The Lion King (2019) movie review

Here's what you need to know; Simba is next in line for the throne, the latest in a long and prosperous history of kings and the son of the Pride Lands' wise and noble ruler, Mufasa. However, in the shadows lurks an embittered challenger to Mufasa's throne, the manipulative and power-hungry Scar, who wishes to rule the Pride Lands for himself and will let nothing get in his way, not even the lives of the King and his son. But larger forces are at work here, and one Lion's greed will not change the destiny of a King or stop him from taking his place in the Circle of Life.
Well would you look at that, Disney remade The Lion King, what a surprise. Unlike Beauty and the Beast and The Jungle Book however, I actually did watch the original film as a kid, in fact like most people who watched it as kids, I've watched it hundreds of times and consider it one of the best films ever made, and if that sounds hyperbolic to you, you've clearly never seen The Lion King. And the night I got home from seeing this remake, I was in a really good mood, and the audience I saw this film with gave it a standing ovation, I shit you not, people were cheering and clapping, but I regret to inform you that these things are not related. I was happy because I bought the SH Monsterarts King of the Monsters Godzilla figure, the NECA Mothra figure, and a Godzilla 1954 tshirt that fits me despite being a size too small, as for why they were cheering, I have no idea because they clearly weren't watching the same film as me.

Call me a cynic, because I am, but something felt off about this film from the opening shot. The shot of the sun rising over the Pride Lands is an instantly memorable image in the original film, and compared to the same shot in the remake, it's dripping with more style and artistry than pretty much the entire runtime of the remake. I'm not exaggerating; the opening sequence of the remake is ripped straight from the original, almost shot for shot, only now rendered in photorealistic CGI rather than hand-drawn animation. And as I'm sure you've heard, the CG is nuts, and as a film for flexing visual effects, The Lion King is about as good as you'll ever see, it's top notch stuff. The issue with it is that the film is clearly trying to grab you with nostalgia by reusing the same music and imagery as the original film, and despite looking incredible, it just doesn't work. This issue becomes a lot easier to explain as the film progresses and we are introduced to the film's characters. Simba is still a likable kid; he's energetic and charming and  endlessly optimistic, and from a character standpoint, nothing's changed, he's still going to have the joy and hope ripped from him by Scar before finding a new family and eventually embracing his destiny to rule the Pride Lands. Mufasa is largely the same too, albeit more reserved and mild. But in the transition to photorealism, these characters have lost something very important; their previous anthropomorphic qualities.

We humans are very emotive, we use our faces to express emotions, but in the real world, animals like lions lack that ability to effectively emote through their faces, which is why animals in cartoons are anthropomorphised; given human qualities to make them more expressive. In going for photorealism, the animals have lost that human quality, and it'll never matter how good the CG is at that point, not when we're supposed to feel Simba's fear and we can't because he's pulling the same blank face for the entire film. And this isn't just the lions, though they are the worst affected, Rafiki's personality is heavily restrained in this film, his eccentricities reduced to the point that he's unrecognisable, and Zazu just looks weird with his beak snapping open and closed with words coming out of it. Some characters fair better; Timon for example, being a naturally more expressive animal, and while the Hyenas are back on the less expressive end, their nasty little grins are very in line with their representation in the film as snarling bullies. But then there's Scar. The original film had one of the best villains in film history in Scar, a scheming, cowardly, charismatic villain played with flair by Jeremy Irons, and a massive part of what made that character so memorable was his personality and expression, but this Scar isn't even remotely as charismatic or flamboyant as in the original. Once again, the CG being impressive comes at a cost and this issue with the film's character design causes several problems for the storytelling.

The animals being less expressive puts more pressure on the actors to convey the characters' feelings through their voices, which would lead to even more problems if they did, but not all of them do. There's a lack of energy to this film's characters; a point best exemplified by Mufasa who, despite James Earl Jones returning for the role from the original, is missing the sincerity of the original character, when he's scared, he sounds less scared, angry, he sounds less angry, it sounds like a half-arsed job. Donald Glover voices Simba for the remake and he does a good job, as does a lot of the new cast, with the notable exception of Beyoncé as Nala, which is kind of tragic to listen to. But we have to go back to Scar, who is played by Chiwetel Ejiofor in this film, and to his credit, he's trying to do something different with Scar; playing him less charismatically and more threateningly, and when that's allowed to work, it works. But what does that mean, when it's allowed to, the issue of the animals being less expressive puts the burden for expressing tone and emotion on the music and the voice actors, the for the most part, the music is good, but I've got some shit to say about a few things regarding the music. But as for the voice acting; outside of Beyoncé being horribly cast and James Earl Jones sounding like he doesn't give a shit, the film's cast does a good job, I even managed to tolerate John Oliver as Zazu, but with all of the burden on the actors to show us what the characters are thinking, it creates a disconnect between the voice acting and the visuals.

There is no greater offender in this regard than the gorge. Everyone who watched The Lion King as kids will have that scene from the animation burned into their souls, and if for some reason you don't know what happens, I'm going to spoil it; Mufasa dies, Scar throws him into the stampede as Simba watches in horror. Except there is no horror in this scene anymore, that dolly zoom shot of Simba looking up at the stampede is gone, that close up of Mufasa's eyes as he realises what's happening is gone, that evil smirk on Scar's face as he leans in and whispers "long live the king" is gone, the terror on Simba's face as he sees his dad fall to his death is gone, this scene is fucking broken in the remake. If I wasn't already pretty sure I hated this film by Be Prepared, this scene cemented the idea in my head, I couldn't stand it. The gorge encapsulates everything wrong with the remake, because it's a visually stunning scene that's completely hollow, empty of dread, suspense or horror, and I can't see this scene traumatising kids like it did in the 90's because the film's visual style is not compatible with its story. So when Simba is crying and confused and scared, begging his dad to get up, you get that disconnect between the sorrow of the actor's voice and the blank face of a lion cub, and it ruins the moment with how distracting it is. For this remake to work, no scene was more important than this one and they fucked it up, they fucked it up so hard that not even nostalgia can save it.

