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Eragon
InMovie Reviews, Ugly

Eragon (Review)

April 30, 2007By

Eragon


2006
Directed by Stefen Fangmeier

I have just seen the greatest film of the last 50 years: STAR WARS!!! Unfortunately, it was buried beneath a train wreck of a movie called Eragon. Eragon is based on a book written by Christopher Paolini, who started on it when he was 15 and got it published by age 18. When reprinted, he became a best-selling author at age 19. Sadly, his novel is not unique, and is in fact just Star Wars meets Lord of the Rings, with a few references to Dragonriders of Pern and Robert Jordan novels. It is less of a theft and more of a wholesale rape, as what he does take isn’t turned into a brilliant work of fantasy, but just some fanboy wankery hardly worthy of posting on bad fan-fiction sites on the internet. Paolini managed to pimp out his age (due to finishing home schooling early he was free to do a book tour of schools while dressed in some knight costume) to successfully get his book republished. This shows us that you don’t need originality to succeed in the world, only ambition to promote yourself and your repackaged ideas. Sure, Star Wars borrows from Kurasawa and mythology canons, but it melds together into an interesting story that reshaped science fiction movies. Eragon becomes a mess, complete with shots identical to those in Star Wars and others, and manages to even screw up copying from Star Wars correctly. George Lucas never ruined Star Wars this bad with Jar Jar Binks, but Paolini enters new territories. So in a way it is ground-breaking, nothing has ever sucked so much like this before.

Eragon (Ed Speleers) – Luke Skywalker at your service! This orphan blonde whiny farmboy is thrust into the world of being a generic hero when his uncle is killed and a crazy old man teaches him the way of Jedi Knighting by Dragon. Totally not a self-insertion of Paolini. Ed Speleers went on to become a construction worker.
Brom (Jeremy Irons) – Obi-Wan Kenobi, or KenobIrons, or Obi-Wan Irons. Crazy old man who knew about Jedi Knight Dragonriders, because he used to be one. Killed due to Eragon’s stupidity while rescuing the Princess. Is Irons making up for Dungeons and Dragons? Because he was the only thing good in that film, a feat he doesn’t manage here.
Arya (Sienna Guillory) – Princess Leia here is for once not Eragon’s sister (at least not yet!) An Elf, despite the film forgetting and making her human. I only read she was an elf online. Probably still his sister, anyway, or at least he wants her to be. You can find photos of actress Sienna Guillory naked on the Internet, and looking at those is better than watching this film any day of the week.
Durza (Robert Carlyle) – Darth Vader! Sort of. Sort of like Darth Maul, in that he’s only in one film and killed. Flies a TIE Advanced Smoke Bat. Can teleport like Nightcrawler, except he doesn’t use it to fight at all. Durza’s name sounds very close to Dozer, which were the green creatures from Fraggle Rock that built stuff all day. Except Dozers were cool, and Durza sounds like he was named by a three year old with a mouth stuffed with crackers.
Galbatorix (John Malkovich)- Emperor Palpatine! Like the Emperor, wasn’t in the first chapter of the trilogy, except the producers seem to think that audiences have gotten stupider over the last 30 years and insisted on inserting him in, because otherwise the audience would never know who is giving orders. Well, if they liked Eragon, they probably ARE that stupid.
Murtagh (Garrett Hedlund)- Han Solo! Except in this trilogy, Han Solo is the brother of Luke, unlike Leia. Nice try, we still see what you’re stealing from. Namely, Christian Slater’s character of Will Scarlet from Robin Hood – Prince of Thieves! Besides dressing up the character identically, and giving him the same hair style, they also make him Eragon’s secret brother (reveled in book 2) just like Will Scarlet was made Robin Hood’s brother in that movie. Named after Danny Glover’s character in the Lethal Weapon franchise.
Uncle Garrow (Alun Armstrong) – Uncle Owen! Farmer adoptive father of Eragon killed by the Emperor’s men looking for what the hero has, just like Uncle Owen!
Roran (Chris Egan) – Eragon’s cousin, doesn’t have a Star Wars counterpart in this movie, maybe Wedge. His character does something other than wander out of the film after 20 minutes in the second book. Looks like a clone of Eragon, both of which are walking Nazi Aryan propaganda. Remember, blonde hair is good, black hair like Han Solo/Murtagh is bad.
Ajihad (Djimon Hounsou) – Lando! Not really. Why name a black guy “A Jihad”? RACIST! Obviously he isn’t really Lando, as Lando doesn’t show up until part two/five. A Jihad is leader of the Varden (the Rebels), which would make him sort of like Mon Mothma or Admiral Ackbar. No word on if A Jihad had promoted suicide bombings.
Hrothgar (Gary Lewis) – Chewbacca! Not really. The King of the Dwarves, except no one involved in the movie bothers to point this out at all, or even give his name, which Paolini ripped off from a video game called Icewind Dale, originally a reference to Danish King Hroðgar from Beowolf. Not that Paolini would borrow anyone else’s work. I didn’t know he was supposed to be a dwarf until I read it online.
Saphira (CGI and Rachel Weisz) – Jedi Lightsaber! X-Wing Fighter! Is blue, just like Luke’s first lightsaber. Gives Eragon the power of the Force. Born of a blue Jelly Belly. Makes snappy comments trying to endear her to us as one of those tough girls, but fails. Gives Eragon ringworm. Somehow makes dragons boring and uninteresting.
Cozzilla
InMovie Reviews, Ugly

