Godzilla vs. Kong: Thud and blunder

Godzilla vs. Kong (2021) • View trailer

Two stars. Rated PG-13, for dramatic intensity, relentless carnage and brief profanity

By Derrick Bang

Back in the golden age of Universal Studios monster movies, when one character’s popularity began to wane, he’d be set against another.

 

Although completely dwarfed by the massive Kong, Jia (Kaylee Hottle) isn't the slightest
bit afraid of him; indeed, she and the mighty ape share a special bond.

Ergo, we got Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man in 1943, followed by the triple-threat of Dracula, Frankenstein’s Monster and the Wolf Man in 1944’s House of Frankenstein.

 

And when Universal got really desperate, their monsters became shameful comedic foils for Abbott and Costello.

 

Despite being silly, pratfall-laden spoofs, even they were far more entertaining than this noisy, landscape-leveling dust-up between Godzilla and Kong (this revived franchise apparently having dropped the “King” from the latter).

 

In fairness, director Adam Wingard’s monster mash — available via HBO Max, and at operational movie theaters — is somewhat better than 2019’s thoroughly deplorable Godzilla, King of the Monsters (although, yes, that’s damning with faint praise). Wingard and editor Josh Schaeffer move this entry along more efficiently — at least until the interminable third act — and the CGI animators get a welcome level of emotional depth from Kong.

 

But the major problem, as before, is the script: a sloppily assembled, seemingly random collection of set-pieces populated by — for the most part — stiff-as-a-board characters too vacuous to be regarded as even one-dimensional. (A few exceptions stand out, and I’ll get to them in a moment.)

 

This (ahem) Frankenstein’s monster of a story is credited to Eric Pearson, Terry Rossio, Michael Dougherty, Zach Shields and Max Borenstein, the latter three responsible for writing the aforementioned Godzilla, King of the Monsters. So I guess we can credit Pearson and Rossio with this new film’s slight improvement.

 

Matters begin well, with Kong safely — but unhappily — housed in a huge biodome located on Skull Island (presumably cleared of all the other huge and nasty beasts we met in 2017’s Kong: Skull Island, by far the best of these films). He has bonded with Jia (Kaylee Hottle), a young, deaf/mute orphan whom the mighty ape both trusts and — to a degree — obeys, via their shared sign language. This relationship is the film’s strongest note, due to the nuanced sensitivity of Hottle’s performance; she immediately wins our hearts and minds.

 

Jia shares a similarly loving and caring bond with her adoptive mother, Dr. Ilene Andrews (Rebecca Hall), an anthropological linguist attached to Monarch, the world government’s crypto-zoological agency dedicated to the study of “Titans” such as Kong. Hottle and Hall work well together; it’s a shame they’re not granted larger roles. Like, in place of everybody else in the film.

The Midnight Sky: Oppressively cheerless

The Midnight Sky (2020) • View trailer

Two stars. Rated PG-13, for dramatic intensity and fleeting profanity

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 2.5.21 

Check a dictionary for the phrase “profoundly depressing,” and you’ll find this film.

 

There’s a tiny cinematic sub-genre that I’ll call “futility drama,” wherein a given premise is catastrophic from the onset … and then gets progressively worse. Heroic action is either inconsequential or useless; failure is inevitable. Recent examples include 2003’s Open Water and the 2009 adaptation of Cormac McCarthy’s The Road.

 

Sully (Felicity Jones) and Adewole (David Oyelowo) can't understand why they aren't
picking up any transmissions from Earth's numerous spacecraft support facilities.

The Midnight Sky — exclusive to Netflix — isn’t quite that bleak, but the distinction is so insignificant, that you’re unlikely to find it comforting.

 

The setting is February 2049, three weeks after “the event.” This incident never is specifically disclosed, but visible computer modeling screens reveal that it began in major metropolitan centers and then spread outward; the implication is the mutually assured destruction of war. The result is that Earth’s air has become radioactive and/or poisonous, killing everything: all plant and animal life forms.