That and the scene where Mufasa appears in the clouds and tells Simba to remember who he is. In the original, this scene leans hard into the supernatural and is all the better for it, giving Simba the kick in the teeth he needs to embrace his destiny, but when your film is supposed to look real, a giant lion in the sky might look a little silly, so they kind of left it out. Instead of Mufasa appearing the clouds, we have a thundercloud with the vaguest impression of a lion's face in it, which is a cool visual, don't get me wrong, but it's just not as haunting as the original, and its impact is once again diminished by the visuals. But while we're on the subject of things being diminished; Be Prepared, what the fuck was that. Up until that point, the music was good, while I Just Can't Wait To Be King was neutered by the visuals, the surreal imagery and vibrant colours gone, the song itself is actually good, and certainly holds up better than Can You Feel The Love Tonight, which in addition to being crap compared to the original, accompanies Simba and Nala falling in love in the daytime, so the song doesn't even make sense. One change I do like however, love, even, is Be Our Guest.  In the original, Timon does the hula so distract the Hyenas in a scene that never stops being funny, and in the remake, I don't it'll stop being funny either. With dressing in drag and doing the hula out of the question, thanks again photorealism, Timon and Pumbaa's distraction now involves Timon singing Be Our Guest from Beauty and the Beast, or at least starting to, and that is a genuinely funny new addition to the film.

And the scene where Timon and Pumbaa sing The Lion Sleeps Tonight is also a really funny scene, let's just cut out the waffle and say that Timon and Pumbaa were one of the few things the film did justice to, they were great, and Seth Rogan as Pumbaa is bloody genius, I can honestly say I enjoyed that about the film. Do you know what I didn't enjoy, Be Prepared. Since I've never talked about The lion King before on this blog, I should probably tell you that of all the songs from The Lion King, my favourite one was Be Prepared, it always has been, I love the song, I love the visuals that accompany the song, I love the guy singing the song, and going into the remake, it was one of the things I was most dreading, and I was right to. All of the original song's energy is gone in the remake, as are the flashy visuals, which wouldn't be such an issue if the original Be Prepared wasn't one of the film's most visually engaging sequences, filled with caustic greens and hellish reds, atmospheric lighting, deep shadows and Scar at his most flamboyant, not to mention the army of goose stepping Hyenas. But all of that, literally all of it, is gone in the remake, instead Scar walks around in a dark, gloomy environment talking about the plan to kill Mufasa while a music track close enough to Be Prepared to be recognisable swells in the background. The song is completely neutered in the remake and I'm baffled as to why, why has I Just Can't Wait To Be King been brought back in its entirety, minus the visuals, but Be Prepared was reduced to this; Chiwetel Ejiofor talking the lyrics before awkwardly breaking out into something that's almost a song. I probably wouldn't care as much if Be Prepared wasn't my favourite song in The Lion King, but since it is, I found its execution in this film to be disappointing, to put it mildly.

I haven't said a lot of nice things about this film so far, and part of me thinks I'm being unfair to it, but I'm genuinely struggling to think of something that this film improves upon from the original. The film adds a new scene with Scar that I like, in fact it's one of my favourite scenes in the film, which is odd given that it's only there to pad the runtime. But this scene went into more detail about what kind of king Scar is and I found that very interesting, I kind of wish there was more of it. The film gives us a closer look at the fall of the Pride Lands and it actually makes the film better. But for every one good addition, there's a couple of bad ones, because the remake adds new music, which is kind of like putting pineapple on Pizza, it'll make some people happy, but everyone else will want to kill it with fire. I'm still struggling to think of nice things to say, but I'm not falling into this film's trap; The Lion King is banking on nostalgia to make you like it, it's got all the old songs, mostly, it's got all the timeless and beloved characters, except not really, and it's got the heart, except not even remotely. The film is hollow, it's trying its hardest to imitate the original and be as timeless and memorable as that film, but it will never be that, and in its effort to trick you into loving it as much as the original, it's only made this film stand out for the mediocre cash grab it is. The film's choice to go for photorealism makes it look real, yes, but it strips it of the personality and passion of the original, it limits the film's ability to tell its story, which completely breaks the film for me, and then we have to consider the simple truth that this film doesn't need to exist.

Now, if you're cynic like me, you might say no shit, but it's worse than it; the original is beloved for a reason, and it will not age or degrade because of how strong its visuals, music and storytelling are, but this film stumbles on all of those fronts, making more negative changes than positive ones, all while reminding you of the original constantly in the hope that you'll be fooled into loving it. I really should be saving this for the conclusion, but those girls sat behind us who stood up and cheered, who started a torrent of people standing up and cheering, whatever smoke and mirrors this film was pulling clearly worked on them, and maybe these are the same smoke and mirrors they've used in other live-action films like The Jungle Book, and I'm only wising up to it now because it's The Lion King, but either way, here we are, I'm bitching about yet another billion dollar Disney film this year because I didn't buy what it was selling. Incidentally, I'm watching the original film right now, while I write this, and I'm on the scene after the elephant graveyard where Mufasa and Simba have their talk. This scene is one of my favourite scenes in the film because of the image of Simba looking down at his dad's pawprint, in this image we have Simba in the shadow of his father, figuratively, ashamed that he'll never be as wise and noble as the king, only for Mufasa to drop a wisdom bomb on him and remind us all why we love him. But that image of Simba standing in his father's pawprint is on the poster for the film, it's in the trailer, and in both of those instances, its meaning is completely lost, which sums up the film really; mimicking the imagery of the original without understanding that imagery, a cheap imitation.