Cozzilla (Review)

April 24, 2007By

Cozzilla

aka Godzilla, il re dei mostri

1977

Directed by Ishiro Honda and Terry O. Morse (USA)
Italian rearrangement and direction by Luigi Cozzi

cozzilla
Godzilla, il re dei mostri (hence after known as Cozzilla) began life long ago as 1954’s Gojira. After becoming a box office hit in Japan, the film was recut for America with scenes added starring Raymond Burr (at that time relatively unknown.) Godzilla, King of the Monsters proved to be a hit in America as well. Sequels were spawned, a franchise was born, and new Godzilla films were being produced 50 years later. The US cut of Gojira is not the only overseas modified version. Another one has gained some fame for the many odd alterations done to it. Writer/director Luigi Cozzi is a big fan of Godzilla, wrote a book about Big G, and is even nicknamed Cozzilla by his friends. Cozzi is best known here for being the director/Writer of Star Crash, Contamination, and the Lou Ferrigno Hercules movies, as well as the writer of Devil Fish (featured on MST3K.) None of those films are known for their stellar plots or special effects, but instead their cheese and terribleness. Here, one finds that even with a great movie base to work off of, you can ruin a final product.

Cozzi set out to share with Italy the great monster film, but he knew he would have to alter it for Italian audiences. In 1977, no one went to black and white films, thus Cozzi set up an elaborate colorization process known as Spectrorama 70. Colored gels were set behind frames of the film, oversaw by Armando Valcauda. New music cues were put together by Alberto Moro to go with the altered length of the film. Scenes were chopped out, and much new footage was added, but mostly World War II stock shots of bombed cities, weapons firing, and dead bodies. Yes, actual dead bodies. Also, a shark fights an octopus from The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms towards the end.

The only known copy of this film is a VHS tape that had direct footage from a 16mm print (complete with reel announces.) As the tape was old, parts of it are choppy, and it appears to cut off abruptly at the end. wtfFILM got a hold of a copy of the tape and helped allow the world to see it, first by providing DVDRs and then uploading the film to Google Video. You can see the film here with their review. Some of the background information mentioned here was revealed there, and they even subtitled the movie themselves! As of this writing the store is closed, but hopefully it will be open soon, he has some other neat stuff around (including a trailer I saw for a restored version of Cozilla, which looks like it might be re-color-altered from Godzilla KOTM DVDs! Maybe that will get compelted soon and we can have a real treat!)

cozzilla
Godzilla has always been an allegory about the dangers of the atomic bomb, even when he was dashing out of a cave to save TV hero Zone Fighter (okay, maybe not then) but this version of the film takes that to an extreme level. It is so extreme, I was expecting the film to be chugging Mt. Dew and snowboarding out of airplanes into a volcano. It is a depressing kind of extreme, as Godzilla turns into an indictment of war and the human race in general. Thanks to the ample WW2 stock footage, we see far too many real dead bodies for anyone’s taste. Sure, the original film was about the horrors of the atomic bomb, but they didn’t make you want to go curl up in a hole and cry. Talk about brushing your teeth with a shotgun! Thankfully, the VHS quality and the Spectorama 70 color bleed takes the wind out of the sails on some of the images’ graphic details.

The overall use of the color does some nice work setting the atmosphere of the film at times. Godzilla’s attack and the Tokyo destruction are shown as bright red, and makes it violent, chaotic, and tragic at the same time. I enjoyed that choice of color, but at other times the random blues, greens, and yellows seemed to be chosen haphazardly. Some of the screenshots will just look odd because of that. I tried to make many of the shots identical to the ones in the Godzilla, King of the Monsters review, so you can flip between them and see how the color made them different (ignoring the obvious difference in video quality.) In addition, I threw in new shots of the older altered movie and the new inserted footage. As we go along the plot, I’ll point out what differs, and copy over some of the similarities, as the basic story is the same.

