Pick and Pass of the Week: Gojira and Nine

World Cup Fever has swept in, taking control of my Netflix viewing time. These two films were viewed before that and I've been waiting to review Gojira, a hidden gem, and 9, a gem with poop all over it.

Gojira - Known in America as Godzilla, this, the Japanese original, has been so trounced through the muck by all the sequels that the original has been almost forgotten all together. Which is what surprised me the most about the film: it's really good. Besides that, it's a landmark film that has spawned countless rip-offs. It's basically the first disaster movie; the disaster being a giant reptile that comes from the sea and starts attacking Japan. There's the classic tropes of the two young lovers, the girl of which is the daughter of a scientist/professor, they have big meetings with government people, yadda yadda. But even with being the cliche before it was a cliche, the film still does it so well. The professor isn't over the top, and people actually have well written dialogue. The film meanders slightly from part to part, not focusing on any person for too long, but you still get a sense of the characters.
And then there is the monster itself. It's a guy in a suit. It's obvious. But unlike the sequels and rip offs, they don't ham it up. Godzilla just comes and does his deeds, then moves on.
In a way, this was the model for every franchise to come. A great first film, not too cheesy or over the top. Then they make tons of sequels that just exploit the one main idea. This is an interesting film, it's entertaining, and anyone curious about how it all got started should see it. Disaster and monster films ever since have been borrowing one thing or another from it.

9 - This film came out on 9/9/09. How clever, right? If only the writing had such cleverness. Honestly. This film was like a poop wrapped in the most beautiful wrapping. The animation was amazing, but the story made no sense, the dialogue was just barely purposeful, and the characters were one dimensional. The film is about nine little dolls (with numbers on their backs) that can talk and act like little people in a post apocalyptic world where humans have been killed by the robots they created. The main doll is named 9, since he has a 9 on his back. He wakes up from what looks like a dollmaker's shop, then ventures out into the ravaged city. Soon he stumbles upon another doll named 5 or 2 I forget, maybe both. The villains are weird mechanical things that I guess like to eat dolls, or throw their weight around. It's unclear. Then 5 takes 9 to the dolls hide out, where 1 leads them by fear. Maybe it was a good thing, but it seemed bad, that the story just jumps right in. 9 wakes up and already he has no problem interacting, and then he starts causing bad stuff to happen, like 2 getting taken by a mechanical thing. And people just kind of go along with it.
The whole movie just bumbles along, and I mean bumbles, but not in a comedic way. It takes a talented writer to make a story both absurdly simple and yet hard to understand at the same time. And that's how the movie is. They bumble into some building(which is huge to them because they're little dolls), then awaken some monster machine that you have no idea what is about. I thought for the rest of the time after they'd woken it up, that it was one of their doll friends controlling it, since the machine had "sucked up" the doll's soul or whatever. But no, it was just going about sucking up souls. Why? It's a bad guy, and these dolls are good guys?
And how does a horribly written sci-fi animated film reveal anything?....Through newsreel. Nine bumbles his way to figuring that out and they bumble their way to defeating the thing that took the souls. (Spolier Alert) Then, since it took the souls, and had them in the little device that was so important, you'd think that they could just put the souls back into the dolls....nope, the weird funeral set up that maybe you thought would be a "put the souls back" ceremony, actually was a funeral. A funeral for dolls.
Everything was stupid about this film from start to finish. That's why I'm putting it as my PASS of the YEAR. Do not waste your time, no even for curiosity's sake.