Ain't No Passing Craze
To say I hate this film would be an exaggeration, it's not unwatchable, but that's about as positive as I'm prepared to go. It's a film that's trying to show off some admittedly incredible visual effects, while also trying to cash in on nostalgia by retelling a timeless tale in a format with which it is simply not compatible. All the nostalgia and photorealistic CG in the world won't change the fact that this film is dull to look at, or that its visuals are distractingly disconnected from its voice acting, or that it neuters the personalities of several of its most memorable characters, or that it adds things that didn't need adding and cuts out things that really didn't need cutting out, all while sticking as close as it can to the original in the hopes that you'll not notice its lack of soul. In a way, this might actually be worse than something like Hellboy or Captain Marvel, because while those films were bad, The Lion King sits comfortably in the realm of meh, and you may even like it, but ask yourself, really ask yourself, do you like it because you like the original, and if you answer yes to that question, you might find this film's mask slipping. I would not recommend this film, if you want to see The Lion King, watch the original, it's a timeless masterpiece, whereas this film's about as timeless as a TV dinner, completely passable in the moment, but eventually flushed and forgotten like the crap that it is.

The Independent and the Cult of Alita: Battle Angel

Disney may have race-swapped The Little Mermaid, and the word is out that the next 007 is a black woman, and both of those things are absolutely absurd and absolutely worthy of comment, but while I was getting distracted from doing that by getting drunk at my parents' wedding anniversary, another story popped up that I just couldn't resist. Now, as you're probably well aware, I love Alita: Battle Angel; I saw it four times at the cinema, snagged a giant promo poster of it at one of my local Odeon's charity giveaways, started buying the manga, of which I now have all five volumes, framed one of the exclusive Odeon posters and put it in the hall, and I even recently bought the film on Digital, making it the first film I've ever bought on digital, in the hopes that I could share the film with people who, like me, were getting drunk out of their minds at my parents' anniversary house party. In addition to all that though, I've also written several posts about the film, refuting the Mary Sue and Screenrant's criticisms of the film and comparing it to 2019's progressive darling, Captain Marvel. As sad as it is though, I was expecting Alita: Battle Angel to pretty much disappear once its theatrical run was over, to become an underground cult film, loved by many but never receiving the appreciation it truly deserves. But it looks like I was wrong because apparently, if you like Alita: Battle Angel, you're part of a cult and a member of the alt-right, let's get stuck in.

https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/features/alita-battle-angel-alitaarmy-fandom-james-cameron-alt-right-a8984711.html

Today's article comes from one Adam White on The Independent and is titled "The Cult of Alita: Battle Angel - alt-right parable or neglected classic?" And I find his use of the word parable to be very interesting as a parable, at least according to Google, is a story used to illustrate a moral or spiritual lesson, I'm sure he'll explain just what moral and spiritual lesson Alita is illustrating though, but then again, he calls it a cult in his title, so maybe not. Our author starts by setting the scene; telling us about the film and giving us a little story about one time the Oscars tweeted about what film needs to be seen in the cinema, to which a fair few people said Alita: Battle Angel. I like how this is presented to us though, that somehow the Oscars asking a question and getting the same answer from thousands of people can't possibly be genuine or organic. There almost certainly was a viral element to it, else the response wouldn't have been so strong in support of Alita: Battle Angel, but does that negate the response entirely, no, nor does it throw any weight behind the counter attack within the thread from progressives saying that they're all bots, or that they're only pretending to like the film because they hate Captain Marvel, because that sounds spot on, doesn't it. It's not like the film's currently rocking an audience score of ninety-four percent on Rotten Tomatoes, compared to Captain Marvel's comparatively tragic fifty-five percent, or are they all bots too. But for some reason, our author seems confused about the film becoming so loved, like a film has never been forgotten by the general public, save for a small and passionately devoted fanbase, that's never happened before, no film in history has fostered a cult following; Dredd, Donnie Darko, Big Trouble in Little China, Event Horizon and The Fog, to name a few.

And another thing,  as one of the commenters on that Twitter thread demonstrates, Alita: Battle Angel wasn't just forgotten by the normies, it became a target of the progressive left, they've attacked the film again and again, you're probably going to go on to attack it in this very article, and that's giving you the free shot of putting the film's title and the alt-right in the same sentence. Alita: Battle Angel becoming wrapped up in the culture war wasn't solely the work of its defenders, it's just as much, if not more the fault of its attackers, who called the film problematic and sexist and associated its defenders with the worst people the progressive left could possibly think of, you know, the thing you did in your title. But our author answers his rhetorical question a few paragraphs in with this gem; "But like Most things on the internet, there is a darker underbelly. The alt-right make up a not insignificant proportion of Alita's fanbase." Prove it. No, seriously, show me where this alt-right underbelly of the #AlitaArmy is, is it on Reddit, because I haven't seen it, is it on Twitter, because Twitter's not big on the so-called alt-right being on their site in the first place, First Amendment be damned. And as we all know, Youtube's just a hotbed for the alt-right, that's why its algorithm endlessly boosts the content of 'advertiser friendly' news channels and late night talk shows, while strangling traffic to politically incorrect channels that criticise the progressive narrative and burying them under music videos and talks shows. That such channels stay as popular as they are is a testament either to our society's collapse into fascism, or the strength of their message, which one it is depends on who you ask.


And that's just assuming that what our author would define as alt-right is indeed alt-right, I mean, naturally someone like Sargon or Steven Crowder would be called alt-right, even though they blatantly aren't and just post political content that goes against the narrative, but what about channels like Bowlestrek, Clownfish TV and The Quartering, smaller channels that cover exclusively or almost exclusively media and entertainment news, are they alt-right too. Our author doesn't really define what the alt-right is, so I guess they would be, because being labelled alt-right is like being labelled racist or sexist or white supremacist, it's a meaningless attack on your character and an attempt to undermine your message before you can undermine theirs. But isn't it funny how our author talks about how conspiratorial the #AlitaArmy is, because they apparently claim that Disney funded a smear campaign to derail Alita: Battle Angel, once again, this claim is presented without evidence, and this would be the first I've heard of it if it's true, which is unlikely. To me, this feels less like an honest representation of the truth and more like an effort to delegitimise the #AlitaArmy as crazy, because Disney is totally not a really shady company with a massive monopoly. With regards to a certain controversial film, let's not forget the rumours of them threatening cinema chains, or them censoring critical reviews, which they absolutely did, tens of thousands of reviews vanishing doesn't just happen for no reason. And when a company has the leverage and influence to do this, and the ability to possibly get away with it, them hurting the success of a possible rival to said controversial film isn't even that absurd an idea. But apparently, the #AlitaArmy is hysterical and conspiratorial, and is representative of the internet as a whole, and do you know what, minus the #AlitaArmy bit, I actually wholeheartedly agree with him on this point.

