skjam

Negadon: The Monster from Mars (2005) dir. Jun Awazu

In the near future of 2025, Earth's resources are running out, so the humans are terraforming Mars. While doing so, they discover a giant cocoon-like object and decide to take it home. Unfortunately for the crew of the Izanami and everyone else in Japan, the creature inside the cocoon wakes up during orbital re-entry. The spaceship crash-lands in Tokyo and now Negadon is loose.

Meanwhile, military officer Seiji Yoshizawa (Takuma Sasahara) is trying to convince his old mentor, Dr. Ryuichi Narisaki (Dai Shimizu) to come out of retirement to help advance the field of giant robotics. Dr. Narisaki has lost all interest in science and engineering since his greatest project led to the tragic accidental death of his daughter Emi (Akane Yumoto). They are interrupted by the crash.

As is standard for kaiju movies, the standard military forces can't even scratch Negadon as it rampages through the city. It's up to Dr. Narisaki to shake off his depression, activate his mecha, and expiate his guilt over Emi's death by saving the world.

This short film (less than half an hour including credits) is notable for being one of the first all-CGI movies, with a tiny crew. To help with the limitations of the software at the time, it's presented in a deliberately retro grainy and low-resolution style, hearkening back to the early Godzilla movies. The story is stripped down to bare essentials. No long silent landscape shots, no comic relief, no romance subplot. It does what it needs to, and gets over. This comes at the cost of anything innovative or memorable about the plot or characters.

The movie is most impressive as a technical achievement. It shows off what can be done on a shoestring with the technology of the time. The voice acting is decent.

The ending song is a little dissonant--it's supposed to be a letter Emi wrote her father shortly before her horrible death, talking about how much fun she'd had on their day together. Cute graphics though. 

As so often with early CGI, this has aged badly. Most recommended to film history students, and diehard obscure kaiju movie collectors.

Green Lantern: First Flight (2009) Dir. Lauren Montgomery

Test Pilot Hal Jordan is practicing in a flight simulator when that non-vehicle is suddenly surrounded by a green glow and transported to a nearby desert. There he finds a crashed spacecraft and its dying pilot, an alien named Abin Sur. Abin Sur bequeaths his power ring, a device that uses green energy to create various effects, to Hal. The ring creates a uniform for Hal, making him a member of the Green Lantern Corps, an elite force of universal peacekeepers and law enforcement. To start with, he uses this power to become a superhero on Earth.

The story proper picks up several months later. The Guardians of the Universe have finally found time to send a delegation of Green Lanterns to Earth to summon Hal Jordan for examination. The squad is led by Sinestro (whose name in his native Korugarian means "trustworthy person who will never turn evil on you"), a top-ranked Lantern; and also includes attractive woman Boodikka, who seems sympathetic towards Hal; and Kilowog, a Lantern drill sergeant who is less than impressed that a human got hold of a power ring. They take him to Oa, center of the universe, and headquarters of the Corps.

The aliens that have previously visited Earth have given it bad reviews, and humans have a less than stellar reputation. So the Guardians are skeptical about Hal Jordan's qualifications for the Corps, and annoyed by his non-deferential attitude. "And then there's the smell." Named Guardians are Appa Ali Apsa, the nominal leader, Ranakar the hide-bound conservative, and Ganthet the relatively progressive. They're about ready to dismiss Hal out of hand, but Sinestro steps in to propose that he personally take charge of Hal's training to see if he's really got the stuff for the Corps.

Sinestro turns out to be a hardass who believes in on the job training, and the first case he's taking his rookie on is "find and capture the being who murdered Abin Sur." This turns out to be a nasty fellow name Cuch, who works for alien warlord Kanjar Ro. Hal intervenes when Sinestro's questioning of a contact looks more like torture than interrogation. Then the suspect shows up, a firefight ensues, and Hal eventually captures Cuch. Sinestro is less pleased by Hal's success in completing the actual mission, and more angry that Hal is "soft" and made Sinestro look "weak" in front of others. Sinestro's not satisfied with his role as a space cop, and wants to bring order and a lack of crime to the whole universe using the power that the Guardians now fritter away on "cleaning up garbage."

Sinestro interrogates Cuch, uninterrupted this time, and learns the location of Kanjar Ro, who is in possession of something called the "Yellow Element" which is the one thing the Corps' green energy is vulnerable to. The Guardians are not pleased with the comatose state Cuch is left in, and demand that Sinestro bring in Kanjar Ro alive and unharmed so the Guardians can do their own questioning. Sinestro grudgingly agrees.

The hunt for Kanjar Ro begins, but as long time fans of the Green Lantern Corps and/or people who just know how superhero stories work guessed, Sinestro has ulterior motives, and this spells trouble for Hal Jordan and the Green Lantern Corps.

