Cinema: Maleficent

Summary:
Once upon a time, the human kingdom and the kingdom of the fairies lived wary of each other. A young human and a young fairy however would meet and fall in love. But as the years pass, the young man succumbs to the greed of humankind and double-crosses the fairy. When the young man becomes the new king, the fairy succumbs to darkness and is determined to get her revenge on the king's young daughter. And that fairy's name...is Maleficent...
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In order to properly discuss this movie, some context must be provided. In 1959, Walt Disney's Sleeping Beauty was released. It used the 1697 fairy tale of the same name by French author Charles Perrault as the basis for its story, and the 1890 ballet adaptation of the same name composed by Pyotr Ilych Tchaikovsky as its musical score. Though it was not initially successful, today it is regarded as a great Disney classic, with most of the praise going to the film's villain, Maleficent. She is regarded as one of the greatest villains ever made, and for good reason. She is loud, bombastic, powerful, conniving, and plenty of other things.

Personally I find it to be a rather...uneven movie. While the character of Maleficent is great and the three good fairies memorable and good in their own right, the rest of the characters are extremely boring. Princess Aurora and Prince Philip are so BORING and dull with nothing interesting about them whatsoever. Side characters like the kings don't do much either. The story is simplistic in its execution, but it is saved by the good elements like Maleficent and the interesting art style of the movie. But I can see why it was met with critical mixed reactions, despite its legacy today.

As such, we now have this movie, directed by relative newcomer Robert Stromberg with Angelina Joile as the titular character and Disney Villain, while Elle Fanning (Super 8) plays the princess Aurora. There were a lot of unknown variables with this one, unlike the various movies where I had a general idea of what it may be like. Much like the animated Sleeping Beauty, I found Maleficent to be a rather unbalanced movie. Jolie does wonderfully as Maleficent, and the characters are great, but most of the story leaves much to be desired and is chalk full of a mishmash of confusing moments, unnecessary scenes, and a few good scenes here and there. Not even the interesting characters can salvage the story much. In some weird way, I find it to be a reversal of the animated classic.

In order to properly discuss this review, I must discuss it in comparison to the animated Sleeping Beauty. Though it is best to talk about the movie on its own merits, there are some cases where it is simply not possible, and this is one of them. I'll try to keep things separate as much as I can, but no promises.

First I shall talk about the characters and compare them across both movies. First we have the titular Maleficent. As discussed she was an awesome villain in the animated one. Here we see something new for her: Backstory, motivation, and humanistic emotions. In the animated, Maleficent did was she did because she was evil. That's it, nothing else. And to be fair, that was all she needed back then. Here though we see Maleficent used to be a young, beautiful fairy of the moors who loved life, and loved the young Stefan before he became an adult and king (Sharlto Copely, District 9). She became scorned when Stefan stole her wings and betrayed her in order to ascend to the throne and grab power. As such she took over the fairy moors and turned it into her dark domain, and took it out on the king's daughter by placing the curse with the spinning wheel. As the years pass however Maleficent becomes sort of a shadowy guardian to Aurora and the two form a special bond as Maleficent begins to doubt her actions and becomes capable of love again. Some may argue that this is a bad idea as it lessens the mystery and love of Maleficent's character, but I personally don't mind. It's nice that we got to see a different side of the story. Angelina Jolie surely must have studied the old Maleficent because she did excellently in this movie, channeling the old one while giving her a softer side. One of the strongest points of the movie for sure.

Next we have Princess Aurora, and BOY there is a world of difference here. The animated Aurora is, without a doubt, one of the worst female princesses in Disney history. Apart from having the personality of cardboard, she does absolutely nothing in that movie but look pretty, smile, sing, pine for some guy she just met, and of course fall asleep. It is extremely telling when you consider the other two Disney Princesses with her around that time. Sure, Snow White and Cinderella aren't much to call home either, but they at least DID something in their movies. Animated Aurora is such a pointless waste of space that this scene from the animated movie sums up how I feel about her:

Now, Aurora in this most recent movie...well sure it may be too much to expect that she will become a butt-kicking superheroine, but she is much stronger. If the animated Aurora is very boring, live action Aurora is...a little boring. At the very least she doesn't just wander around forests and just smile a bland smile. She is innately curious about the fairy moors and yearns to join them. While she does meet Prince Philp and seems to fall for him, it is not her primary goal, focus and relationship. She helps bring out the humanistic side of Maleficent, whom Aurora considers as her fairy godmother and true friend. Most of the time she does just stare a blank stare at CGI fairies, her goal and her friendship make up for that. In other words, she actually has a personality in this movie, and it is most welcome. Most welcome indeed. Though I do have a small nitpick: Aurora doesn't exactly look like a "beauty" in this movie. She's pretty and cute certainly, but a "beauty"? Probably not.

