Godzilla (2014)

We waited 16 years for a good Godzilla film after the 1998 Roland Emmerich mess forced Toho to do a new one to try and make people forget  what Hollywood had done to their great creation. The trailer looked awesome and my hopes were high when I went to the cinema to see this in 2014. 

The way that Godzilla was created is something that would need to be addressed for a 21st century audience. In 1954 it made sense to use atomic testing but in 2014 this wouldn't have worked so they came up with the idea that the atomic bombs weren't tests but intended to kill Godzilla. I liked the idea very much and thought it did something with what we knew about Godzilla's creation without making it seem silly. 

Aaron Taylor-Johnson is ok as Ford. This is probably one of his better performances but the character is at his most interesting when his dad Joe is in the story. After that he comes somewhat boring.

The trailer made it seem like Bryan Cranston was going to feature more in the film that he ultimately did. I know this was around the time Breaking Bad was on TV so they were probably cashing in on his fame but even now, it would have been nice to have more Cranston because he is such a good actor and his characters grief was a good driving force for that part of the story. Juliette Binoche was also someone that seemed destined for more screen time but her involvement was even briefer than Cranston's. Elizabeth Olsen was fine but was reduced to an almost cameo role being saddled with the kid which wasn't very interesting but I think she did her best.

I actually thought the supporting cast were rather good. Sally Hawkins and Ken Watanabe were really good and the best of the supporting actors as Vivienne Graham and Ishiro Serizawa respectively. It's always good to see David Strathairn in a film and cause the first thing I saw him in was the Bourne films, I always expect him to play a bad guy and being a military man didn't stop that expectation. 

One of the main things that people didn't like was the fact that there isn't very much Godzilla in a Godzilla film which makes me think that they haven't seen many Toho Godzilla films. I think that the fact we don't see him for quite a long time is a good thing because it means that we build up to the epic Godzilla moments. 

The score is by Alexandre Desplat and whilst it is good, it isnt his best but it does what it needs to do and there are some great moments that are helped by his score. The fights between Godzilla and the Muto are well done and I thought that the Muto design was really cool and in keeping with the style of the film. 

I really like this film. This is the sort of Godzilla film that Hollywood should be making. It does a great job of making Godzilla seem like the monster that he is. It's not a perfect film but it starts off the Monsterverse very well and in retrospect is the best that Godzilla would be in these movies. The pacing is good enough although I think that the whole Ford trying to get back to his family is somewhat underwhelming and I don't think that it would have been done better by someone else. 

Godzilla is a great film on its own but as the first part in a currently five part franchise (with the sixth coming out in 2027), it gets the franchise off to the best start.

Hope (2026)

Hope is a film that I had to go out of my way to see. It's not that my local cinema wasn't showing it but the showings were only at 9pm which means it would be midnight that I would get out and so I found a 7:40pm showing in what use to be my local cinema for a lot of my life. Hope is a story about aliens that attack the quiet town of Hope. Police Chief K Bum-seok is shown a dead cow with massive wounds and as he is driving back to the station he drives through a town and that is when he comes across the thing that is causing the chaos. As the film progresses it turns out that it isn't just one creature but a group of them.

The film feels like it ends of a cliffhanger which if it doesn't lead to a sequel then the whole decision to introduce the purpose of the aliens feels a bit pointless. I think if it were just aliens landing on earth and are attacked by humans then I would have been totally on board but the way that the aliens are seemingly humanised by having the couple (played by Michael Fassbender and Alicia Vikander) mourning the death of their emperor when his ship crashes onto Earth. Speaking of Fassbender and Vikander, I honestly am curious about why they decided to do this film. They aren't bad but it's curious casting choices but it maybe to try and attract the attention of a western audience. 

Hwang Jung-min is the Police Chief that does more running in this film than I have seen in any film. To be fair to him Jung Ho-yeon does her fair share of running (and in one scene riding a bike) and this despite a lot of car driving and horse riding. Jung-min starts off as a cranky police officer and very quickly becomes the hero of the film or at least one of them. 

