Soul

Two big films were released on streaming platforms (and had very limited theatrical releases), even though one of them (Wonder Woman 1984) had much more buzz and attention, Soul was not only the better of the two films but the best film of the year. The underlying themes may go over the heads of the younger viewers, though they and everyone else will be delighted by the film’s plot of Joe Gardner (Jamie Foxx), as a struggling musician who dies and refuses to go to heaven. From there, he sets off on a spiritual and metaphysical quest to return to life filled with solid characters and relationships. 

Not only is Soul perfectly animated and chock full of visual delights, but like the best of Pixar, it examines the larger questions in life and its script is unexpected. At its heart, Soul is about…life and what one makes of it. However, it also forces the viewer to contemplate and appreciate the simpler and most relevant aspects of life, and in this tumultous year, this may be the most important message of all. 

Honorable Mentions:

Bill & Ted Face the Music, Birds of Prey (and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn), The Invisible Man, Peninsula, Possessor, Vivarium

Continue reading →

Nov 21 2020

Supernatural Carries On In The End

Supernatural aired its very last episode “Carry On” a couple of nights ago, which brought an end to the long-running horror/fantasy series about two brothers, Sam and Dean Winchester (Jared Padalecki and Jensen Ackles), and their adventures in hunting supernatural forces. As a series finale it left me feeling unsure about how I felt about it. But the more I think about it the more I feel that its penultimate episode “Inherit the Earth” would have been a better finale.

*Major Spoilers will follow*

“Carry On” was a fine episode and basically served as a coda to the lives of the Winchester Brothers. Some may think the very last episode should have been some kind of epic throw down against the forces of evil but Supernatural ended the way it began with a monster-of-the-week episode. In this case, a nest of vampires. Honestly this was the least interesting element of the episode. What followed after the vampires were killed was more important. OK, final warning on spoilers ahead.

Dean died after the vampires were killed after being impaled on a metal rod sticking out of post. It was a bit of a surprise and kind of underwhelming as far as deaths go. That is because the two brothers (and their allies and enemies) have been killed before multiple times in the show and then resurrected. It was hard to believe this was it. Or that the show creators felt this was best to finally kill Dean off in a sort of mundane manner. Yet others may feel it was appropriate that the great Dean Winchester not die in some epic battle but during a humdrum mission. I disagree, and find it surprising that Sam would not try to find a way to resurrect his brother.

winchester heaven

The scenes that followed with Sam Winchester mourning his brother with only Dean’s recently adopted dog for company was heartbreaking. However, by this point I was wondering if the show ran out of money because of the lack of guest stars. Sure, we got to see Bobby Singer (Jim Beaver) in heaven with Dean, but none of the other mainstays like Castiel (Misha Collins) or Jack (Alexander Culvert) showed up. I read that this episode was filmed after the show’s shutdown ended (thanks again COVID-19) and the showrunners did not want to risk bringing in many people unless necessary. Still, the lack of mourners/guest appearances robbed the impact of Dean’s sudden passing.

As Dean explored heaven (basically shown as the empty backwoods and roads of middle America), scenes were intercut showing Sam moving on with his life as the song by Kansas, “Carry On Wayward Son”, the show’s unofficial theme song, played. He fathered a son he named after his brother; we don’t see who the child’s mother was, presumably it was his girlfriend Eileen (Shoshannah Stern), but we never got a good look; and Sam grew old and died with his adult son at his side. Cue to tears as Sam and Dean Winchester were finally reunited in heaven. The end.

As I mentioned earlier “Carry On” was fine by itself but the nitpicks kept nibbling me. It was great to see at least Sam being able to live out a normal life past hunting monsters, but it was sad that Dean was not allowed this destiny and God knows he deserved it since he was the more spiriturally troubled of the two. His death while being a Hunter was appropriate, but it should not have felt so mundane.

The previous episode “Inherit the Earth” could have and probably should have served as the series finale for Supernatural. The Winchesters had their final confrontation with Chuck/God (Rob Benedict), after he wiped out all forms of higher life on Earth. In their confrontation, the brothers were outmatched by Chuck, but he was defeated by Jack the Nephilim, who absorbed his powers. Afterwards, Jack became the new God and restored the universe in a cosmic reset before he vanished to become one with reality.

“Inherit the Earth” concluded with a great montage showing all the characters the Winchesters met during Supernatural’s run as the two drove off in Dean’s car while Jackson Browne’s “Running on Empty” played. To me this was how Supernatural should have ended. A bit open ended as Sam and Dean Winchester ride off into the open road looking for their next adventure now that they and the world were finally free of Chuck’s control.

If it matters that much to any fan, it’s best to stop watching Supernatural with its penultimate episode and just imagine Sam and Dean Winchester lived happily ever after hunting ghouls, evil ghosts, demons and whatever supernatural force came their way. If not then consider “Carry On” to be an acceptable, if sad, coda or epilogue to their lives and the show itself.

José Soto

Nov 12 2020

Of Love And Monsters

Love and Monsters was released last month through video on demand and had a limited theatrical release. Like practically every film since this spring, it too could not get a widespread theatrical release because of the coronavirus. It’s a shame since this extraordinary film deserves much more attention, though positive word of mouth might elevate it to cult status sometime down the road.

love and monsters dog

In a nutshell, Love and Monsters stars Dylan O’Brien as Joel Dawson, an insecure twentysomething doing his best to survive during a giant monster apocalypse, all in the name of love.

