Godzilla stomps on US remake Rugby and family collide in tale of confused loyalties
(M, 121 mins) Directed by Hideaki Anno and Shinji Higuchi
Clearly Japan still hasn’t forgiven America for the sacrilegious way it treated one of their country’s icons.
The hurt caused by Roland Emmerich’s awful 1998 Godzilla adaptation is surely one reason why the United States is portrayed in such a poor light in this delightfully nutty reboot of the long-running monster mayhem series. Not only are they more than ready to nuke Tokyo to stop the ancient aquatic species-meetsradioactive waste hybrid from crossing the Pacific, but their envoy is a clearly Japanese woman who has aspirations to be the next US President (and how many of us now wish Kayoko Ann Patterson was a real candidate in this current election).
The 30th official outing (Emmerich’s movie isn’t considered canon, but Gareth Edwards’ 2014 Hollywood blockbuster is) of Toho’s ’’Gojira’’, Shin Godzilla is set in the present day and focuses on the government response to what is an increasingly desperate disaster. Initially written off as undersea volcanic activity or a marauding nuclear sub, an aquatic explosion turns out to be the work of a large marine creature which then proceeds to emerge from the harbour and begin stomping around downtown. Worse still, any attempts to use firepower simply transform it into something even more powerful and deadly.
It’s hard not to see anime specialist Hideaki Anno and master-of-disaster Shinji Higuchi’s tale as an allegory of the 2011 Japanese earthquakes and their fallout. Government officials flounder and flail, while social media rules as an official source of information.
Like its new ‘‘motion-captured’’ Godzilla, the film itself morphs from Cloverfield-esque point-ofview story to a political black comedy reminiscent of The Thick of It (the caretaker prime minister is more worried about soggy noodles than the destruction raining down on his capital city), before evolving into a more traditional disaster movie.
And despite the modern day trappings, both the bombastic, operatic music and intense performances are warm homages and gentle mockery of the series’ 1950s origins.
It’s silliness (or its subtitles) won’t be for everyone, but after so many serious sci-fi movies it’s nice to see a bit of fun put back into the genre. - James Croot
In English, and Japanese and German with English subtitles.
The Clan (R13, 108 mins) Directed by Pablo Trapero
Here’s something the Chasing Great creators could only dream about. The cinematic story of a star rugby player becoming its country of origin’s highestgrossing movie of all time.
Then again, this is less about Argentinean Alejandro Puccio’s (Peter Lanzani) skills with the oval ball and more about his family’s transformation from middle-class model citizens to serial kidnappers in the mid-1980s.
A cross between The Godfather and Australia’s Animal Kingdom, Pablo Trapero’s based-on-fact drama uses Alejandro as the family’s fall guy, a fresh, friendly face who finds himself increasingly conflicted between his burgeoning rugby career and his former intelligence service officer father Arquimedes’ (Guillermo Francella) increasingly risky ‘‘financial solution’’. It becomes especially troubling when his team-mates are the ones disappearing.
While not as intense or compelling as fellow Argentine film The Secret in Their Eyes, Trapero shows plenty of cinematic flourishes and style, from the Coppola-esque use of juxtaposed imagery to the eclectic soundtrack which includes cuts from the likes of The Kinks and David Lee Roth.
At it’s heart is a chilling performance from Francella. More known for his comedic characters, the 61-year-old, who here looks like a doppelganger for Christopher Walken, is a ghostly, ghastly patriarchal presence whose maniacal manipulations culminate in a truly shocking denouement. - James Croot