 

The effect hasn’t yet reached the Arctic Circle’s Barbeau Observatory, which has been abandoned save for Augustine (George Clooney), a scientist who — alone among the facility’s sizeable staff and research team — chose not to return home, and to certain death. The irony is rich: Although he suffers from some undisclosed medical condition that requires frequent blood transfusions, he already has outlived everybody else on the planet. He’s literally the last man on Earth.

 

(Right away, the psychology feels totally daft in scripter Mark L. Smith’s adaptation of Lily Brooks-Dalton’s 2016 novel. Everybody else left? Nobody else remained with Augustine, in order to live a few more weeks? That’s ridiculous.)

 

Augustine has everything he needs, and — as flashbacks soon make clear — he’s a loner by nature anyway; his entire life has been consumed by his research. Clooney persuasively depicts the grinding struggle of a man in constant discomfort and pain, who nonetheless goes through the motions, valuing each fresh moment of survival. Even so, he’s spent: bone-weary and resigned to an inevitable fate.

 

On this particular day, he’s reminded of the spacecraft Aether, returning from a two-year mission to explore K-23, a previously undiscovered moon orbiting Jupiter. The five-person crew, commanded by Adewole (David Oyelowo), has no idea that they’re returning to a dead planet. They need to be warned, but the Aether still is too far away; the observatory’s antenna isn’t strong enough for a signal to reach them.

 

Thus, the challenge: Can Augustine figure out a way to contact the Aether, and — even if he does — would such information even be useful?

 

Alien: Covenant — Rather disappointing

Alien: Covenant (2017) • View trailer 
Three stars. Rated R, for violence, gore, profanity, nudity and sexuality
By Derrick Bang

In space, no one can escape being surrounded by idiots.

The Alien franchise, just shy of four decades old, continues to crank merrily along, of late shepherded by founding director Ridley Scott. To some degree that’s a good thing, because his films always are handsomely mounted, crisply paced and graced with compelling ensemble casts.

Once it becomes obvious that something nasty is prowling on board their massive
colony ship, Daniels (Katherine Waterston) and her synthetic companion Walter
(Michael Fassbender) consider their options.

They’re also usually a great deal smarter than this newest installment.

Alien: Covenant suffers from the same bone-stupid plotting that made the recently released Life — a rather blatant Alien rip-off in its own right — such an infuriating experience. Nobody has a lick of sense, the various characters utterly ignoring chain of command and basic safety protocols, while bickering and squabbling like school kids. As I’ve noted in the past, if these numbskulls represent Humanity’s Finest, then we deserve to be massacred by outer space nasties.

This aggravating film’s script comes courtesy of Jack Paglen, Michael Green, John Logan and Dante Harper, who sacrifice plot logic on the altar of routine gore effects. You’ll find little genuine suspense here; all the alien attacks — whether by the now-familiar ovomorphs, facehuggers, chestbursters or adult xenomorphs — are telegraphed by maddeningly unhurried reveal shots.

Most of these encounters are by-the-book horror flick stuff: Somebody hears something, s-l-o-w-l-y turns around — or peers at something — and whammo! More blood on the screen.

This film offers neither the shock of the opening installment, nor the full-throttle energy of James Cameron’s immediate follow-up, 1986’s Aliens.

Most subsequent films were disappointments of one sort or another, until Scott re-ignited the franchise with 2012’s Prometheus. As a prequel to everything that had come before, the Jon Spaihts/Damon Lindelof script established an intriguing back story that explored the creation of the xenomorphs, the origins of mankind, and the space-faring race of giant “Engineers” who apparently seeded life throughout galaxies. Very high-falutin’ God stuff.

This new film takes place 10 years later — still roughly 20 years prior to the events in Alien (for those who pay attention to such things) — as the deep-space Earth colony ship Covenant makes its way to the distant planet Origae-6. The crew and 2,000 colonists are deep in hyper-sleep, the ship monitored solely by a synthetic android named Walter (Michael Fassbender) and an onboard computer dubbed Mother (voiced by Lorelei King, sounding very much like Sigourney Weaver). Once the journey is complete, the settlers hope to establish a new human outpost.