The action scenes are easily the best things in the movie because they are done so well. The speed that the aliens move means that when they end up killing any humans they just turn into blood and guts and I was surprised that this was a 15 but I suppose that shows that times have changed. The special effects have a mixed time in this film. When we meet the first alien in the town there are some terrible CGI shots which show why it was kept in the shadows for so long. When the action moves to the forest then the effects are much better and I think the lower lighting helps.

The score stood out to me which isn't something I usually associate with a Korean film which might be harsh but it's true. I also thought that the cinematography was quite good. When the story is in the town then the cinematography along with the way the town looks wrecked helps create a great atmosphere and when the action moves to the forest the cinematography works very well and they make the forest looks interesting which isn't the easiest thing to pull off.

Hope is not what I was really expecting but in a good way. I think I was expecting one monster causing mayhem in a quiet seaside town and what I got was several aliens causing chaos in a seaside town and the nearby woods. I think I would like this more if the loose ends were tied up but as it is with no idea if there is going to be a sequel, is a very good film with a good story, some great performances and some nice gore. Not the best non-english language film this year but pretty close.

The Weight (2026)

This was a mystery screening and they have generally being good but there is always the possibility of it disappointing and what made that more likely is that it followed Resident Evil. The set up of the film is that Ethan Hawke plays Sam who is arrested for punching police officers and he is sent to do manual labour with the camp run by Russell Crowe's Clancy. He tells Sam that he can get his sentence reduced to be able to get his daughter back if he and three other men take gold across hazardous terrain for a friend of his. 

Having watched this less than 24 hours after watching Brad Pitt and a dog go through rough terrain I thought I would be tired of what was happening but credit to Padraic McKinley for keeping things going and also making good use of the woods and scenery. It's not as easy as most would think to keep that sort of thing interesting so credit to McKinley and cinematographer Matteo Cocco for pulling it off.

I did feel like the introduction of Anna (played very well by Julia Jones) was because they were worried about having an entirely male line up. I say this cause Anna doesn't really do anything and only gets something dramatic to do when she is about to be attacked by the big guy (whose name I can't remember). I think she was better than the character allowed her to be.

The last act of the film is what makes the film as good as it is cause the journey was easy enough to pull off but making sure it ends in a satisfactory way is harder to achieve and have Sam not get killed by Taggert, get to take a share of the gold, to get one over Clancy and get his daughter back means that the film ends in a satisfactory way that makes you feel good. When Sam and Penny literally drive off into the sunset I felt like the whole film worked perfectly and you end up leaving the cinema happy with what you have seen.

I enjoyed this film very much. I saw the trailer before another film and thought that it looked interesting although there was a chance that I would have waited until it came onto streaming and I am glad that I didn't wait because it was very good from start to finish. I thought that it was a very good story with great performances especially from Ethan Hawke although Russell Crowe deserves some praise. I suspect it will struggle to get seen at the cinema but if you do come across it on streaming that its a good way to spend an hour and a half. It was nice to have a mystery screening where no one walked out which did surprise me. 

Resident Evil (2026)

When they announced that there would be a Resident Evil reboot I think everyone rolled their eyes as if to say 'another one?'. Some were slightly intrigued when it was announced that Zach Cregger would be directing it. I was a big fan of Weapons and really enjoyed Barbarian. The bar was quite low to say that this was the best film in the Resident Evil series considering most of them are fairly terrible and not in a fun kind of way. The set up is that Austin Abrams plays Bryan who is a courier and is delivering organs to a hospital when he is offered a job that pays well to take a package to Racoon City Hospital. On the way he hits someone and things go from bad to worse. Everyone that Brian comes across has been infected and it's the fault of the Umbrella Corporation and the package is part of the cure. 

