Godzilla 2014 Eval

Okay, this is going to be very, very short because I don't want to give anything away.

I saw the new Godzilla movie.  I thought it was okay.

I loved Alexander Desplat's score, and I loved the special effects—there were plenty of moments where I jumped in my seat, or was in awe of how freaking amazing Godzilla was.  I liked the fact that a good portion of the movie was set in Japan and I liked Ken Watanabe's character a lot—I even liked his assistant.  They felt more real than typical hollywood scientists.

But I also liked Bryan Cranston's character a LOT, and I really wish he'd gotten more screen time.  Just as I wish Godzilla had gotten more screen time.  Like, seriously, I needed more Godzilla.  I feel like the movie started the kaiju hunt and never stopped to let me really wallow in how bad the situation was.  I also disliked the ending.  I will only forgive the ending if they make a sequel and have Godzilla lay waste to EVERYTHING.

"Fixer Upper"

Working on my review of "Frozen" and talking about how it was so nice to teach children discretion in relationships, I started wondering about one of the scenes—specifically, when Kristoff takes Anna to see the trolls, who bombard them with friendly well-wishes for matrimony in the song "Fixer Upper".  It occurs to me that there is a good message in the spirit of this song, but it's hidden behind what could potentially be misleading lyrics.

The trolls ask why Anna is "holding back on such a man" and then proceed to list off potential deal breakers:  "Is it the clumpy way he walks?/Or the grumpy way he talks" and so on, etc.  They then dismiss all this:  "So he's a bit of a fixer upper, but this we're certain of / You can fix this fixer upper with a little bit of love."

 But what is that supposed to mean?  He's a "fixer upper", meaning you'll be able to "fix" him, right?  Isn't that what you're NOT supposed to do?  I mean, marrying someone with intent to fix the things about them that bug you has always been a recipe for disaster.  Essentially you're taking advantage of an incredibly privileged amount of intimacy and then saying you don't totally accept them for who they are by asking them to do the impossible for you, when heaven knows you have your own problems.

Except I don't think that's really what the writers were going for when they created this song.  They try to avoid that impression when the troll played by Maia Wilson says, "We're not saying you can change him / 'Cause people don't really change—

—Which is good, but then she goes on:  "We're just saying that love's a force that's powerful and strange / People make bad choices if they're mad or scared or stressed / But throw a little love their way, and you'll bring out their best".  "Love's a force that's powerful and strange"—What does that teach children?  To trust that being nice to someone will, against all odds, make them a good person no matter what?

I don't think the song was meant to teach kids to settle for someone less than their "soul mate" or to expect that person to change for them.  But I do think it could be easily mistaken as such.

I think in reality the song is about accepting the flaws in the person you love.  We're all human and we've all got issues.  Some people have quirks that will drive you nuts, some people don't—but you don't marry the person you can live with, just the one you can't live without.  Even so, though, you will rub each other the wrong way at some point.  It's inevitable.  The point is to keep loving them regardless, to understand that they need you as much as you need them and not put all your needs and desires on their shoulders.  I'd go as far as say "Be a servant and make Jesus the most important relationship in your life so He can use you to love on your spouse!" but I think that's sort of going beyond what Disney was getting at.

My Take on "Frozen"

I went and saw the movie "Frozen" with a friend a while back; I hadn't seen any of the trailers, but I knew this was my friend's third time seeing it so I assumed it would be good.  Not really good, like "Hunger Games"-good or "Megamind"-good, but good.  When I went and saw "Tangled" a few years back, the trailers set my expectations WAY too high and I came out of the theater going, "Eh, well, it was pretty good;" certainly not the next "Little Mermaid," "Beauty and the Beast," or "Aladdin," but I don't suppose that sort of magic can be recaptured so easily.  So, with barely any information on "Frozen" except that it was Disney's latest animated project, I wasn't looking for much.

Even so, I honestly didn't get a whole lot out of it.  Everywhere I go I hear people singing its praises (or its songs) and talking about how they've gone to see it three or four times, but I can't relate.  It's not that it was a bad movie, I just couldn't get into it.

As with "Tangled," I wasn't really impressed with the music.  It was pleasant, yes, and "Let it Go" was good, but nothing on par with timeless classics like "The Circle of Life" or "Part of Your World" or "Colors of the Wind", or even "That's How You Know".  Lately Disney seems to be settling for a lot of half-contemporary, half-tired-musical songs, like "Mother Knows Best," "I've Got a Dream," "Do You Wanna Build a Snowman" and "Fixer-Upper".  Cute and catchy, sure, but neither soaring nor passionate.  I expect more from Disney.

• One million people choose this for their wedding.
• One million people are asked, "You do know what

happens to the characters in this song, right?"

• "WE KNOW, WE KNOW!!!"

