Godzilla (2014) Review

With the new Godzilla King of the Monsters (2019) film out on the Friday after I write this I thought it might be interesting for me to go over the 2014 film. After watching it again I wondered if it would be a good idea to do this… And yes it is.

Godzilla (2014) is certainly a film. To say anything more about it I need to dive head first into just what Godzilla is, it’s history and impact. So lets do that.

The original Godzilla is a film from 1954 Japan. For context this wasn’t even ten years after the end of the Second World War, and Japan had surrendered in the face of nuclear destruction. As a nation it was terrified, with good reason. A nuclear bomb, while cliche in media today is no joke. A single device destroyed a city. Killing thousands, tens of thousands in a single stroke. It’s a weapon not meant to fight wars, but to end them. Definitively. You drop a bomb that not only wipes out a city, but poisons the land causing horrible death for hundreds of years to come? You damn well better be afraid.

That’s what Godzilla, the original Godzilla, was meant to be. In the original film wherever Godzilla walked he left radiation, his shadow killed people. His shadow. A giant, unstoppable, monster created by man’s hubris wreaking havoc and destroying all it touched. Its existence a warning and terrible reminder that sometimes man’s blind ambition can lead to him toying with things beyond his control.

In a country as traumatised as Japan, and a world that was already hovering on the brink of armageddon in the form of the nuclear arms race, a film and monster like Godzilla was inevitable.

The Twilight Zone 2019

If you don’t know, this year we’ve had another new series of the Twilight Zone. Since the first series, which had five seasons, was first broadcast in 1959 there have been a few sequels. The 1985 version (three seasons) and the 2002 version (one season), not including the anthology film in ’83.

Twilight Zone is big thing, it was one of the first times in TV, at least American TV, that a Science Fiction based show was aimed at more than just children. It used the greatest strength of sci-fi and horror, the metaphor, to look at our world. To see the issues and concerns plaguing us before asking how things would develop. Often taking it to an extreme in effort to force us to look at our own actions. 

Stories like “The Obsolete Man”, The Monsters Are Due on Maple St” and “Eye of the Beholder” are cutting social commentaries that resonate. Not just in the 60’s, but today and possibly in the future too.

Sometimes they were just plain horror or simply quirky fiction out for a laugh, but even then they thrilled. These were stories crafted by masters. Just look at the frankly terrifying “It’s a Good Life”, or the surreal brilliance of “Five Characters in Search of an Exit”. One of my favourites is “A World of His Own”. It's far from perfect and the twists are easy to spot, well aside from the last one, but it’s a fun quirky little story. 

Doctor Who Series 11 Overview

I need to clarify something, I’m not angry.

I’m disappointed.

I’m going to start this overview with the characters, move on to the episodes and then sum up with my hopes for the 2020 season. So with a lot to get through we best get started with The Doctor.

Having time to reflect is a good thing. It takes us away from the immediacy of a moment and can often give us a better sense of the whole picture. A great example would be that when I first saw Jodie Whittaker in the role (during The Woman that Fell To Earth) I felt there was some good potential there. The joking rename of the villain to the unimpressive Tim Shaw is perfect Doctor. The irrelevant moments, the idle easy humour that off sets the violence. That’s again very Doctor and I wanted to see more of that.

We didn’t. What we got was a very generic version of the character. When this version should have done something outrageous and clever, just because they could, Whittaker just seems to stand there. Where one incarnation would rage loudly, another would become cold and calculating Whittaker simply stands around. There’s no urgency, no passion and no real joy to the character here. Somethings do work, but not quite in the right way.

Having seen Jodie Whittaker in other roles, and some what enjoyed her acting to be honest, I’m left wondering if she’s sleep walking through the part. I can’t see any passion in her performance. She’s not been given much in the way of material to work with and I doubt she even understands the role. There’s more to the Doctor than just pulling the same funny face once or twice an episode. 

There’s more than a few concerns in the writing. In her first episode the Doctor cobbles together a Sonic Screwdriver, you’d think that means this Doctor is an engineer and a tinkerer. Someone who builds things for the sake of the plot. In her defence she does, twice more, but it’s not really in her character. It feels out of place every time she does it. At one point she derails an entire story, slamming on the narrative breaks, for a speech about some technology they come across. This is a one off, we don’t see this side of her again really. It’s all horribly inconsistent.  