The left is in a constant state of hysteria about pretty much everything, and if it conforms to their worldview, they'll believe just about anything, no matter how insane or petty or just outright untrue it is. Not a day goes by where something doesn't send them into a frenzy, be it the Donald and his spicy tweets, one of their own stepping out of line, or someone they can't control does or says something even slightly controversial. Not to mention the paranoia, they seem to genuinely think that fascists are taking over the world and that they're literally everywhere, which sounds reasonable. Going back a point, that maybe a part of this too, the fact that they can't control the #AlitaArmy, enter the notion that people only like Alita because they're misogynists who hate Captain Marvel, the position of one Mary Sue author I've discussed before, it's ridiculous, but as that author and comments on that Oscars twitter thread suggest, it's actually something at least some of them believe, its doublethink, plain and simple. But our author then says something very curious, "Alita: Battle Angel is a zippy and gloriously hokey sci-fi spectacle far better than its tepid critical response earlier this year implied." So, it's better than the critics said eh? congratulations, you've validated the position of the #AlitaArmy, well done. And while I can't speak for the #AlitaArmy, I can even agree that its sequel-bait ending wasn't good, given that the sequel is probably not going to happen, and that it did hurt the film in its final moments. Look at this, we're in agreement on stuff, how long do you reckon this is going to last, I'll give it till the next sentence.

Our author then even further validates the #AlitaArmy and contradicts himself in the process. After saying earlier that it was "unexpected" and "unusual" that Alita: Battle Angel was the go-to answer of so many people, now he's saying "that Alita: Battle Angel has sparked such devotion shouldn't come as a major surprise." After talking about Iron City and confusing Motor Ball with Basketball, he continues "Alita herself is also intriguingly joyous and heartwarming as a heroine," demonstrating that he does in fact understand the Alita love, as "with all of that in mind, it's not hard to rationalise why the film has become quite as beloved as it has." But after building the case for liking the film, he's then going to undermine all of it and make himself look like a massive tool because "what many within #AlitaArmy won't do, however, is actually tell you why they love it so much." Are you joking, come on, you gotta be joking, tell me, if the people defending Alita: Battle Angel aren't saying what's good about the film, what exactly are they saying. Is there not example after example after example in the twitter thread that you yourself linked to of people saying why they love Alita, talking about the visual effects, Rosa Salazar and the film's themes of self-discovery, all while people sit there calling them bots and trolls as if it's not an honest position to like the film.

Isn't that odd; you have the likes of Lindsey Ellis, a Youtuber I actually kind of like, saying "Anything but Alita: Battle Angel," and not giving a single reason why, rather than liking the film being an ideological position, it seems to me more like hating the film is an ideological position, as if liking the film somehow makes you a bad person, if you're even a person at all and not a bot. It's rare that a critic of the film says anything constructive, and yet you claim that the fans are the ones not making good points, you sir, are a dishonest idiot. Our author carries on being dishonest by talking about an incident where the Alita fanbase attacked a journalist when she asked them why they liked it. I found it very odd though that no names or links are provided, unless they once were and got memory-holed after it came to light that this author misrepresented the entire situation. This journalist's name is Kylie Harrington and she isn't too pleased with this Independent article, feeling that it misrepresents the situation she found herself in, with people being hesitant to talk to her after she seemingly mocked them with a tweet that she's since apologised for, as our author states. Harrington was met with hesitance and distrust by the #AlitaArmy, who felt that the media had been hostile to them in the past, yet our author is flipping the script and telling us that they attacked this journalist, which is a lie, he also didn't bother to talk to Harrington himself before publishing this article, which is a very odd thing to do if you want to represent things truthfully.

So our author has lied about the #AlitaArmy, and from this lie, he intends to spin it into the Alita fanbase being alt-right, why, because of "outlandish conspiracy claims," "YouTube antagonism" and "malicious targeting of a female journalist," nice try, author, I see what you tried to do there, but sadly this isn't about sexism, they didn't "[maliciously target] a female journalist," a journalist who you refused to name, but yeah, totally, this means that the #AlitaArmy is alt-right, the progressive left has never attacked a journalist or antagonised on YouTube or spouted conspiracy theories, these things are totally not vastly more applicable to the progressive left than your misrepresentation of the #AlitaArmy. Again, it's important to note that our author has not defined the alt-right, which might not seem important, but it is, he's lied about the activities of the #AlitaArmy and expects us to take his word on it that these are also the activities of the alt-right, when in reality these are lies and the alt-right can and does mean whatever this author wants it to. The label of alt-right, just like Nazi or racist or any other, has been redefined and abused to the point that it's meaningless. But the progressive left seems uniquely scared of the alt-right because it's an ideology that's built on the same core ideas and philosophies, it's the other side the coin to the progressive left, a right-wing counterpart to them that operates in very similar ways. That is why they're the latest and most frightening bogeyman; because they are a direct response to the progressive left, they are the progressive left, just with different colours.