The three fairies in this movie are perhaps the most different and radically changed. In the animated movie, Flora, Fauna and Merryweather serve as the guardians of Aurora and are really adept at magic and taking care of the baby. Their incompetence is mostly shown when they try to plan a birthday surprise, but we're left to assume that they raised Aurora with tender love and care. They help Prince Phillip in the climax by creating his weapons and contributing in the defeat of Maleficent. In THIS movie, Knotgrass, Flittle and Thistlewit are, for lack of a better term, idiots. They "try" to serve as guardians of Aurora but are very neglectful and don't know how to take care of her properly. Everytime they're on-screen they're often bickering with one another and partaking in comedic antics. They do diddely-squat by the end and serve to show how Maleficent is a much better person for Aurora. By all accounts, especially taking the animated in comparison, I should really hate these characters, but now, I absolutely found them wonderful. They made the movie memorable in another way and it was hilarious to see them show how incompetent they are when taking care of baby Aurora. Another key point is that they had no role in making sure the curse would be prevented, while Maleficent deliberately inserted the work-around of her spell.

King Stefan is another change that some may find a turn-off, but perhaps for the best. There's not much to say about Stefan in the animated movie...except for the fact that he was just there. He had some comedic banter with the other king, but that was it. In this movie his actions are the catalyst for the movie. He starts out as an innocent thief who falls for the young Maleficent. Overtime he began to fall to the same greed as humanity and use Maleficent's wings as a way to get him the throne. His character worsens when Maleficent enacts her curse and he slipped deeper and deeper into insanity, obsessed with nothing else but killing Maleficent and being uncaring to his wife and even her daughter. He's so detestable you can't help but cheer as he finally kicks the bucket at the end of the movie. I found it a nice change as we have a clearer cut villain while Maleficent is more of an anti-hero.

One sorta new-ish character is Maleficent's raven. The raven in the animated (identified as Diablo in supplementary material) is Maleficent's familiar and pet. Here, the raven is expanded upon as Maleficent's scout and servant. She also transforms him into a human, Diaval (Sam Riley, Control), who Maleficent can confide in and can sometimes be Maleficent's conscience and voice of reason. Not a whole lot to say except that he was interesting character that follows Maleficent through thick and thin.

And finally there is Prince Philip and...both of them are about the same. Dull, just there, kind of boring, has very few lines. Well at least live-action Prince Philip acknowledged that he wasn't quite ready to love Aurora just yet. That's a plus I guess.

The overall look for this movie can be seen in the two kingdoms. The moor is a bright and colorful place with sparkly creatures, fantasy creations and magic. The castle is a dark, dreary place with lots of gray, black and dull silver. There's also not much to say about the music beyond the great cover of Once Upon a Dream in the credits, and I felt that director Robert Stromberg did alright for his first time.

The biggest thing to talk about is the story, and boy do I have things to say on this one. I felt that there were a lot of unexplained plot points and pointless moments. For example, after Maleficent is betrayed, she can just suddenly take a stick and make it her staff? Why did the fairy moor creatures accept her new rule so easily? When did the three pixies escape and decide to go against Maleficent? Why didn't the three pixies even bother trying to help raise Aurora? Why did Diaval accept his role so readily? What happened in the human kingdom after Stefan is killed? There were really a lot of spanning shots where the characters simply look off into space or we see Aurora just smile and laugh with the moor creatures. Shots like these really made the story drag or just make it dull. Even the scenes with the pixies, as hilarious as they were, were ultimately pointless and could've been cut for time.

What do I like? The kiss scene, because like Frozen before it it played against your expectations. After Maleficent sneaks Prince Philip into the castle, she tries to get him to kiss and wake up Aurora, but to no avail. At this Maleficent becomes truly sorry for letting this happen to Aurora and she kisses her on the forehead. And it is THAT kiss that wakes her up. Quite an unexpected surprise and I appreciate that. Few moments here and there however don't make up for the story being so bland and mediocre.

Final Thoughts:

All in all, much like the animated movie, Maleficent is flawed. It has a few things going for it like Maleficent herself, Aurora and other characters, but the story just can't balance certain aspects properly. Again it's kind of like the animated Sleeping Beauty: Good story, blegh characters. Maleficent is a blegh strory, great characters.