It takes a while for some actors and writers to home in on the personality of a Doctor. We’ve seen it happen before. Capaldi flip-flopped his Doctor’s traits several times, Sylvester McCoy’s first season was a disaster, however his second alone makes him one of the best Doctors in my opinion.

With a season as short as this one I don’t think anyone’s gotten a grasp of this Doctor yet. So the generic grab bag handful of half baked traits they’ve bolted together to make Doctor 13 still needs time to mesh right. I am convinced that the potential is still there, but it needs something more to bring it out. More episodes, more focus on the Doctor. Most importantly more interesting and better villains.

A hero is defined by their opponents and Whittaker’s bad guys so far have been a collection of weak, half baked and ineffectual parodies. With the notable exception of the New Years Special. The new villains don’t have any depth to them and no real weight. In any other season they wouldn’t have even registered as filler.

Doctor Who Series 11 Special Resolution Review

Did Chris Chibnall get a book on how to write a horror story over Christmas?

Now I know this was probably recorded back sometime around August, but the joke works. I’m just not that funny. So what did I think of the episode?

It felt like a season ending adventure, a lot more than The Battle of Ranskoor Av Kolos was. It was a strong story, with some really exciting moments. Good timing, both comedic and dramatic, and worked very well over all.

It’s not a perfect adventure. There are flaws, and I’ll look at them in a moment, but there are serious strengths. We really saw the threat of a single Dalek. Last time we saw that’s with Dalek, back in 2005, since then it’s been whole armies. Now a single Dalek is a threat again. We saw just one annihilate an army here, even taking on a tank and winning. This is powerful stuff. We also got some nice body horror, with the Dalek taking control of a human body for transportation early on.

We also got a limited car chase, a nice little bit of romance for our guest characters and while predictable in places I can’t really complain about that this time around. Rather than lifting sections wholesale from other, better, stories Chibnall seems to have figured out what he’s supposed to be doing. 

After the shear incompetence he showed during the season proper this is a refreshing change. I honestly found myself wondering if it really was just Chibnall who did this, and he wasn’t helped by a ghost writer. Someone with experience in writing Science Fiction and horror. I think he was.

One of the things that helped convinced me of this is the way the subplot about Ryan’s dad appears at odd thematic points. Only to bring the story to a crashing halt when they did. One scene we get a Dalek murdering a couple of police officers, the next a tender moment between Ryan and his previously absent father. The tonal whiplash almost gave me a neck injury.

Another part of the theory came about because this time around Chibnall actually knew something about Doctor Who history, with references to the Black Archive and even UNIT. Of course that brings us to UNIT. According to what we are told UNIT is currently disbanded due to budget issues. On the one hand this is a good thing, forcing the Doctor to solve this without their help. On the other What the absolute hell? UNIT has been a steadfast ally to the Doctor since the 60’s and now they’re just gone like that?

The last Doctor (Twelve) negotiated a colony of Zygons on earth, with UNIT policing them. What’s happened to that? It just doesn’t make much sense, the reason given is it’s budget has been cut because alien invasions aren’t that common anymore. I question that logic, just about every alien race passing by has tried it in the last dozen years, but alright. Maybe after the Dalek’s killing spree, and knocking out the entire communications infrastructure of the UK, they might get their act together.

Speaking of getting their act together. That is what this special sort of feels like. Chibnall and team got it right. Series 11 had growing pains. It tried really hard, but just didn’t quite work. With this special it did and it’s not quite the good news you think. The next season isn’t due until 2020, a long year away and whatever the good will this special earns might not be enough.

One or two great episodes in a season do not make up for a mediocre greater whole. I’m going to be posting a full season review in a couple of days, but this special was indeed one of the highlights. If Chibnall did pull someone in to shadow him for this one, understandable given the amount of episodes he did this season, then I hope he keeps them. If not and this was just a case of a good story done well, then brilliant. More please.

In fact more like this in general. Social commentary was never the problem, it was the bad stories that couldn’t justify it. More creative, entertaining episodes like this was would address that problem and bring both newer and classic fans back together again in the love of good story telling and staying true to Doctor Who.

10 out of 13

Would be better, if not for the tonal whiplash at points. A good start to the year though. See you in 2020 Doctor.

Doctor Who Series 11 The Battle of Ranskoor Av Kolos Review

Well that was technically the season finale and er… 

It took up 50 minutes. The effects were decent. The direction was solid, nothing too spectacular but not too pedestrian either. Bradley Walsh’s Graham was a star, deadly serious but funny with what I’m convinced have to be ad-libs done on the fly. Tosin Cole’s Ryan talked sense for a change and did a good job of grounding Graham, showing how much he’s grown since we met him.