Godzilla Mothra Tokyo SOS
InMovie Reviews, Ugly

Godzilla, Mothra, Mechagodzilla: Tokyo S.O.S. (Review)

April 9, 2007By

Godzilla, Mothra, Mechagodzilla: Tokyo S.O.S.

aka Gojira tai Mosura tai Mekagojira: Tokyo S.O.S.

2003

Starring
Noboru Kaneko as Yoshito Chujo
Miho Yoshioka as Pilot Azusa Kisaragi
Mitsuki Koga as Mechagodzilla Pilot Kyosuke Akiba
Hiroshi Koizumi as Dr. Shinichi Chujo
Akira Nakao as Prime Minister Hayato Igarashi
Koichi Ueda as General Dobashi
Koh Takasugi as Colonel Togashi
Masami Nagasawa as Shobijin (Twin Fairy)
Chihiro Otsuka as Shobijin (Twin Fairy)
Directed by Masaaki Tezuka

March of Godzilla 2 soldiers on with the sequel to Godzilla X Mechagodzilla, Godzilla, Mothra, Mechagodzilla: Tokyo S.O.S.! This time, Mothra has been thrown into the mix, main characters have been ceremoniously and unceremoniously dumped, while suddenly the movie goes all sanctity of life on us. It comes out of left field, but before we know it we’re getting pelted from every direction. If we can ignore the message, underneath it all we have a pretty entertaining Godzilla film, much better than its predecessor. In addition to Mothra making a reappearance, we also get a reappearance from Hiroshi Koizumi! He reprises his role of Dr. Shinichi Chujo that he did in the original Mothra back in 1961. Having met Mr. Koizumi about two years ago, I remember he said he was happy that he could reprise an older role, and was proud of his appearances in Godzilla films. The best part is this follows the continuity of this film series, for in this reality Godzilla never attacked Japan again after 1954 until he reappeared in 1998. However, monsters such as Mothra and the Gargantuas plagued Japan, so they created Special Forces to deal with them. Thus the Mothra movie happened, and so did Dr. Shinichi Chujo. Hiroshi Koizumi has been seen here numerous times: Godzilla vs. Mothra, Ghidrah the Three-Headed Monster, and Gigantis, the Fire Monster.

This is the second to last Millennium Series Godzilla film, and currently the second to last Godzilla film, period. Rumors abound a low-budget IMAX Godzilla film might happen, but officially Toho has shut down Godzilla for the time being, to renew interest. Until that day, we have to make due with what already exists, a huge library of films, and many TV appearances (some of which we are hard at work tracking down.) Such a horrible predicament!

As stated before, this is a direct sequel to the previous year’s Godzilla X Mechagodzilla, making it the second direct sequel to a Mechagodzilla film (third if you count the fact that the second original Mechagodzilla movie was part of a continuous series of films.) Needless to say, Mechagodzilla must have a good agent who is meticulous with the sequel clause. It always does him good. Mechagodzilla is again built by humans to fight Godzilla in the previous film, and is being repaired after major damage suffered in the fight. He has a few new tricks, and loses an old one due to funding cuts. Funding cuts, the essence of action films! This is also the only Godzilla movie I remember that makes a big deal about rebuilding efforts being stalled, as much of Tokyo where they fought before is still in ruins. The rest of the city is fine, and ripe to be destroyed in the next battle. Who will emerge victorious? Will Godzilla be stopped? Why do the Shobijin dislike Mechagodzilla? Will some dumb girl carry a plant around like a baby? Will the female lead be a depressed ice queen? Will the lame spirituality subplot tank the film? These questions and more can be answered in Godzilla, Mothra, Mechagodzilla: Tokyo S.O.S.!