As told in the film’s opening segments, years ago, a giant asteroid threatening Earth was destroyed with missiles, but the fallout mutated Earth’s cold-blooded creatures into gigantic monstrosities that essentially destroyed civilization. Now what is left of humanity ekes out meager existences in underground shelters and bunkers, and do their best to avoid the bloodthirsty critters that have claimed the surface world.

Joel pines for his lost love, Aimee (Jessica Henwick), who was forced to separate from him years ago. Recently, he tracked her down at a colony over 80 miles away from his own and he decides to risk it all to reunite with her. The only problem is that Joel lacks basic survival skills and somehow has to find a way to make it through the deadly surface landscape without being eaten.

Along his voyage, he comes across a handful of memorable characters. These include a loveable dog called Boy, which quickly bonds with Joel, a broken robot Mav1s (Melanie Zanetti), and a scruffy but friendly survivor Clyde (Michael Rooker) and his spunky companion, a young girl named Minnow (Arianna Greenblatt). They help Joel out and teach him how to survive in the rugged landscape by using his wits and valuable survival skills.

Naturally, Joel and Boy face many dangers, some of which are genuinely creepy and tense, but he discovers his own potential as he grows during his journey. Sure, it seems implausible that Joel could have survived for years in the giant monster apocalypse without having basic survival skills, but his emotional journey was quite satisfying to watch.

Love and Monsters is such a pleasant surprise. It is not a dire, dark film, but it is still boasts its fair share of thrills. By the way, the creature designs are very imaginative and unique. The best way to describe the many monsters Joel and the others encounter is to think of those creepy pit creatures from Peter Jackson’s version of King Kong.

Yes, thanks to its lighter tone, Love and Monsters can be compared to Zombieland, though it is not as funny. Still, it does have a lot of heart, has charming characters and it is easy to tell everyone involved from the actors to the production crew to the writers (Brian Duffield and Matthew Robinson) and director (Michael Matthews) gave it their all. The result is a satisfying giant monster film with a ton of heart.

In fact, the film strikes and inspirational tone with its message that although a situation may be dire, it is possible to overcome it and thrive. In some strange way, Love and Monster is somewhat relevant to our current situation by demonstrating the pluck nature of humanity will overcome obstacles, which in the film’s case are giant monsters.

José Soto

Oct 30 2020

It’s The End Of The Road For Supernatural

After 15 years, the horror/fantasy TV show Supernatural is finally coming to an end. Not only is it the longest running program on The CW network but the longest running American fantasy show of all time.

Supernatural stars Jason Padalecki and Jensen Ackles as Sam and Dean Winchester, two brothers who roam mostly Middle America through its backroads and as Hunters battle things that go bump in the night. These inhuman threats range from deadly ghosts to bloodthirsty vampires, werewolves and ghouls, to even Lucifer (often Mark Pelligrino) himself, and now God aka Chuck (Rob Benedict).

When thinking about it, the show is akin to a modern-day Western with a horror/fantasy twist. In fact, series creator Eric Kripke (now working on The Boys) conceived the show as such with the Brothers Winchester playing the role of heroic cowboys who come into a small, remote town, right the wrongs and ride off to their next mission at the episode’s end in their vintage ’67 Impala instead of horses. Originally, Supernatural was supposed to be about two reporters who fought supernatural threats, but Kripke was only able to sell the program by reconceiving the characters as two brothers looking for their lost father. It’s a good thing Kripke did this because who knows if the original concept would have resonated with fans.

supernatural-season-1

What made Supernatural such a beloved cult hit with its dedicated fans was the easy comraderie and chemistry between the two brothers. Tall and lanky Sam was the more intellectual and sensitive brother while hot-headed Dean was more emotional and intense. More often than not, the two brothers butted heads that usually led to each of them storming off for an episode or two. And all-too-often their fights were based on lies and keeping vital information from each other. However, they shared a fierce familial love and loyalty towards each other.

The Wincester brothers were so much alike with their basic everyman demeanor, yet they were distinctive from one another. Dean jas a sharply, sarcastic wit, and a love of junk food, beer, and classic rock music. Meanwhile, Sam, who gave up his study of law at the start of the series, was more of a hunky dork with a big heart; but he was just as tough as his older brother. Thanks to the solid performance by the actors and their chemistry, the brothers were the heart of Supernatural.

The many characters they met throughout all 15 seasons also became very popular and vital parts of Supernatural whether as scene-stealing guest stars or popular regulars. The ones that stood out most where Bobby Singer (Jim Beaver), a gruff, down-to-earth father/uncle figure who helped the Winchesters in their missions; the sarcastic and scheming demonic ruler of hell, Crowley (Mark A. Sheppard), who had a soft spot for the boys; Rowena (Ruth Connell), a centuries-old witch who was always scheming with many tricks up her sleeves; Jack (Alexander Calvert), a naive and well-meaning nephilum, who happened to be the son of Lucifer; and then there is Castiel (Misha Collins), a stoic angel who looks like he’s auditioning to be the next incarnation of Constantine with his rumpled suit and trenchcoat.

Supernatural more or less followed a certain formula, each season had the brothers and their allies confronting a monumental villain that threatened the world or creation. Intersped in between the arc episodes were monster-of-the-week or other standalone episodes. Early episodes focused on monster-of-the-week threats that established the Winchesters with their gruff, but caring relationship.

Continue reading →