Film Review - Godzilla Vs Kong (2021)

Godzilla Vs Kong is the newest entry in the Monster Movie series that began with 2014’s Godzilla and also gave us 2017’s Kong Skull Island and 2019’s Godzilla: King of the Monsters and this one concerns Godzilla attacking an Apex facility after leaving the world in peace, meanwhile members of the Monarch corporation are after a secret power source and only King Kong can lead them to it while also fighting Godzilla at the same time.

 

Godzilla Vs Kong is good fun and like Nomadland is greatly enhanced for me by getting to see it on a nice cinema screen with a great sound system and the sound system in the cinema I saw it in was very loud and it added to my enjoyment of this movie as it would not have had the same impact if I had watched it at home on my TV.

 

As for the fights in this movie, they are fantastic to watch and I sat there in my cinema seat with a big smile on my face and imitating both the Godzilla roar and the Kong roar and the fight scenes themselves are very nicely put together in a way that you can see what is going on and where the combatants are at every turn.

 

As for the script itself well its where I have to regrettably mark the movie down as at times it gets very messy with the human characters wanting to do different things and it gets very messy during parts of the film and early on it tends to slow things down as part of me sat there wanting to get to the big battles.

 

And so that was Godzilla Vs Kong and its good fun with great fight scenes and a somewhat messy script full of human characters, 3 out of 5.

Film Review - Nomadland (2021)

 Nomadland is written, directed and edited by Chloe Zhao and stars Frances McDormand as Fern, a Nomad who lives in her van taking any odd jobs she can to get by after her hometown of Empire closed down after the mine there shut down in 2011 eventually she finds this community of Nomads in the American Desert and decides to camp there.

 

Nomadland is very good filmmaking for 2 big reasons:

 

- Firstly Zhao’s direction is very good, she makes great use of the 2.35 to 1 aspect ratio and I really feel for those who will not get to see this movie in the cinema as man does it look GREAT there like legitimately great, there are beautiful sunsets, scenes of waves crashing through rocks, foggy mountains and when your sitting there watching this on a big screen I went Wow a fair few times and Joshua James Richards who was the cinematographer here also deserves some credit here as well.

 

Also Zhao’s editing is exceptional, every scene and cut feels precise in its cutting, it never overstays its welcome and the intent of the scenes is shown without making the film feel longer than it is, I rarely checked my watch during this movie and I hope Zhao wins the Best Editing Oscar for this work.

 

- Secondly the storytelling here is very nice but not in a way that feels cute or cuddly but in a way that has the film saying that these people have made this choice and they are happy with it, most of them are older with not much left in their years of life or like Fern have been swept up in the changes that have seen them pushed aside before they were ready to retire on their own and they make a community out there, sure there are times where they get angry or frustrated but rarely is there any long lasting malice.

 

As for McDormand however I thought she was weak here, don’t get me wrong she isn’t bad in this movie not at all but I felt like I had seen her play this kind of role before and was wishing someone else had played Fern like Jodie Foster or Debra Winger they would’ve been wonderful in this role.

 

And so that was Nomadland and if you can see it do so as its very good, 3 and a half out of 5.

Film Review - Chaos Walking (2021)

 Chaos Walking is directed by Doug Liman and stars Tom Holland as an inhabitant of New World where the thoughts of men are projected at all times via what’s called the Noise which the women did not have and are now all dead but the wreckage of a crashed ship from orbit contains a female (Daisy Ridley) who must be sent to safety so she can get off the planet alive and avoid the mayor of the town (Mads Mikkelsen) who wants to hunt her down.

 

Chaos Walking is not a bad film per se but its really just one that is perfectly fine, it’s okay but really nothing that I would really head out to see in a great hurry, there is some very nice scenery of the forests and the fog and the country towns on New World and the broken down infrastructure that is scattered around the world and it’s nice to look at and Tom Holland does what he can with this role even though at times you can clearly see he’s been working out for his Spider-Man role.

 

As for Daisy Ridley well again like in the new Star Wars films she seems to struggle with this character because there isn’t really a lot for her to sink her teeth into on the page and for the most part she just sits around and stares off into space or at the nearby countryside and it’s a real pity to see because I do think she is a good actress but she needs the guidance of a good script and director to get it out of her and I thought she had that with Ken Branagh in Murder on the Orient Express in 2017.

 

As for Mads Mikkelsen well again he is fine here but it’s nothing we haven’t really seen him or anyone else do before, the most interesting character in this movie is the town Preacher who seems to really believe in the Noise as a form of Holy Judgement but its not really developed enough.

 

And so that was Chaos Walking a movie that is okay but I really wouldn’t rush out to see it, 2 out of 5.