TRICK-OR-TREAT TUESDAY Here's another one of those great family favourites I put on that list I mentioned in my 'Hocus Pocus' review. Even though that was a list of a pretty randomized 20, I would have to say that this has to be somewhere at the top of that list as far as good, wholesome, family-friendly Halloween fun goes. And yes, I do say that with a bit of a bias toward these two charming characters, who we've seen in a few different things up to this point. There's something I love about the way these two play off each other. Wallace (Peter Sallis) is a sweet, charming man but a bit of a bumbler, and Gromit is the silent dog whose facial expressions say everything he needs to. My appreciation of Aardman Animations goes beyond these two as well, with films like 'Chicken Run', 'Arthur Christmas' and 'Shaun the Sheep' - just a few examples of some rather hilarious, yet wholesome entertainment. Interestingly enough, 'Curse of the Were-Rabbit' marks Wallace & Gromit's only full-length film so far, and I have to give them bonus points for making it a Halloween film! If you go through my list of 20 (as posted earlier), you'll see a lot of it is pretty hard to find, or otherwise painfully obvious, while this lies somewhere in between. I don't hear a lot of people talk about it during the Halloween season, but in my opinion, it's one of the best light-hearted Halloween-related things one can watch during the spooky season. This is one of those movies one can use to shine just a little bit of light on the otherwise scary and/or suspenseful thrillers and horrors they're watching through the month of October. In this feature, we see cheese-loving inventor, Wallace and his faithful dog, Gromit working in animal control with their humane company "Anti-Pesto". The big deal at the moment is rabbits who have been invading people's crops. This is made even worse by the fact that these people are attempting to grow giant vegetables for the upcoming Giant Vegetable Competition at Tottington Hall. After the pair rand up a massive group of rabbits in one, Lady Tottington's (Helena Bonham Carter) garden, Wallace attempts to use one of his new inventions to try brainwashing the rabbits into not liking vegetables. As one can imagine, this all backfires and, long story short, it ends up creating a giant rabbit who terrorizes the local gardens. Just to add to the story a little bit, there's a love-interest thing going on here between Wallace and Lady Tottington, but Wallace does have to deal with that "jock" type in the form of Victor Quartermaine (Ralph Fiennes). However, thankfully, this all takes a back seat to a lot of the other stuff going on throughout the film, and it's clear that this is out to have fun first - just like most, if not all of Aardman Animations' work. It's actually a good collection of (yet again) family-friendly material that doesn't have to rely on a love story of any sort to keep things interesting. So, if you're in the mood for something your kid can watch that plays well for Halloween but really isn't scary, you need not look any further. One might wonder what kind of monster a were-rabbit could be, and what it might do to human beings, but to make it a little extra kid-friendly, the big threat here is against vegetables and not people, so even though the monster, itself could be a sort of scary idea, the execution of the monster is nice and tame, so you probably won't have to worry about getting your kids to bed after something like this. It may have a moment here and there, but for the most part, it's just fun all around. 4/5
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MONSTER MONDAY Not to be confused with 2021's 'Godzilla vs Kong', I believe that this is the original "monster vs monster" movie, and films like 'Freddy vs Jason' and 'Alien vs Predator' owe a debt to this film for paving the way. Directed by the legendary Ishirō Honda (one could probably consider him the King of Kaiju), it actually marks the third film in each franchise, following 'Godzilla', 'Godzilla: King of the Monsters', 'King Kong' and 'Son of Kong'. It also marks the first time either of these monsters were ever seen in colour and widescreen, which today might be something like seeing a franchise do 3D, or D-Box for the first time (still waiting for that no-glasses 3D though - I'm looking at you, James Cameron!) In doing a bit of homework though, I enjoyed reading about how this project came to be. Willis O'Brien, a stop motion animator for the original 'King Kong' outlined a story in which Kong goes up against a giant Frankenstein monster. But honestly, I'd probably watch that if it ever came to light. But when the outline was handed to producer John Beck, Beck gave the project to the Toho company, which produces 'Godzilla' films, and the film became this instead. It's probably for the best, considering what this ended up being, but you gotta feel bad for O'Brien in this scenario. Either way, 'King Kong vs Godzilla' is, to this day, the single-most attended 'Godzilla' film in Japan, and that's probably saying a lot considering there are about 36 of them. Pacific Pharmaceuticals head, Mr. Tako (Ichirô Arishima) believes that the TV shows his company are producing are becoming dull and boring, and he needs some kind of publicity stunt in an attempt to boost ratings. This is when he's told about a giant monster (Kong) who resides on the remote Faro Island. Tako immediately sends two men, Osamu Sakurai (Tadao Takashima) and Kinsaburo Furue (Yû Fujiki), to the island to essentially go get the monster for him. Their journey here is actually quite entertaining as they meet the island's locals, right down to giving a kid a couple of cigarettes. This is where you get the idea that the film doesn't take itself too seriously, and knows you're here for a good time. Meanwhile, as an American nuclear sub called the Seahawk attempts to navigate a field of icebergs, they just so happen to find the one that has contained Godzilla since 1955. This is probably where I should mention that I don't pretend to understand how continuity works with these films, and I believe they are meant to be a little more like stand-alone "what-if?" stories... but I sincerely have no idea. All I know is from anything I read about 'King of the Monsters' ending, the big lizard shouldn't be trapped in an iceberg. But I digress. Godzilla is unleashed and heads toward a Japanese military base, leaving devastation in his wake. Skipping ahead, of course, Kong is eventually captured and brought back to Japan where the two monsters eventually meet and have their ultimate battle; Kong is used as a defence, and somewhat assisted by the humans. And I've gotta hand it to them, they do a pretty good job at delivering a good fight between them... okay, so maybe not a "good" fight, but they do deliver what we came here to see. With that, I should probably mention what may be obvious to some. This is the kind of movie where you know it's low-budget, using guys fighting in suits (Shoichi Hirose as King Kong and Haruo Nakajima as Godzilla) and scale models, and you can't help but have fun with it. In closing, I should mention that these kaiju films have always been one of those things I think are casually cool. I'm never usually hyped for anything like this, but if I do watch it, I'll usually have quite a bit of fun with it. But I'd be hard-pressed to find one I've had more fun with, and that includes more recent films! Cheesy and silly as the film may be, it does deliver what the title promises, and it kind of brings you back to the days of watching cartoons and playing with action figures. This is by no means a masterpiece, and could even be seen as "bad", but it's also not meant to be taken seriously and that much is evident with a lot of comedy. It may sound weird, but I might very well prefer this old hunk of cheese over 2021's film of the same concept, if only because this didn't try to be anything deep or have any meaning behind it. I came to watch these two titans clash, and dammit, that's what I got! 4/5 |