Since much of the same crew had previously worked on Justice League: The New Frontier which had covered Hal Jordan's origin story in some detail, they decided to recap it very briefly and move on to newer material. This movie's continuity is largely based on the Post-Crisis version of Hal Jordan's early days, having the later organization of the Green Lantern Corps retrofitted as something already existing when Hal gets the ring, and characters who originally joined the organization after Hal preceding him as established Lanterns, as well as giving him a personal relationship with Sinestro before that person left the Corps.

The animation is decent and gets the job done, and I also enjoyed the voice acting without thinking about it too hard.

Hal Jordan is sometimes considered the "boring" Green Lantern, as a standard straight white American man whose schtick was fearlessness. All the subsequent Green Lanterns were designed as complements or contrasts to him, so he sometimes comes across as generic, and too often his "fighter jock" personality traits are exaggerated to give him "personality." Here, that's somewhat muted by his being the "rookie" who's learning the ropes of his new job. Mind, to make him the central hero of the movie, in the last act the rest of the Corps is forced on to the sidelines to let Hal shine. I'd have liked to have seen the other Corps members trying to think of ways they could contribute despite their rings not being useful at the time.

I did like this version of the Weaponers of Qward, who were nicely creepy and do a good job of foreshadowing later developments, and the very E.E. "Doc" Smith way Hal deals with the Yellow Element.

Overall: An acceptable movie for introducing Hal Jordan as a solo(ish) character for potential future movies or a continuing series.

My DVD set also included a Duck Dodgers episode in which Dodgers (played by Daffy Duck) temporarily joins the Green Lantern Corps, and Sinestro is played much more in his Silver Age dastardly villain who just wants personal power mode; and two episodes of the Justice League Unlimited series in which Green Lantern John Stewart, Batman and Wonder Woman are sucked into the Wild West and then the dark future of Batman Beyond by Chronos the Time Thief. The second episode has a brief Hal Jordan appearance.

The Incredibles (2004) dir. Brad Bird

Once, there were superheroes. Brightly costumed beings with amazing inborn powers who fought crime and saved the world. But a series of lawsuits brought on by Mr. Incredible saving someone who didn't want to be saved, plus having to clean up the mess caused by would-be sidekick Incrediboy, results in the government and public turning against superheroes. A law was passed making being a superhero in public illegal, and the heroes were brought into a sort of witness protection program to protect their identities.

Fifteen years later, we look in on the Parr family. Bob (Mr. Incredible) Parr misses his old life. He has no outlet for his incredible strength and durability, instead being stuck in a desk job he hates, working for a definitely for-profit insurance company where his asshole boss wants Bob to deny claims and crush the downtrodden. His only friend from the old days is Lucius (Frozone) Best, who has been out of touch with the other former heroes as well. Ellen (Elastigirl) Parr has been more flexible, adapting to her role as housewife and mother. She'd like to blend in and live a "normal" life, and only uses her stretching powers to help with household issues. Violet Parr is a shy teenager who has a crush on a boy, not helped by turning invisible. Dashiell (Dash) Parr is an energetic preteen whose superspeed abilities need a more productive outlet, since he's forbidden to compete in sports. And "Jack-Jack" is the baby who hasn't developed any powers yet.

After his abusive boss causes Bob to lose his temper and his job at Insuricare, Bob is told by his government contact that they won't move him to a new location any more. But just as Bob is agonizing over how to tell Ellen and the family, he gets a job offer from a woman codenamed Mirage, who has an assignment only Mr. Incredible can fill. It's too good to be true, but Bob decides not to ask too many questions as subduing a killer robot is right up his alley.

At first, everything seems fine, and Bob starts getting himself back in shape with a more positive attitude about life. But he's lying to Ellen about what he's doing for work. When an old enemy springs a trap for Mr. Incredible, it's up to the rest of his family, the Incredibles, to get him out of this mess.

This 2004 movie is one of the best superhero films ever made. It has layers, from the awesome superhero combat, through domestic drama, to a surprisingly dark backstory.

The computer animation is state of the art for its time, and the cartoony character designs make up for some of its limitations. I especially like that the creators took time to animate the hair differently when it's wet. While the exact timeframe of the movie is not clear (lots of anachronisms) the general aesthetic is Sixties spy movie and it looks great.

There are fun characters; costume designer Edna Mode is especially notable. The writers came up with a lot of quotable lines {"You sly dog! You got me monologuing!") and the story flows well. Syndrome is a terrifyingly personal villain despite his plan being stupid.