I give it. 2.6/5

Trailer Thoughts:

Annie-This just looks...strange. They changed a lot of things to diffrentiate from the remake, but so far are going in the present day with an African-American Annie and an African-American Mr. Warbucks. To top off the weirdness, Cameron Diaz as Miss Hanngain? What?

Big Hero 6-This is definitely one of the movies I look forward  to this, combining Disney with Marvel. After Frozen I'm very curious to see what's Disney's next major movie is going to be like.

Guardians of the Galaxy-Another movie I'm eagerly awaiting this year. July can't come fast enough.

Planes: Fire & Rescue-I REALLY do not care about this movie at all. If ever.

Cinema: X-Men Days of Future Past

Summary:
The world is in peril, as mutants are hunted down and exterminated by humanity's fearsome Sentinel robots. In an effort to change the future, Professor Xavier and his old enemy Magneto send Wolverine into the past to change the future and prevent the war from ever starting. Wolverine must be quick in reuniting the younger professor and is rival, lest the world of X-Men be ended forever...
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The X-Men movie franchise certainly has its ups and downs. The first two movies based off this 1963 Marvel comic were met with great acclaim and were some of the earliest successful comic book movies. But after that things got rocky; there were movies that had positive reception (X-Men: First Class) and others that were universally despised (X-Men: The Last Stand).

I was first exposed to the X-Men through the beloved 90's TV series and various X-Men video games and toys. As a kid I loved them, though as a teen and adult I only paid a small amount of interest to them. Nowadays I'm more of a fan of Paramount's Marvel Cinematic Universe. But unlike the Spider-Man series, the X-Men movies always piqued my curiosity because of its continuous story and memorable characters. Here is my brief opinion on the X-Men movies released so far:

X-Men-great start, though it is a bit slow looking back on it.
X-Men 2-good continuation that expounds more on the characters and ends ominously
X-Men: The Last Stand-exciting climax, but was average and disappointing all around
X-Men Origins: Wolverine-incredibly, boring, dull, and lame
X-Men First Class: restored my faith in X-Men movies. Good action, character relationships, and drama. Was my favorite X-Men movie.
The Wolverine-blows the first Wolverine completely out of the water and actually makes me care about Wolverine

So now we have the 7th X-Men movie, X-Men: Days of Future Past. Based off the 1981 comic story of the same name, it serves as both a sequel to First Class and The Last Stand. I saw a few trailers and was interested at where it was going.

Oh, and because this is the umpteenth Marvel movie and some people STILL haven't taken a hint:

STAY UNTIL THE VERY END OF THE MOVIE.

Anyway...

This movie was really good. As a superhero piece it has everything you want in it: Action, superpowers, mystery, tension, comedy. But it also succeeds in the storytelling department too: Drama, character relationships, self discovery, redemption. I feel it to the best X-Men movie by far with only a few complaints here and there, and it convinced me that X-Men does not need to be bought out in order to be with the Marvel Cinematic Universe. X-Men is doing perfectly fine on its own, and it ends on such a great note that makes you yearn for more.

The story shifts between the dark future and 1973, allowing us to see both versions of Professor X (Patrick Stewart and James McAvoy) and Magneto (Ian McKellen and Michael Fassbender). This is a great move as the two veteran actors are some of the best parts of the original trilogy while the younger actors are some of the best elements of First Class. For Stewart and McKellen, it's nice to see the two be together and be friends once again with the events of the first X-Men trilogy in mind. And then for McAvoy and Fassbender, we can see how much things have changed between First Class and the 1970's climate of this movie. In fact, that's really the core of the movie.

A major criticism of the past X-Men movies was the overly done focus on the character of Wolverine (Hugh Jackman), and it seems that director Bryan Singer and other writers got a hint for here. Sure Wolverine is the last hope, but he is not the main focus. He serves more as a motivation to help young Xavier, who fell off the slippery slope after First Class. It is complimented with young Xavier's splintered friendship with young Magneto and Mystique (Jennifer Lawrence). Mystique is the one that changes everything, because commits the one act that secures the dark future, and it is up to Wolverine to convince young Xavier to mend bridges and stop her. To complicate matters, Magneto uses the opportunity to enact his goals as well, and in the dark future, time is against the X-Men. It may look complicated, but depending on how invested you are in the movie you should not have any trouble following it.