And with that in mind, our author continues to misrepresent the sides of this internet conflict. Alita: Battle Angel was not "positioned as a right-wing alternative to Captain Marvel;" it was, as you even say in this same paragraph, positioned as an apolitical alternative, a film that wasn't trying to force feed you identity politics while Captain Marvel was, as you put it, "proudly feminist." Because feminism's really popular, don't you know, so popular in fact that a survey in the UK conducted by the Fawcett Society, a feminist organisation, found that seven percent of the population identity with the word, seven percent, less than a tenth, which didn't stop them from trying to spin it into Britain being "a nation of hidden feminists," but that's feminism for you, ignoring reality as usual. And as for Brie Larson, the woman who told white men that their opinion on A Wrinkle in Time didn't matter because it "wasn't made for [them]," who shared a picture of herself on Instagram looking mopey in a pair of cool shoes, shades and a handbag with her name one it, and captioned it with "thinking about Stan," and who also pissed off an entire country with a film that was slammed as 'racist' and 'stereotypical', yeah, she totally isn't a bigoted, narcissistic, hypocritical  scumbag. But the lies just don't stop as he then calls the #AlitaChallenge an alt-right campaign, because boycotting an aggressively political film starring a thoroughly unlikable actress in favour of an apolitical passion project isn't reasonable apparently.

But then our author goes even deeper into the shit by trying to make the case against the claim that Alita: Battle Angel is apolitical, and he completely missed the point. Alita: Battle Angel having liberal ideas in it is something I'd concede to, there is clear symbolism in Iron City and Zalem above, not just a class divide but a social and cultural one as even the wealthy and powerful can lose their privilege of living in the sky city. But Captain Marvel isn't liberal, there are no themes of class divide or corruption, instead we have the poor, innocent refugees on the run from a tyrannical and oppressive regime, who must be saved by an all-powerful, beautiful, strong woman who cannot lose and is always right, whose best friend is a black woman who's also the best mum and the best pilot in the world, but, like our all powerful hero, was never given the chance she deserved because society held her back. Captain Marvel isn't liberal, it's a wank-fest of progressive politics, one that wouldn't know subtlety if it poisoned its Starbucks Latte and as a result, refuses to let you forget just how progressive and empowering it is. The issue is obvious, people don't like being talked down to, people don't like aggressive political messaging in their entertainment, and Alita: Battle Angel didn't do either of those things, it was a film, whereas Captain Marvel was feminist propaganda and sold itself as such on the back of the MCU. So don't give me this bullshit about Alita: Battle Angel not being apolitical, by your logic, every film that's ever been made is political, you are deliberately misrepresenting the problem to make the #AlitaArmy look dishonest, which is pretty damn rich for a shameless lair such as yourself.

Oh but you see, the cast said some stuff; Rosa Salazar took a jab at the Donald and his wall, therefore there's no difference and the #AlitaArmy are hypocrites. Never mind that, by your own admission, Salazar received nothing close to the press exposure of Brie Larson. Never mind that this political aspect is not reflected in the film itself, but merely the thoughts of one of its stars, while not only is Brie Larson's ego and Feminism reflected in the film, it's a core aspect of the character and of the film. Idiot, Tom Cruise is a scientologist, that doesn't mean I can't enjoy Mission Impossible, Chris Evans is a massive progressive who can't keep his mouth shut, I still like Captain America. Actors are allowed to be insufferable twats because they're people too, but it becomes a problem when it starts to bleed into the film itself, that doesn't happen with Alita: Battle Angel, it does with Captain Marvel, constantly, to comedic degrees, the film's endless and aggressive messaging is insufferable to watch, and made all the more so by Carol Danvers' complete lack of charm and charisma. But getting back to the article itself, apparently the #AlitaChallenge was underpinned by toxic ideas, I can't wait to see where this goes. Our author then quotes someone, I don't know who though because once again, no links or names, but apparently this Youtuber describes Alita by saying she "doesn't talk down to the fans, one that is believably powerful, one that is attractive without being overly sexualised," he quotes again, "[she is] the perfect wife, the perfect daughter and the perfect friend."

That sounds about right to me; Alita is among the most optimistic and selfless characters you'll ever see, but I already know how you're going to try and spin it, and I would love to know where these quotes came from, but you don't link to them, I wonder why, is it because like the incident with Kylie Harrington, people actually knowing the full story would blow this little hit piece of yours to smithereens. I have already laughed out loud a few times from reading this article, but nothing I've read so far made me laugh harder than his spin on these quotes, because apparently, this is a "collection of misogynistic themes, relating to female likability, "believable" female strength and regressive views on how women should express their sexuality." Fucking What?! First off, thinking that a female character doesn't talk down to her audience is misogynistic, is it, how does that work, finding a female character likable and not all high and mighty is misogynistic, that doesn't make sense. Finding a female character's strength to be unbelievable and unearned is misogynistic too, don't you know, and finding her attractive while not thinking she's sexualised, respecting her as a beautiful and powerful woman, that's about as misogynistic as it gets, the mental gymnastics is hurting me here, I can't imagine what's it's doing to our author. And let's not forget all the feminists who wrote articles about how sexualised Alita's design was, Molly Freeman of ScreenRant for example, are you going to tell me that criticising a woman's body because she's too sexy isn't misogynistic, or do they get a pass because they have the right politics, while obsessing and complaining about a woman's body.

Let's also not forget the little detail that Alita herself expresses her sexuality, Ido doesn't program the Berserker body to have big breasts and a thin waist, Alita does, the body conforms to her subconscious image of herself, as in it's how she wants to look, that is the ultimate in a character expressing their sexuality, and the people whining about it were feminists because her tits were too big, tell me again who has the problem with female sexuality. But unfortunately, our author shifts gears and starts lying about something else entirely; GamerGate, because for some reason, the progressive left refuses to just let it die, or, for that matter, to stop lying about it. GamerGate was not a hate campaign, this is and always has been a lie, that they still talk about it like some kind of cultural apocalypse from which an epidemic of misogyny spawned is more sad than it is funny, because it was five years ago, the only people who still care about it are people like you and that's because you're terrified of it. And even if it wasn't five years ago, but was in fact, say, a month ago, it still doesn't matter to this Alita situation outside of your mischaracterisation of the #AlitaArmy that you've tried to associate with GamerGate, which you've also mischaracterised, your entire argument is just lie after lie after lie. And while we're on the subject of lying, you then have the balls to claim that this has "come to define an Alita fanbase that for the most part is celebratory rather than toxic."