Godzilla X Mechagodzilla
InMovie Reviews, Ugly

Godzilla X Mechagodzilla (Review)

April 2, 2007By

Godzilla X Mechagodzilla

aka Gojira tai Mekagojira

2002

Starring
Yumiko Shaku as Akane Yashiro
Shin Takuma as Tokumitsu Yuhara
Kana Onodera as Sara Yuhara
Koh Takasugi as Colonel Togashi
Yusuke Tomoi as 2nd Lieutenant Hayama
Kumi Mizuno as Prime Minister Machiko Tsuge
Akira Nakao as Prime Minister Hayato Igarashi
Jun’ichi Mizuno as 1st Lieutenant Sekine
Directed by Masaaki Tezuka

Godzilla continues his rampage, as the Millennium series continues its run on TarsTarkas.NET for March of Godzilla 2. This time, history is rewritten again, as we go to another alternate reality where Godzilla again never returned after his death for 45 years. Derivations abound, a new anti-Godzilla force is introduced, and this movie trumps everything by getting a direct sequel. It also gives us a new and improved Mechagodzilla, making the third version of that creature. Like the second version, this Mechagodzilla is built to fight Godzilla by humans, but has some noticeable differences. You see, he’s built on the bones of the original Godzilla, which weren’t vaporized by the oxygen destroyer as previously shown in the original script. I guess they just floated a few feet off camera or something during one of those bubble fade outs (or the convenient excuse: alternate reality.) Anyway, so that makes Mechagodzilla a bio-robot. Now, it is odd that this film got a direct sequel, as the human characters are some of the least interesting in a while. Some of them don’t even appear in the next installment, making you wonder what the heck happened. Well, not that much, since they aren’t that interesting. Drum that up with an unsatisfying conclusion, and you got some sort of messy Godzilla flick that only marginally entertains, at least until the title monsters actually start fighting. Both before and after, it’s a bumpy ride.

After the success of Godzilla, Mothra and King Ghidorah: Giant Monsters All-Out Attack, Toho was set to just redo popular monsters. As one of the most popular and classic monsters was the robotic double of Godzilla, here he is. And so we got the third movie entitled Gojira tai Mekagojira. But it’s cool, as instead they renamed it Godzilla X Mechagodzilla for the US. You see, the X makes all the difference. The prior Gojira tai Mekagojira was simply titled Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla 2, despite the fact it was unrelated to the original Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla. Terror of Mechagodzilla is the sequel to the first, making this all confusing. All those facts and titles making your head spin? Well, that’s funny, because the original Mechagodzilla spun his head as a weapon and….

Okay, enough of that, let’s focus on THIS movie. Problems or not, it is what is playing in the DVD player. So we are stuck with it. We seem to get that a lot here. Maybe I should fix the DVD player, so it stops playing stupid movies….Nah, then how would I update the site? In addition to the Japanese version, we also got the English dub, which makes some of the characters sound over-dramatic, and still uses the Kiryu name. The clips will be from that version, so you don’t have to read subtitles. But before the movie, we must meet the cast!

Godzilla Mothra King Ghidorah
InMovie Reviews, Ugly

Godzilla, Mothra and King Ghidorah: Giant Monsters All-Out Attack (Review)

March 26, 2007By

Godzilla, Mothra and King Ghidorah: Giant Monsters All-Out Attack

aka Gojira, Mosura, Kingu Gidora: Daikaiju sokogeki

2001

Starring
Chiharu Niyama as Yuri Tachibana
Ryudo Uzaki as Admiral Taizo Tachibana
Masahiro Kobayashi as Teruaki Takeda
Shiro Sano as Haruki Kadokura
Eisei Amamoto (Hideyo Amamoto) as Professor Hirotoshi Isayama the Prophet
Mizuho Yoshida as Godzilla/Gojira
Akira Ohashi as King Ghidorah
Rie Ota as Baragon
Directed by Shusuke Kaneko

Godzilla, Mothra and King Ghidorah: Giant Monsters All-Out Attack aka GMK aka Gojira, Mosura, Kingu Gidora: Daikaiju sokogeki aka Godzilla, Mothra, King Ghidorah: The Giant Monsters’ General Offensive (the literal title) has a reputation of being one of the better entries in the series. This couldn’t be further from the truth. GMK is one of the worst entries, in my opinion THE worst film of the whole series. Biollante? Megalon? The Smog Monster? They are three Citizen Kanes compared to GMK. Director Shusuke Kaneko became famous for making the highly regarded modern Gamera films, and was given a chance to make a Godzilla film. His original concept would have been far superior, but Toho screwed around with his monster choices, and that combined with stylistic touches I don’t really care for ended up melting into a nasty soup of disflavor. We shall go over some of the origins of the film before we get to the story, and deal with the problems in their appropriate areas.