The major characters are all fleshed out and given enough screen time to work. You can see how young Xavier is jaded, broken and slightly manic, and needing Wolverine to get him out of his slump. It makes his return to action all the more better as he acts more like the future Xavier seen in past movies. Future Xavier in this movie is not seen much, but Patrick Stewart's acting ensures that he makes a big impression. The big moment with these two is when they communicate across time, and see both Xaviers conversing with each other. Young Magneto also makes a good impression. In First Class we saw how Magneto was consumed by revenge against his mother's killer, but in this one we can see how dangerous he is when he is in the game. We see in young Magneto the levels of complexity seen in future Magneto of the past movies; he can be sympathetic, but he ultimately believes in the mutant cause even when the stakes are dire. It would have been nice to see Future Magneto more, but Ian McKellen once again brings so much to the character that he makes a big presence.

Ever since The Hunger Games, Jennifer Lawrence has received tons of attention and accolades for her portrayal as Katniss Everdeen. When she was in First Class her role as Mystique was good, if a bit questionable, mostly because of the connections with the past movies and her character. In Days of Future Past, Lawrence hits bulls-eye with her performance, showcasing a wide array of emotions and allowing to do much more with the character. As she is front and center at the core conflict of the movie, the character of Mystique runs the whole gambit of emotions, and it is just excellent all around.

Hugh Jackman returns as Wolverine, and what else can be said about his performance? Flawless as always. As said before though his character is secondary this time around, and for the better. Wolverine by this point has reached the highest point of his character after being a major player, if not THE major player, in most of the movies, so its refreshing to see Wolverine help in other ways aside from breaking out the claws. The other villain of the movie (Besides Magneto) is Bolivar Trask (Peter Dinkalge, Game of Thrones), creator of the monstrous Sentinel robots. Like the various regular villains of the past, he does what he does for the sake of humanity, and it's entertaining to see him as a cold, hard scientist and politician who is fascinated by the mutants.

Like X-Men movies before, we also have secondary X-Men who are fanservice to the hardcore lovers. Fan favorite Bishop makes his appearance here, and though he was not in it for very long he certainly made an impression. Iceman (Shawn Ashmore, Animorphs) and Shadowcat (Ellen Page, Juno) return from the third movie, which for me was great as they were one of the few positives of that one. Other mutants that appear are Havok from First Class, Colossus from The Last Stand, Storm from the previous movies (Halle Berry) and making their first appearances are Sunspot, Blink and Warpath. I never heard of them, but I'm certainly interested to see more of them now. But the secondary character that everyone is talking about is Quicksilver (Even Peters, American Horror Story). Much of the humor in the movie is derived from him, and I agree that for the few minutes he was in doing his bit, it was great. I certainly hope to see him back in future X-Men movies.

Production design really suited the movie, with the special effects done well. Special mention goes to the Sentinels, which outright kicked butt on the screen and is sure to satisfy fans of the 90's TV show. The overall look to the movie was sort of a washed out grey and dark with just a few hints of color. Some may find that a criticism considering the X-Men usually have a variety of colors, but for me it suits it because of the dire situations. The dark future really looked like a dark future and gave you a sense of unease and foreboding. A major positive is the camera work, which, much like 2012's The Avengers, had very little shaky-cam, and allowed us to see just what all these mutant powers can do.

But the one thing that everybody is talking about, especially among fan circles, is the story. Right off the bat the movie started off just right. This dark future is dark indeed, with humanity and mutants alike enslaved. They don't sugarcoat it here, characters die in this movie and they are really emotional. For longtime fans who followed the movies since the beginning, you can feel the loss and when characters die it hits you in the gut. At the same time there's the situation in the 1970's near the end of the Vietnam War and young Xavier, young Magneto and Mystique trying and failing to mend bridges. The major theme of the movie is the concept of holding onto hope no matter how bleak things get, and redemption and changing for the better. In the end, Mystique is prevented from enacting the event that changes everything, and all three part on good terms though they know they are all enemies now.

And with that one event, the biggest shocker to all the fans...the franchise is reset. Yes, that's right. Essentially, except for First Class, every single one of the X-Men movies NEVER HAPPENED. Characters that were dead before are brought back to life and everyone lives happily in the future. Fans are rightfully mixed on this, myself included. On one hand, I'm slightly bummed that some movies didn't happen, while on the other hand I'm happy that other certain movies didn't happen either. But it gives the movie franchise tons of material to work with. Indeed, there is already a sequel announced, and I'm very eager for more.