What utter twaddle, first you say that the film's fanbase has a not insignificant number of alt-righters, then you try to lie about them harassing a journalist, you've called the ideas that underpin the fanbase toxic, you've called the supporters of the #AlitaChallenge alt-right, you've tried to associate them with a hate group that isn't actually a hate group, you're just peddling the age old lie that it is, how shocking, but now the Alita fanbase is mostly celebratory. I'm speechless, you're so bad at lying that you can't even maintain a consistent lie for more than a few sentences, you're a fucking moron. Which is it, author, is the fanbase mostly positive, or is it a den of Nazis, which is it, is it underpinned by toxic and misogynistic ideas, or is it just a bunch of people who love a movie and want to share that love with others. What you don't seem to realise is that after lying for an entire article about how bad they are, saying in the second to last paragraph that they're actually a largely positive fandom torpedoes your entire narrative, like we needed any more proof that you're a disingenuous smear merchant. And after undermining and smearing the fanbase of this film, you then have the balls to say that the film "deserves to be memorialised as an odd triumph," you can't have it both ways you hack, you can't expect us to think you're being even remotely sincere here when your entire article is an attack on the film and its fanbase.

And if you think he's done attacking them, you're wrong, because as he wraps up this article, he just has to get in one more dig, "Not as a reflection of everything scary and destructive about geek culture and the internet today. Egomaniac he may be, but James Cameron deserves better." Author, apologies for the bluntness, but Fuck Off. Cameron deserves better does he, sure, I guess he does deserve better than a gaggle of antagonistic misogynists, or he would if it was true. Because geek culture is scary and destructive, no, it's scary and destructive to you, just as the ideas of the progressive left are scary and destructive to anyone who isn't a backwards cultist. Captain Marvel received a backlash because the ideas it promotes are very unpopular; normal, not insane people hate feminism so much that only seven percent of Britons identify with the word, according to a feminist funded study. Alita: Battle Angel meanwhile is not a feminist propaganda film, nor is it another product of the Hollywood machine, it's a film with genuine passion behind it and that is why people have latched onto it. And they've done so in spite of journalists like you on the attack against them and a film that doesn't parrot the toxic ideology for which Captain Marvel is so rightfully loathed.

Dance, Little Flea

I knew that this article would be stupid, with a title like that, how could it not have been, but honestly, I wasn't expecting such a level of dishonesty, if I didn't know better, I'd say this actually smells a bit malicious. There's something off about this article; the mental gymnastics of saying that Alita is loved by misogynists, the unwillingness to provide details on anything about which he comments, calling the fanbase alt-right in one paragraph and calling it celebratory a few paragraphs later, lying about the activities of the #AlitaArmy and ascribing intent to them in a completely uncharitable way. Adding to the smell of malice is the simple truth that Alita: Battle Angel isn't that big of a film, and that it ended up in competition with a much larger and more controversial film that had the entire progressive left behind it. Feminists and progressives don't hate Alita because she's problematic or sexualised or any other nonsense buzzword, they hate her because she contradicts their narrative, because deep down, even they know that what they believe doesn't make sense. How can Alita become a hero for misogynists, how can it be championed as an apolitical film when it's riddled with liberal themes. And what does our author do to try and get around these holes in his worldview, he lies and attempts to smear, because at the end of the day, it all comes down to this; if you disagree, you're a bad person.


It seems I was wrong about Alita: Battle Angel being forgotten; there will always be the fans like myself, the general movie going public having long since forgotten, but I guess there's another faction out there that will help to keep the flame alive, the people who hate the film. The progressives who were left bitter by a film that blew a hole in everything they believed, from the insecure feminists who thought she was too sexy, to the progressive believers who lie and spin to justify their own hatred, not just for a sexy cyborg hero, but for the MRA trolls and alt-right misogynists who chose her over their precious Captain Marvel. There's one final reason this article stinks, and it's one word in the title; cult, because the #AlitaArmy doesn't deny reality, it doesn't respond to disagreement with smears and lies, it doesn't reduce its enemies to bots and trolls who's opinions are worthless, or justify hating them through character assassination, meanwhile I can think of at least one author who either agrees with those failings or perpetrates them himself, all while trying to convince the reader that other people are in a cult and not him, almost as if he's trying to convince himself that it isn't so. If you intend to tell other people that they're in a cult, dear author, then I'd be careful where you throw stones in that glass house of yours.

The Mary Sue: In the Pursuit of Power

Well, that was a hell of a ride in May, wasn't it, but pumping out that many reviews, while I enjoyed it, left me in the position of being half way through writing my last post; Godzilla: King of the Monsters vs The World and realising just how much of a grind it had been. It was worth it, don't get me wrong, but two-thousand words into it, I just couldn't be arsed anymore and wanted to do something else for a while. That changed however while I was browsing my favourite den of rabid feminists to see if anything would grab my attention, and grab my attention, something did. Once I saw this article, I knew just from the headline that I wanted to read it, and so I hastily wrapped up my previous post so I could get to this, a Mary Sue article by one Kate Gardner, whose name rang a bell for some reason and would you believe it, I've shredded one of her articles before, back when Ghostbusters 3 news was sending the feminist hoard into an autistic fit. Today's offering is titled "I Only Want To Hear About Midsommar and Other Horror Films From Female Critics," so let's not waste any more time and begin, because I'm sure this will be fun.
https://www.themarysue.com/midsommar-reviews-trailer/

The article, as you might expect, opens with an introduction to the film, Midsommar, a horror film that, full disclosure, I haven't seen and for the time being, have no intention of seeing, so expect no insightful knowledge or commentary on this particular film, outside of me thinking that the film looks pretentious as shit and probably is, given that the critics are currently standing under its corn-chute with their mouths open. We're here today for one reason and one reason only, our author's admission of their own sexism, and we don't have to wait long to get that as we very soon get her saying she only clicked on reviews for the film by female critics. I will give her credit though for not trying to spin it; "because quite frankly, [she] didn't necessarily want a male take on the film." Let's play a drinking game, shall we, take a shot for every time our author says something that would be considered horrifically sexist were it about women and not men, because make no mistake, that there is our author clearly expressing a disinterest in male critics' opinions on the basis that they are male, and we all know the word for that. She's even so kind as to give her reasons why, and they're about as absurd as you'd expect; "Maybe it's the fact that the lead is a woman," how incredibly not shallow, "or maybe [she's] just tired of the horror criticism canon being defined by men."

