Godzilla (2014)

The biggest, lizardiest building of all.

".."

Hey folks, hope your weekend was full of low altitude drops into extremely dangerous situations! I know mine certainly was, and it's all thanks to the arrogance of man, whose hubris knows no bounds. Welcome back to the Tagline, today I will be talking about the new Godzilla film that was just released, which I approached with a mixture of hope and deep fear. Much like any person who had endured a traumatic incident, I was fearful to approach something that was so reminiscent of the place where I had previously suffered. If you would like my complete thoughts on the matter, then please feel free to look over here. Anyway this film cuts a different path entirely, and is actually about a thing that you'd expect a Godzilla movie to be about, and not a bunch of assholes trying to blow up some weird looking Tyrannosaurus or something. This showed us that clearly the makers of 1998 Godzilla had no idea what the fuck they were doing. In addition to the 8 million other reasons why that movie was total shit, it was doomed from the start due to an inherent lack of understanding, about what people like about Godzilla. To wit, no one wants to watch a movie where Ferris Bueller and Leon the Professional team up to murder Godzilla and a bunch of Jurassic Park raptors. NO ONE WANTS TO SEE THAT MOVIE (okay someone might, but that's a totally different movie). It shows that the creators of that movie didn't know shit about Godzilla. Godzilla is not the bad guy. No one wants to see Godzilla get killed. We want to see him beat up OTHER MONSTERS and the city just sort of gets annihilated in the crossfire, because he's really big, and the other monsters are also big. Godzilla is the hero of the movie, make no mistake. Sure he maybe kills a lot of people, but he isn't TRYING to kill them. They're probably assholes anyway, why are they hanging around downtown with a 30 story tall lizard bearing down on them?

Rise of the Planet of the Apes

Look at that stern ape.

“Evolution Becomes Revolution”

Hey y’all welcome to The Tagline! As promised, today I will NOT be talking about a horror movie, but you will probably be sad by the time I’m done. Today I will be talking about the 2011 Rise of the Planet of the Apes. For those of you who remember the film Outbreak, just think of that, only also there are super intelligent primates. That is basically what’s on offer here, but I’m getting a little bit ahead of myself so let’s back it up. Rise does not exist in continuity with any other Planet of the Apes movie, instead it is an origin story independent from all the others and intended to kick off a new series of films. At the same time, the movie aims to be consistent in theme with the original movies. To compare, the director Rupert Wyatt said his aim was similar to what was done in Batman Begins. How successful was he at that? Look under the cut to find out! (OH THE SUSPENSE DON’T YOU FEEL DRAWN IN)

Troll Hunter

That's no Bjørn at all!

"You'll believe it when you see it!"

Hello everyone! Welcome back all you Tagline readers! Today I'm going to talk about another Netflix movie today, one that I've been meaning to watch for a long time, but hadn't gotten around to. That movie is Troll Hunter, and it is more or less exactly what it sounds like. As has been so popular to do, the movie is filmed in a "found footage" style, following three college students as they attempt to interview a man they believe to be a bear poacher. Of course, this man is not, in fact, hunting bears, nor is he a poacher. Instead we discover that he is hunting trolls, and that he is in the employ of the government. Through the experiences of the would be film makers we discover that Norway has all kinds of trolls in it, some of them very large. They normally keep to themselves, but for some reason the trolls are getting restless, and so Hans (the hunter) has had his hands full hunting the errant ones. You see some trolls are relatively small. Others are... quite large. Like giant large. Bigger than trees even.

Pacific Rim

Property Damage: The Movie

"To fight monsters we created monsters."

Heyo everyone! Posting a little bit later than usual, but I didn't want to write my review for Pacific Rim half asleep, so here it is now! Pacific Rim (if you've been hiding from summer movie news) is about giant monsters dubbed Kaiju, which appear out of a rift under the ocean (as in a rift in space, like a portal, not just a hole) called the breach and then rise to annihilate all of mankind. To combat this coming monster-fueled end time, the world's governments all work together to create the Jaegers, enormous man operated mecha that have the size and weaponry to blow up Kaiju. Also in the process to cause considerable volumes of property damage, which they do, for the duration of the film. That isn't really anything that people are worrying about though, because they're too busy worrying about the towering reptilian monsters trying to kill them. The plot's human element focuses around Raleigh Beckett (Charlie Hunnam, who appeared in my review of Deadfall) a former Jaeger ace who stopped piloting after his brother was killed. Raleigh is called back into action by Stacker Pentacost (Idris Elba, notably he was Heimdall in Thor) to assist in one final desperate attempt to close the breach. This situation is complicated in many ways: the united world governments have cut funding to the Jaeger program, leaving only four functioning. In addition Kaiju attacks are increasing in frequency and the Kajiu coming through are larger and adapted for combat against Jaegers. Add in Raleigh's own attempts to cope with the death of his brother, and his new co-pilot Mako (Rinko Kikuchi) trying to deal with her own issues, and shit looks pretty bad for the world.

The Adventures of Milo & Otis

Aww this will be adorable OR
EXTREMELY TRAUMATIZING AHH.

"Milo is one lucky cat. He's got nine lives and a best friend."
Hello everyone, welcome back to The Tagline! Initially it had been my plan to take some cheap shots at a crummy movie. Then, I thought to myself "hey you should do another action movie, you have a never-ending supply of THOSE" but finally, during a conversation with a friend I was reminded of this film, which sparked all sorts of long repressed emotions and is now forcing us all on a trip down the misty and fogged lane that is my distant memory. Once upon a time, there was a little boy (me) who by some turn of fate ended up with this movie on VHS (I was very little, and VHS was still a thing) and as I was wont to do with any film or anything I owned, I watched it all the time, regardless of how it made me feel, because when you are a small child you don't really think about why you are doing things too much. You just sort of do them. Oh this movie is in front of me? THEN I WILL WATCH IT OVER AND OVER. For those who do not know (until I did some basic research I did not know) The Adventures of Milo and Otis was a film originally released in Japan in 1986 as Koneko Monogatari, where it was apparently the most popular film of that year (wow.) and it was later totally revamped and released in 1989 in the US, as the Adventures of Milo and Otis, with an English voice-overs, reworked music and film etc. etc. it was a very different movie. Either way, the film follows Milo (who is a cat) and his friend Otis, as they grow up on a farm and then have adventures out in the wide world. It is tagged (as above) as a lovable joyous romp of adorable animals. See Milo, being the cat, is the one who gets into trouble and floats in a box down the river, and Otis, sensible fellow he is, follows dutifully after to try and find his friend. That sounds nice right? WRONG, THAT DESCRIPTION DOESN'T MENTION THE EMOTIONAL DESOLATION MY YOUNG HEART WAS TO EXPERIENCE.