Final Thoughts:

In fact, this movie really convinced me. I was one of those folks that really wanted Fox to sell the X-Men movie franchise back to Marvel and Paramount so Wolverine could join The Avengers, but Days of Future Past showed that they don't need to. X-Men as a movie series has tons of its own things going on about it, and with the reset button pressed, they have tons of opportunities to expand its universe. If First Class restored my faith in X-Men movies, Days of Future Past made me an X-Men fan again. X-Men Days of Future Past is not only the best X-Men movie by far, it's one of the best superhero movies for me out there. Good action, and complex story make for a good time, and while the franchise reset may be a huge turnoff for some, it does allow for more X-Men to be made in the future.

And the future of the franchise is ominous indeed with the next one. Apocalypse is coming...

Score: 4.4/5

Trailer Thoughts:

Maleficent: To be honest I'm a little sick of seeing trailers for this in every movie I go to. But I'll certainly be going into this one with an open mind.

One Year From Now: Not much I can get from the trailer, except that Christopher Nolan is behind this. Kinda curious. I like Inception but I care very little for his Batman stuff.

Dawn of the Planet of the Apes: While I liked Rise of the Planet of the Apes, I didn't watch it in cinema. Not sure if I want to watch this one in cinema as well. I do like the Planet of the Apes movies, but not enough that I'd like to see them on the big screen.

How to Train Your Dragon 2: One of my biggest movie-going regrets is not seeing the first How to Train Your Dragon in theaters. This was back before I paid interest to DreamWorks, and people have told me that the first movie rocked so much. I have however watched the TV show, and I was entertained. Definitely something I'll watch...but I need to watch the first one before it comes out.

Next review: Maleficent

Cinema: Godzilla 2014

Summary:
In 1999, a freak earthquake caused a nuclear meltdown in Japan that ruined the lives of a nuclear engineer and his son. 15 years later they both return to the quarantined sight only to find a nuclear giant monster on the loose and terrorizing the world. The only hope seems to be the legendary creature known only as Godzilla...
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When people think giant monsters, the one that usually comes to mind immediately is Godzilla. Created for the Japanese silver screen in 1954, Godzilla became a pop culture icon that epitomized giant monster movies. Godzilla's trademark roar, look, and Atomic Breath stuck with people for the past 60 years, and that is part thanks to a whopping 29 movies consistently made by the Japanese film studio Toho.

For me personally my experience with Godzilla was minimal. I vaguely recall watching one or two cartoon series, but I never watched any of the films in full. The only one I did see in full is that American-made one in 1998 starring Matthew Broderick and...boy, that one was sooooooooo lame. As such I was only mildly curious when this new one was announced, and I didn't keep up with the trailers, hype or casting news. In other words this is another movie I went in completely in the dark despite the leaks and trailers on the Internet.

By the time I walked out of the theater, I was pretty satisfied. It was very enjoyable, with a few hiccups here and there. Decent human characters, nice monsters, good cinematography, and an EXCELLENT rendition of Godzilla himself.

As usual, if you have not seen the movie yet...

The first thing to talk about is the human characters. Though I haven't seen most of the other films in their entirety, I'm aware that every Godzilla has at least some form of human element in them to balance the giant monsters out. Some films would find that balance right, others would find it too much. For this one I feel they got the right amount. The most important element is that when the humans were there and having their conflicts, it actually was in relation to Godzilla instead of having a B-plot from a different movie.

First is the human protagonist Ford, played by Aaron-Taylor-Johnson (Shanghai Knights, Kick-Ass). He was a smart and competent person throughout the movie, taking things in stride because of his military background. Then there is is father, played by Bryan Cranston (Breaking Bad). I found it amusing that for a big name TV actor, he was only in the movie for the first third before his character dies from a monster attack. Still though his role was done very great as the desperate scientist searching for answers, and bringing Ford into the madness.

There were two characters I was iffy on. The first is Dr. Serizawa, played by Ken Watanabe (The Last Samurai, Inception). While he once again played a good role as the weary doctor trying to track down Godzilla, his problem is the same one as his role in Inception: the inability to understand what he is saying. I know it's not is fault, but his English accent really needs work. But beyond that, he played his role fine. The other is Elle, played by Elizabeth Olsen (younger sister of the Olsen Twins). She was just...there. She was the wife Ford and looked after their son and was a nurse. They showed her running away from Godzilla and taking shelter...and that's it. She wasn't bad, she was just...there. Nothing much else to say. She's probably the weakest character in the movie, on the grounds that she didn't do much.