It never fails to surprise and impress me when I hear something along these lines, this time it's the historical argument; the horror criticism canon, whatever that means, has been defined by men. That's just another way of saying male dominated, as is evident from the fact that our progressive author is tired of it, and by the fact that she just plain says it in the next paragraph. Of course, to any normal person, that wouldn't make a difference because you're reading/watching for their opinion and not because they either have a hot dog or a bun, but this is feminism we're talking about and for feminists, there will be no peace in the war against the patriarchy, not until we've all embraced communism to kill the pay gap and discriminated against men to the point that gender representation in all industries, that aren't demanding or dangerous, of course, is fifty fifty. On a side note, I hope you remembered to take a shot, because can you imagine what the response would be if someone said they were tired of something being defined by women, that'd be fun. Oh but it's not just the men, it's the white men especially that "tend to get the lion's share of press access and screening invites."

Way to make it sound like a boys club, but that's just the thing, our author words this in such a way that the scales seem unbalanced in favour of men, then this false pretence can be used to justify unbalancing the scales in the other direction. Our author is probably right that more men than women get special access and screening invites, but our author hasn't yet given us a clear reason as to why that's a problem, she just doesn't like it, A; because more men than women in anything is a problem, purely on ideological grounds and B; because if she got her way, she, a woman, would be a beneficiary of that. But rather curiously, our author pokes a hole in her own position by saying "everyone can be a critic," which necessarily means that there are no barriers to entry for anyone or any group, but that doesn't matter because our author just wants it a certain way. Having a preference for female critics isn't an issue, everyone has preferences, but look back to her title "I Only Want To Hear About Midsommar and Other Horror Films From Female Critics." If we can take this title at face value and I can't see why we can't, this is a statement of our author not only preferring female critics, but desiring to read/watch exclusively female critics, this is no longer a preference, this is an ideological position. Our author is, at the very least, intentionally limiting herself to a certain type of critic, and is doing so along gendered lines, unless it's not that simple but we'll get to that. If it is that simple though, that would make her a sexist as she is opting not to read the opinions of male critics on the grounds that they are male and nothing else.

"When it comes to female-led horror such as last year's Hereditary or Suspiria, or this year's Midsommar," but not Alien, interesting omission, "there's something important about centering female voices." Why? I'd have thought that she'd explain why, but she doesn't, not in this paragraph at least. She talks about Hereditary and Suspiria being films about female trauma and pain, and how those are films she "[longs] to see analysed from a female perspective," and that Midsommar looks to be another one of them, despite her not having seen it yet. That's not the justification she seems to think it is though; these are films she wants a female opinion on, so we need to "uplift female voices in 2019" because it's important, once again, we're stepping the line of preference and ideology, it's not enough that these female voices exist, they need to be prioritised and focused on, at the detriment of other demographics of critics that would be getting unfairly downgraded, almost like if you're a critic, being a woman means you should be given privilege.

That is unless it's not that simple, because maybe, when she says female or woman, that's not what she actually means, bear with me, what if when she says woman, what she actually means is feminist. That would make a lot of sense as feminism is an ideology, one its members love to spread, and who's members desire power that they can then project over other people and ideologies like the religious nuts they are. Our author being both a woman and a feminist, it doesn't make much difference as she gets more power either way, but it's just something to consider as we progress through this article. Our next paragraph gives us reason to think this is the case too, as she provides two examples; The Haunting of Hill House, a show I haven't watched and Captain Marvel, a film I have watched, twice. Apparently, "[she] was far more interested in reading reviews by women about why Captain Marvel didn't resonate with them than [she] was interested in reading why men didn't like it." I actually looked into this, I went to Rotten Tomatoes, the bastion of film criticism that it is, looked through the film's critic reviews and I found something very interesting. A lot of the Rotten reviews, both by men and women, are saying broadly similar things about the film; that Brie Larson was not a compelling hero, that the film was flat and generic, and most interesting from both men and women, that the film's message could have been better handled.

Meanwhile, the positive reviews are also all saying broadly similar things, like praising Brie Larson's performance and praising the film for being progressive. We know which side of this debate I'm on, just as we can comfortably guess what side our author's on, but the split in the film's reviews seems much less gendered and much more ideological, which is exactly what you should expect, both men and women have positive and negative things to say and there is a lot of overlap between the genders, bow chica bow wow. Curiously, since there are more male critics than female ones, it's actually a lot of men praising the film for being progressive, though the ratio of Rotten reviews is higher with the male critics than the female ones. But the bulk of the Captain Marvel hate comes from outside of the Critic bubble, with the film landing in the laps of the various anti-SJW YouTube channels like a gift from God. Once again though, we see a split along ideological lines, with Feminists thinking it was amazing, anti-feminists thinking it was terrible, and everyone else thinking it was just kind of meh. A lot of them also broadly share the views of the critics, either it's progressive and important and Brie Larson is amazing, or Brie Larson's boring and the film panders to feminism. As is usually the case though, the audience score is a bit lower than the critic score, if you can consider twenty-three percent to be a bit, so clearly there are more virtuous progressives among the critics, what's new. Our author is gendering a split of opinion that isn't gendered, but ideological and if that's what she's going for, it's an attempt to misrepresent the split as men vs women when in reality, it's progressives vs non-progressives.