There's a lot of questions that don't get answered in the movie (or the sequel), such as "where do superpowers come from?" and "wouldn't the supervillains have just run rampant without the heroes to stop them?" Not to mention "wasn't anyone in the government noticing all the disappearances?" Try not to think about these too hard during the actual movie.

Content note: There's an attempted suicide towards the beginning, and a large number of people were murdered in the backstory. Also, children in peril. Parents may want to be sure to stay with more sensitive child viewers.

Overall: This is an excellent movie I'm happy to recommend to families and superhero fans.

Trese is a Filipino urban fantasy comic book series that recently got an animated adaptation now running on Netflix USA.

I'll have a full review up later on my SKJAM! Reviews blog.

But for right now I want to talk about a mild spoiler.

For the first three episodes, Alexandra Trese, our person who stands between the human and supernatural communities, works hand in hand with Captain Guerrero of the Manila police. This seems to treat the relationship as non-problematic.

Then in Episode 4, we learn that no, ACAB. It's just that Captain Guerrero is actively trying to be less of a bastard than most of his colleagues, and himself in the past.

Zootopia (2016) dir. Byron Howard

Once upon a time, the mammals of the world ran solely on instinct. Predators ate prey, and that was the way things were. But over time, evolution happened and now you no longer have to be defined by your species. Mammals live in peace with each other, and anyone can be anything! Especially in Zootopia, a city built on species diversity. That's why Judy Hopps wants to go there and become a police officer, helping make the world a better place.

The first of her hurdles is that culturally, bunnies aren't police officers. They're agricultural workers, to be blunt, farmers. Traditionally the police force draws from predators and the larger prey species for their physical prowess. Judy isn't going to let being the first rabbit police officer candidate stop her, though. Despite struggles with the physical demands of police academy, Judy persists, and becomes the valedictorian of her class. Mayor Lionheart exercises his authority and assigns her to District One, the central police station of Zootopia.

Chief Bogo is not impressed by his new affirmative action rookie and assigns Judy to meter maid duties while most of the rest of the force is working missing mammal cases, of which there's been a rash. Judy does pretty well on her first day, exceeding her quota for tickets issued before noon. But then she runs into petty hustler Nick Wilde, who tricks her into participating in one of his money making enterprises in a small way. A cynical sort, Nick predicts Judy will soon lose her idealism.

Officer Hopps stumbles her way into being asked to solve one of the missing mammal cases within the next 48 hours, a task that has baffled the entire police force for two weeks. Her badge is on the line, and she has to proceed without the police computers as she's never been given access. The case file on Emmett Otterton is nearly empty, but Judy does spot a clue that places Nick near the scene, and she manages to blackmail the fox into assisting her.

Nick's not very helpful at first, pranking Judy a couple of times, but some leads are gained, and the two begin to have some grudging respect and empathy for each other. When Nick realizes just how serious the situation is (the missing citizens turned into violent "savages" before disappearing) and how badly Chief Bogo treats Judy (similar to how he's been treated in the past, though for different reasons), he talks the Chief into letting Judy have her full 48 hours.

And they crack the case! However, the mystery of why some mammals, all predators, have been turning savage is not cleared up, and during a disastrous press conference, Judy's own prejudices lure her into making some comments that sow discord between predators and prey. Nick breaks off their new friendship because of her bigotry. Tensions increase in Zootopia as more predators turn "savage." When Assistant Mayor Bellwether, now acting mayor, wants to make Officer Hopps the new face of the ZPD, Judy resigns instead.

But as often happens in cop movies, this temporary leave of absence allows Judy to realize what's really going on, reconcile with Nick, and save the day. Everybody dance!

This nifty Disney movie manages its metaphors for racism and ethnic prejudice by not having any of the species directly map on to a real-life group. Instead, much of it is based on animal stereotypes that the various mammals defy, embrace or subvert. And no one is immune. However idealistic Judy may be about everyone living peacefully together, she still harbors prejudice, especially against foxes, and that leads her to some poor choice of wording. Some of her struggles read more as sexism or prejudice against rural people. Nick faces a lot of negative stereotypes, but leans into some of them, and is not above touching Assistant Mayor Bellwether's hair without asking when he gets the chance.

The scene where desk sergeant Clawhauser is asked to move from the reception desk to the basement records department because he's not the image the police department wants to project right now will resonate with many adult watchers.

There's good voice acting, nice music (though I am less impressed with Shakira's big number than Disney might have expected) and the setting with its multiple climates and size accommodations is really cool.

The joke with the naturist (not wearing clothes) mammals goes on a bit too long, and some viewers may question whether having Nick join the police force at the end is really a happy ending.

Overall, this is going to be a good movie to revisit every five years or so so that new layers of meaning will resonate with the viewer. Recommended.