It's pretty funny though when you consider that Aaron Taylor-Johnson and Elizabeth Olsen are in this movie as a married couple when they'll be in the upcoming Avengers: Age of Ultron as a brother and sister.

The next things to talk about are the three monsters. In my opinion, it was a good move not recycling any of the other Godzilla monsters and instead creating two new ones. Identified as "MUTOS (Massive Unidentified Terrestrial Organisms), they were created by mankind's nuclear tests. Design-wise they were OK, looking kind of like arachnids with reptilian heads. The male MUTO can fly and generate EMP shockwaves by stomping, while the female MUTO is bigger and lays eggs.

But of course the one that steals the show, the reason why you came to the movie in the first place, is Godzilla. And man oh man, they did an excellent job with him. He only appeared a few times, but when he did appear, he definitely made an impression. This Godzilla is computer-generated as opposed to a suit, but he looked real enough. Seeing him on the big screen you can see just how utterly huge he is. Everything you want from Godzilla is there and then some. What I especially like is that, unlike before, this Godzilla is more of an anti-hero. He saves the world and destroys the monsters but causes massive destruction and death. I even daresay that this Godzilla can actually look downright scary if you really get into the movie. Nothing really negative to say, he was just done excellently.

Now for the technical aspect. The CGI in this was done well, especially when you compare it to other Godzilla recent Godzilla movies of the past where they haven't quote gotten the CGI down. As said previously the monsters are rendered well enough to look real. When you see them on the screen, it's as if they're really there. The cinematography was good too. The shaky camera got annoying as usual but thankfully there wasn't a whole lot of it. And finally, the camera work was top notch. Though CGI, it's as if they used the work of the old Godzilla movies to make the monsters look huge, filming at low angles with tons of vertical and horizontal panning shots and closeup shots. You could practically see the bumps, ridges and scales every time you saw Godzilla up close.

The story is where things got a little mixed. The beginning is a little slow for me, only really picking up once the first MUTO appears and they got on the aircraft carrier. Until then it was like watching a completely different movie. The theme I feel is the same one touched upon (Though not as heavily) in the original 1954 movie: A cautionary tale about the dangers of nuclear testing and the folly of mankind trying to fight back against nature. Godzilla in this movie can be seen as a metaphor; Mother Nature's own pet monster if you will. Godzilla's appearance alone triggers tsunamis and there is widespread destruction. He doesn't outright hate and kill humans but doesn't particularly care about the damage he did. He's not the children-loving, monster-befriending, squeaky clean hero of the Earth as in the past. He is a force to be reckoned with.

There were tons of other things I liked about the movie. Anytime Godzilla was on screen it was just great, especially when he was first revealed for everybody to see. The music was nothing much to comment on, but I give props to the score for utilizing trumpets and violins whenever the monsters fought. It made them seem much grander. It was nice seeing a Godzilla movie or just a giant monster movie in general where we have a military body that's actually smart instead of existing as fodder for Godzilla to destroy. There was also a great Easter Egg that references the monster Mothra, and the final shot of the movie where Godzilla leaves and swims back to the ocean was beautifully done. You think he is dead but instead he majestically rises as the people are unsure if he's the doom of the planet or the savoir of the planet, as he lets out one final roar and disappears, indicating that someday, he may be back.

Final Verdict
Should there be a sequel? Maybe, but I dunno. I think they need to think long and hard about that, otherwise it'll ruin what the first movie built up; a return of Godzilla back into the public consciousness. No disrespect to the Godzilla movies of the past, but they were, for lack of a better term, cheesy. It is that cheese that really defined Godzilla and made that perception of him just being silly and stupid fun. This movie changes that and brings Godzilla back to a certain level of seriousness. Combine that with decent human characters, nice enemy monsters, and various technical aspects, and you've got yourself an entertaining movie.

Score: 3.9/5

Trailer thoughts:

Maleficent: Shaping up to be good. I'll be seeing this in the coming weeks

X-Men: Days of Future Past: Same as the above.

Edge of Tomorrow: Stars Tom Cruise and Emily Blunt in a Sci-Fi setting. Nothing much to comment on, and looks kind of generic.

Jupiter Ascending: I don't even know who the actors are in this, but one thing I do like is the setting. The space backgrounds and the spaceships look pretty nice.

One other comment. Ayala Malls, you keep playing this one segment about the importance of orderly and calm evacuations and exiting the cinemas. But why do the people in your segment look like they're walking on a fashion runway with neutral calm expressions? That is so not realistic, especially the little kid who is smiling.

Next review: X-Men: Days of Future Past