Godzilla X Varan, Baragon and Anguilus: Giant Monsters All-Out Attack would have been a neat film. It would have eliminated one of my major criticisms of this film, the complete role reversals of several established monsters. It also would have provided a reappearance of Varan after many years (last seen briefly as a ratty costume in Destroy All Monsters), Anguirus returning (who hadn’t been seen since Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla), and Baragon (who made it into the final film.) Varan was actually director Shusuke Kaneko’s favorite monster, but he ended up keeping Baragon in the final product, and changing Ghidorah’s face to resemble the old Varan costume. Also, rumor is the Gotengo from Atragon would have also appeared (it ended up reappearing in Godzilla: Final Wars, alongside Anguirus) and lots of maser tanks (the tanks with the satellite dishes that shoot lasers.) But as Varan and Baragon were not box office bankable, something Toho was more worried about after the failures of Godzilla 2000 and Godzilla vs. Megaguirus; and after Kaneko’s own friends had no idea who Anguirus and Varan were (I don’t know if they knew who Baragon was) he decided to drop them in favor of the pushed by the studio King Ghidrah and Mothra. This provided a small wrinkle storywise. Okay, a huge wrinkle. The plot of the film is about Godzilla attacking, being the souls of the dead from World War 2 out for revenge. Japan would then be defended by three guardian creatures, which were weaker than Godzilla but teamed up their power. Since Mothra and King Ghidrah can both hold their own against Big G, they had to modify them a bit to make them smaller and weaker looking. Also, that meant Ghidrah was a hero for the first time ever, something I do NOT agree with. The monsters end up not being much of team players, with only Mothra doing things to help anyone else.

So now Godzilla, instead of being treated like a force of nature, is now a malevolent force of destruction. He doesn’t even have pupils anymore, to give him a more sinister look. I kind of find that annoying, but it fits in with the intended storyline, so I let it go. He also has a hunched back and pot belly, which is a tad harder to let go. Hit the gym, Big G! As a film in the Millennium series, it is free to rewrite continuity however it sees fit. Still, some things shouldn’t change, like character allegiances. The success of the film prompted Toho to continue making a few more G films, so some good came out of it. Just because I like it the least doesn’t mean I won’t watch it, but when given a choice between chocolate and chocolate with peanut butter, you take the C&PB every time. Plus, I lied earlier, this cannot be the worst Godzilla film, as thanks to this and Godzilla Final Wars, the American Godzilla is now part of the canon, making it the worst film. Hopefully some enterprising young student makes their own fan film of Godzilla X Varan, Baragon and Anguilus: Giant Monsters All-Out Attack, with which we can live on vicariously until Toho decides to start pumping out more Big G films again.

InMovie Reviews, Ugly

Godzilla vs. Megaguirus (Review)

March 19, 2007By

Godzilla vs. Megaguirus

aka Gojira tai Megagirasu: Ji shometsu sakusen aka Godzilla vs. Megaguirus: The G Annihilation Strategy
Godzilla vs Megaguirus
2000

Starring
Misato Tanaka as Kiriko Tsujimori
Shosuke Tanihara as Hajime Kudo
Masato Ibu as Motohiko Sugiura
Yuriko Hoshi as Yoshino Yoshizawa
Toshiyuki Nagashima as Takuji Miyagawa
Tsutomu Kitagawa as Godzilla
Minoru Watanabe as Megaguirus
Directed by Masaaki Tezuka
Godzilla vs Megaguirus
Godzilla fights a giant bug! Sound familiar? Because most of this movie is, and has been done before much better. There are a few nice scenes, but for the most part the movie is just a pale imitation of its forbearers, a legacy it can never hope to be part of. The second film of the “Millennium” series (Shinsei series), where the story can ignore continuity at will to make things however they want. Sure, that allowed this movie to potentially do some neat things, but in the end, they just floundered with them, and the whole thing fizzled.

Godzilla attacks the mainland periodically, but as they only follow the first film, Godzilla can attack whenever they want him to. Godzilla’s main foe is Megaguirus, who is one of the lamest monsters. So far, the Millennium series does have one point of continuity: they all created crappy new villains for Big G. Eventually they just gave up and went back to reusing older monsters, for much better effect. Until then, we have to deal with this Megaguirus. Megaguirus is a large, prehistoric dragonfly. Sure, prehistoric dragonflies were lizard-looking giant monsters who never had to flap their wings. They probably fought Anguilusaurus all the time during the time of the Fire Monsters. Megaguirus’s little henchbugs are the Meganula, who are the smaller, only people sized prehistoric dragonflies, which have a wingless and mature winged form. They like to snack on tasty people.
Godzilla vs Megaguirus
Good ideas, bad execution, tired story. A few good points, outshadowed by the many bad. Not the hallmarks of a film you want to see, but at this point we have no choice, for the DVD is bought, and the play button has been activated!

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