There are many things that I liked about this film. I thought that the humour was perfect. Bryan isn't an action guy and is actually a klutz who seems to be suffering from the worst luck. The whole house portion of the film was really well done and even though it might have bordered on cliche it never stayed long enough in the house for that to be an issue and the story then moved to Racoon City. The film is only 95 minutes so this is as stripped down as its possible to get and Cregger has managed to keep all the interesting things and apparently in the original cut there were more jokes and they were taken out cause the test audience was laughing. Well he took them out but left enough humour to make it entertaining.

The atmosphere that Cregger has created is brilliant. The darkness mixed in with the snow is used to great effect. Even though its at night I could still see what was happening. One of the the things that I liked in Weapons was how things just seemed to go crazy completely out of nowhere and there are a couple of scenes where Bryan is running and they are all great especially when people are throwing themselves off the top of buildings and its just a great visual. Also Cregger knows how to make jump scares scary. There are directors who rely too much to get a reaction out of people but Cregger knows how and more importantly when to use them. 

I thought that Austin Abrams was really good. He didn't know it all and wasn't even good at firing weapons and his reaction to crazy things happening was absolutely spot on. Paul Walter Hauser is probably the most famous name in this film and he is probably in it for about 10 minutes. He comes in and delivers a bunch of exposition and is quite funny but just cause he is the famous name doesn't mean he was long for this film. 

If I did have an issue with the film then it's with the final ten minutes or so. Once it got into the lab and Bryan transforms, then I found myself not as interested in it and felt it went a bit too silly. The last shot is of Bryan fully transformed almost certainly about to die was probably the right way to end it but I just thought the silliness went a bit too far. 

Overall I really enjoyed this film and was surprised with how much I enjoyed it. I was worried that it was going to go the way that Return to Silent Hill did earlier this year but thankfully it is far more creative, far more atmospheric and better in absolutely every way. I must admit I don't know too much about Resident Evil as I have only played the very first game and watched the Paul W.S. Anderson films so I can't say that I am mega invested in the game series but as a horror film it more than delivers.

Heart of the Beast (2026)

Heart of the Beast was an Insider Screening at my local Showcase Cinema and if you have seen the trailer then you know that it's basically Brad Pitt and a Dog. The longer set up is that Brad Pitt plays James who is a retired Special Forces Officer seemingly living off grid with his dog Odin and whilst flying James suffers a heart attack and he and Odin go on a trek to get to a road to civilisation. The concern I had for the film was whether the dog would survive as I have already sat through enough films this year to have a dog die but thankfully the film answered that within 90 seconds as we then go back one week in time. 

There are only two other credits in the entire film. The first is Anna Lambe who plays the woman who comes across Odin at the start of the film and takes care of him as they drive off into the sunset. It's hard to really critic her performance bearing in mind she's probably on screen for two minutes. J.K. Simmons is in the film for slightly longer although I think it's just so that James has someone to talk to even if it's brief. 

The bond between Brad Pitt and Uber (Odin) is at the core of the film. It's hard to be mean about the dog because he is quite adorable although the film spoils the fact that whatever he goes through the dog will make it. Brad Pitt is an odd actor. Sometimes I think he's very good and sometimes I think he's ok. To be honest, he got outacted by a dog. That's not to say he does bring something to the story. 

The film is pretty good. It's not groundbreaking but for a 90 minute film, I was never bored and never thought that the film was stretching credibility. The CGI bear was pretty bad but that was probably the worst thing about the film. The film did really try and tug and the heartstrings when James was reading the note at the end. Odin's story is more interesting than James' because and this might just be my naivety but dogs getting PTSD isn't something that I thought was a real thing but I suppose it is.

Heart of the Beast is the sort of thing that would be good to watch at home. It's the definition of a streaming movie. It benefits from having an adorable dog, a good lead but also from the setting. This year really has been the year for spectacular landscapes and cinematography. The mountains look stunning and even the woods looked more impressive than in a lot of films with these types of settings. It's a well directed film from the guy who didn't do very well with Suicide Squad.