With "Tangled," I was afraid that maybe I was just having trouble adjusting to a musical in computer animation rather than ye old traditional 2D format.  Pixar's never done a musical, and most of Dreamworks' movies, like "Shrek" and "Megamind", aren't musicals, so why did "Tangled" have to be a musical? . . . Then I realized that what really threw me was the placement of the first song.  Most if not all Disney's classics begin on a musical note.  (Quit laughing.  Puns aren't funny.)  Think:  "The Circle of Life," "Arabian Nights," "The Bells of Notre Dame," "Mysterious Fathoms Below", etc.—"Beauty and the Beast" begins with a prologue, but it's heavy with background music, and the first song follows the moment it's done.  After "Tangled"'s prologue, Rapunzel talks to her chameleon a bit before the first song—and it's really a laid-back, contemporary piece compared to most Disney openers.  In this way, I thought "Frozen" was a definite improvement.  One of the best songs was the opening bit with the men's choir singing "Frozen Heart".

Still, the movie didn't grab me.  I kept waiting for there to be a reason for me to want to stay and find out what happened to the characters, but there wasn't.  It wasn't engaging.  It was just cute.  And I felt like the plot wasn't really dynamic:  I didn't feel the weight of Anna's quest to find Elsa because, when she first set out, she didn't realize the potential for real danger, and then as soon as Elsa accidentally stabbed her they just went right back down the mountain again without a second thought.  In "Tangled," Rapunzel set out from her tower even though she thought EVERYTHING was dangerous, and it took a heck of a plot twist to send her back.

I also didn't care for the snowman.  A lot of people acted like he was hilarious.  Some of his lines were funny ("You hesitated.") but overall I thought he was sort of annoying.  I thought his head was ugly and his comedic timing was a hair too slow.  (shrugs)  Though I did love Kristoff's line:

"I'm gonna tell him."

"Don't you dare!"

For starters, she didn't fall for this.

And speaking of Kristoff—is it so hard for Disney to write a realistic romance anymore?  I know "Snow White," "Cinderella" and "The Little Mermaid" were easy because the male protagonists were unburdened by personality and left compatibility to the imagination of the audience, but Disney's probably taken some hits for that and has since committed to providing their romantic heroes with more depth.  The problem is that the chemistry just isn't all that believable.  Rapunzel and Flynn Ryder (or "Eugene" or whatever) made no sense to me.  I mean, Flynn was great, he was dry and witty and awesome, but I really couldn't see a guy like him going for a girl like Rapunzel.

Same thing with Kristoff, except Kristoff didn't even feel all that fleshed-out to me.  Good-looking guy and GORGEOUS singing voice and all, but first he's a cranky reindeer-loving icerunner, then he's just sort of nice, then all of a sudden he's madly in love with the heroine?  There were no character-illuminating/developing signposts to mark the arc on the way to the inevitable outcome of the "Male-Character-With-Most-Screentime-Proves-Better-Match-Than-Prince-Charming-To-Debunk-Rumors-That-Disney-Encourages-Indiscretion" cliché.

Disney has not shown itself incapable of writing good romances in the past.  (Though "Pocahontas" was a little weird—and not just because the real Pocahontas was about twelve years old when John Smith arrived in America.)  "Aladdin," "The Lion King," "Sleeping Beauty," "Lady and the Tramp," "Beauty and the Beast" and "Hercules" all have heroes with personalities that work fine with their heroines'.  Even if you thought "Hercules" was the corniest, campiest cartoon you ever watched (and it probably was) you could still root for Meg and Hercules by the end of it.

One thing I will say about "Tangled," though—it had a great villain.  Kidnapping a baby and raising her to womanhood in isolation, all while pretending to be a loving mother, JUST to stay young and beautiful???  Man, that is COLD.  And creepy, for the heroine to realize that her greatest enemy was the only person she was ever close to for 99.99% of her life.  Whereas Hans felt like more of a "Plop!  Oh, I'm the villain now!" kind of thing.

And don't forget Elsa.  Because Elsa looked AWESOME.

Like I said, though, "Frozen" was not a bad movie.  It should be great for little kids, it just wasn't all that entertaining for me personally.  And I did enjoy some parts.  Backed by great music, the creation of Elsa's ice palace was visually and artistically thrilling; and I thought it was nice how the writers decided to make sisterly love rather than romantic love the primary focus.  And even if, as an adult, I really didn't need to hear it, it was a nice thought trying to teach little girls not to settle for the first guy they like.

All in all, I thought "Frozen" was a pleasant, wholesome movie with a light smattering of dry humor and a liberal sprinkling of whimsical over-the-top silliness.  If I ever have children, I might buy it for them; and I'm curious to see what new stories Disney's cooking up for this line of "verbal"-titled films.  The Princess and the Pea—"Tilted"?  The Twelve Dancing Princesses—"Spun"?  Or how about Hansel and Gretel—"Baked"?

Oh, and in case you didn't know—the Duke of Weselton is played by Alan Tudyk.  Zonk.