Yaz was… there I guess. I’m sure she had a point A good one, and not entirely useless as she’s been from most of the series. I just need someone to try and prove it.

And I can’t put it off any longer. He did it again. Chris Chibnall read the wiki entry on a Classic Adventure, thought it sounded interesting and made a complete mess of it. This time he cribbed (Chris Crib-nall? Is that too obscure a joke to make) stole from Douglas Adams’s The Pirate Planet. Telepaths with near unlimited power, stolen planets crushed into the size of a small basketball and the Doctor having to fix it all. All done so much better in the Classic Tom Baker Story.

Throughout Jodie’s Doctor’s confrontation with the main bad guy I just wanted her to break out in a Tom Baker like response. Mocking the “surprise” villain. Sarcastically praising their “incredible ingenuity” and admitting:-“Very rarely have I come across a plan so ambitious, so incredible in scope. Tell me, are you challenging for the throne of the kingdom of morons, or have the other contenders simply given up in awe of your brain melting stupidity?”

Doctor Who Series 11 They Take You Away Review

I’ve tried to be fair about Who in these reviews. Sometimes I’ve been a bit too critical and others I’ve been willing to over look things I really shouldn’t have. There are reviewers out there that have just been praising the show and I’ve been left wondering just what they saw I haven’t. There are other reviewers that lay into the show and have nothing good to say about it. I think all three groups, the overly critical, the soft touch and the middle ground can agree on something:-

Bradley Walsh is a fantastic actor.

In every episode both his character and his performance have been a highlight. This time he really proved it. Considering he did this while also filming a nightly general knowledge quiz show and from all reports being the joker of the cast I’m in awe.

It’s worth noting this isn’t his first time in Who, well not technically. Walsh played a villain in the Sarah Jane Adventures, The Pied Piper. An evil alien that disguised itself as a clown and kidnapped children to feed off the fear doing so generated. Look it up if you have a chance because it too is a really good performance.

I say all this knowing my previous prediction. Now that Ryan has called him Granddad I fear the characters days are numbered. Still that’s the future, right now I’m looking at the ninth, and penultimate, episode of the season.

And I don’t know what to say.

Honestly this episode has left me stumped. It’s not entirely unique in Doctor Who. The Planet of Evil, for example, is a 70’s adventure where the Doctor visited an anti-matter universe. Same happened more recently in Hide and the Doctor’s Wife. Both involved micro universes just outside our own.

However, in many ways it’s not Doctor Who. At least not standard Doctor Who. There was no villain to conquer, or really a threat if I’m honest. It was an adventure and had a high concept science fiction plot at heart. Without a major villain the antagonist is an sentient aspect of creation that was banished somehow in order for the universe as we know it to exist.

Doctor Who Series 11 The Witchfinders Review

“Pendle Hill is a prison for intergalactic criminals!”

It was at that point I lost it, totally, and collapsed on the floor in hysterics.

Going into this one I had a very bad feeling it was going to turn out like Rosa. You see the Pendle Witch Trials were a nightmare. If anyone was even thought of being a “Witch” they were tried and quickly executed with very little defence. Superstition and fear ruled. People carved symbols to ward off the evil they were sure stalked the good folk of the villages.

The truth was a little more complicated. Put very simply Pendle was home to a number of small villages all of which had local healers. Often women, but not always, who knew how to cook certain herbs and other plants to fight infection and other such things. However, a good number of people didn’t understand diseases at the time, attributing them to demons in the blood rather than bacteria. The result was these healers were seen to be commanding the demons out of people.

If they could command them out, who’s to say they couldn’t command them in? As a result superstitious people began to fear the knowledge these people had. Blaming them for whatever bad luck befell a person or area. Naturally when someone fears something they don’t understand it’s easier to attack it that to try and learn.

Hence the hanging of witches.

This is a summary and leaves a lot of important detail out, which makes it a difficult topic to go into and explain in the confines of a 50-odd minute show. With no clear solution. In the case of Rosa they messed up historical accuracy in favour of delivering a heavy handed message. Given I actually live in Rawtenstall, a town not 15 minutes from Pendle, I feared that, once again, historical accuracy would be thrown by the wayside in favour of some sort of ham fisted lesson. Fortunately this didn’t happen and the Pendle Witches became a backdrop to a far more traditional Doctor Who story rather than the entire focus.