Optimus Prime Awakening (2026)

After the main event of the 40th anniversary showing of the 1986 movie, we got a 12 minute encore and it was interesting because it was the last thing that Peter Cullen recorded before he died. It's hard to be truly critical of it because its the last thing Cullen did but to be truthful, its is quite pointless. It was very jarring that the animation used isn't the best and considering it starts with the scene where Prime dies and we saw it less than an hour ago, it shows how poor this recreation is.

After he dies in Autobot City, Prime wakes up in a strange void and is desperate to return to the battle but each time he is shown a warning of what would happen and this happens a couple of times until he accepts what he must do and that is walk away. This comes after a battle with Megatron. Now compared to the battle between these two we saw in the movie, this one feels largely....ok. It's not terrible but it doesn't quite have the energy the 1986 battle did.

We get a glimpse of all the different versions of Optimus Prime and the logic is that there are countless universes and countless versions of the character and that sadly (apparently) includes the Michael Bay version which was enough to make me go.......nope. Not going to accept for a second the Michael Bay version anywhere near the great creation of Transformers in any form.

Now despite only being 12 minutes long, we get what in a longer film would be considered sequel bait. At the end of the battle the Matrix that fell to the ground is found by Megatron who laughs at it. The intention of this appears to be for Cullen to say goodbye to the character and this being a disappointment won't ruin Cullen's legacy but its a sad thing to use the word disappointment anywhere near Peter Cullen.

The Transformers: The Movie (1986)

The moment that I found out that this was getting a re-release I knew that I had to book a ticket to see one of my favourite films. I remember back in 2024, I had bought a ticket thinking it was this film and it turned out to be the first three episodes of the TV series to celebrate the 40th Anniversary of the show. Thankfully this was the release I thought it was and the only thing that would have made this better is if it had been in the Xplus screening which is the biggest screen in my local cinema. 

The songs are absolute classics. It's impossible to not get caught up in them. My two personal favourites are The Touch and Dare. They are great songs in the film and when you listen to them on the album they are just as good. I do also like Dare to Be Stupid by Weird Al Yankovic. The fact that the song Touch doesn't undermine the action that taking place shows how good it is and how good the film is. 

It is sad that we have recently lost Peter Cullen. Optimus Prime is a great character and the voice is amazing. Frank Welker is great as Megatron and he voices my favourite Transformer Soundwave. I always find it amazing the Orson Welles voiced Unicron. It was his last role as he died less than a week after recording his lines. The idea of Unicron is a great one and I loved the design and it was great to see the design in 2023's Transformers: Rise of the Beasts film. It's great to hear Eric Idle in this as Wreck-Gar although I would say that 90% of his dialogue is gibberish. Having a Python in this film felt like great casting for some reason although having someone from Star Trek is also great. Leonard Nimoy voices Galvatron and as much as I would have liked Megatron to be in this voice for longer, I thought that Galvatron was a very good character. He was cocky without understanding that he is way less powerful than Unicron. Galvatron does get a chance to get some sort of revenge against Starscream. I always cheer when Starscream gets killed. Very satisfying. In fact it's quite amusing how quickly the decepticons are at turning on each other. Within seconds of throwing Megatron out into space and declaring himself leader, Starscream causes a big fight between the remaining decepticons. 

Nothing has changed in my opinion of this film. I had a big smile on my face the entire time and despite hearing people who seemed to be talking every so often, I enjoyed the experience. This will always be my favourite Transformers movie and despite the songs being a bit cheesy, the fact that it is something I still love shows how much this film works on every conceivable level. I remember when I saw the second terrible Michael Bay directed Transformers film. I was so miserable when I got out of the cinema that I drove home and found my DVD copy of this film and made myself feel so much better. That is the power of this film.