But don't worry, "this is not to say that only women can review female-centric films," thank goodness, for a second I was starting to- "but the canon is made up of films praised by white male critics," oh, that went to shit fast. So let me get this straight, it's okay for male critics, even if they're white, to have opinions of female-centric films, but when film criticism canon is defined by them, it's a problem, as if the opinions of these particular critics are inherently problematic, hope you've been remembering to take your shots. And we then get the ultimatum; "until we get full parity across the board in terms of critics, [she's] going to choose to stick to what women are saying about films." This is rather more than our author having a preference, this is a clear statement that she intends to ignore the opinions of male critics until her absurd requirement is met. This demand will never be met, there is simply no way it is possible without engineering an environment to force it, which would necessarily require discrimination to an insane degree, to the point that not every person is allowed to be a critic, which is utterly tyrannical and the tip of a very scary iceberg. But let's say her demand is somehow met, does this mean that the male critics that weren't purged in the pursuit of parity will finally be worth her time? like Hell it does; with a demand as ridiculous as that, it's unlikely that she has any intention of going back on her line in the sand.

This is particularly the case with female centric horror, because apparently she doesn't need guys to tell her what is and isn't sexist, because that's a common talking point among non-feminists, and whether or not it's a good story about female trauma, which is also a common talking point among non-feminists, they gender things constantly, like, all the time. Our author then provides a handful of excerpts from female critics reviewing this film and there's a problem; I didn't read the Vox review for spoilers and the fact that it's Vox, but I read the other three and none of them support her ideological position, none of them throw any kind of female or even feminist spin on the film, not that I could see anyway. They're just reviews of the film, that talk about the film, and the good and bad in the film, no politics or gender stuff to be found, save for one point in the But Why Tho review she links that could conceivably be spun to support her position, but again, the author doesn't gender it. I'm struggling to see what our author is getting at with these examples; they're just normal film reviews, unless the Vox one's different, again, I turned back at the spoiler warning. To be honest, the ones I did read made me more interesting in watching the film, but that's the only thing I took away from them, not some deep and meaningful insight that only a woman can offer, which is why I again question; when you say woman, do you really mean Feminist?

Don't make the mistake of thinking that our author is well meaning with her demand for gender parity, because as I said earlier, this is about power, that's what feminism is all about. She's not happy that the canon is defined by men because she wants to define it herself, or rather, she wants her ideology to define it, especially now as more people than ever have the power to talk about what they love and what they don't love, more people than ever have the power to intact change in film, and in having more power over film criticism, feminism would even further secure its grip on Hollywood. And this would be done under the guise of Equality, even though as our author said herself, we have that in film criticism because anyone can be a critic, but there's a difference between equality and what she's asking for because she wants more power, particularly in this case, more power to define what makes a good film, which would inevitably be considered good or bad depending on how religiously they parrot her ideology. And the scary thing is this is not an uncommon idea within film criticism, just look at Rotten Tomatoes, just bloody look at it, it's full of progressive critics who define a film's quality by how smart it makes them feel, slapping Fresh scores on films that pander to them and Rotten scores on films that don't, regardless of how good the film actually is. Her utopian future of film criticism would be one of political and ideological tyranny and open discrimination against anyone who dissents or, heaven forbid, was born with a dick.

But to even get to this position in the first place, you must have already come to the same conclusion as Brie Larson; that being that you don't need a man's opinion on a film. This conclusion is very, shall we say, problematic for a few reasons, chiefly that for it to be your conclusion, you must think that a man's opinion is somehow worth less than a woman's, which is sexism, plain and simple. It's not like the examples you offered suggest the existence of some kind of special insight that's unique to women, one that doesn't exist to begin with because women aren't the Borg, they have minds of their own, just like men, again, this is deeply collectivistic and therefore, deeply unfair. How about this for a counter proposal to your sexist, collectivistic, feminist dominated utopia; we just let people be critics and let people like the critics they want to like, which means that even you, dear author, can have your way and only read the work of female critics, you can continue to be a shallow, closed-minded collectivist, meanwhile people who aren't backwards feminists can read the work of both women and men and not care about the gender because you're here for their opinion and not for their genitalia. With my proposal in place, you can stick to your feminist bubble, and I can stick to not caring what any of them say, and occasionally poke my head into your feminist bubble for shits and giggles. It's not perfect, I know, we'll still have the likes of Rotten Tomatoes and their wanker brigade of critics, but it's certainly better than forcing gender parity in a realm where it's literally impossible to further assert your ideological dominance over it.

A Wolf in Sheep's Clothing

Be wary of progressive activists; they love to tell you how virtuous they are and of all the noble causes they champion like Equality and the end of racism and sexism, but don't be fooled. Beneath their mask of fighting for positive change is either abject stupidity or an ulterior agenda, as we have seen today with Kate Gardner of the Mary Sue. It's all well and good to think we should have more female critics, it's fine that she prefers the work of female critics to male critics, but flat refusing to read the work of male critics on the grounds that they're male and demanding complete parity is another thing entirely, it's a power grab; an attempt to further expand the empire of Feminism at the expense of everyone else, and a tacit admission that in the eyes of at least this Mary Sue author, a man's voice is worth less than a woman's, which exposes her ideology for what it is, a supremacy movement. That all sounds rather doom and gloom, considering the relative harmlessness of one Mary Sue author, and in truth, this is all harmless fun, me ripping into the ramblings of an idiot with idiotic ramblings of my own. But if life were a movie, Feminism would be a half decent villain; refusing to die and never letting go of its endless quest for power, all while hiding behind smiles and kisses and pretending it's fighting for you, when all it wants is to control you, or in this case, to control the realm of film criticism. Moral of the story; like what you want to like, read who you want to read, and don't let your good nature drag you into their trap.

Godzilla: King of the Monsters vs. The World

It should come as no surprise that I absolutely adored Godzilla: King of the Monsters; I found its simplistic characters and whacky story very cheesy and old school in a good way, but more than that, I was completely and hopelessly sold on its monsters, which the film portrayed beautifully and masterfully. But it seems that my position that this film is awesome is not one held by professional critics; the majority of which having spent the week of the film's release bashing it, and despite being an amazing film, its opening weekend box office numbers were worryingly low and in the following weeks, it's only gotten worse. So what happened to King of the Monsters: why are the critics hating on it, why are they wrong, because of course I think they're wrong, and why did this Godzilla film suffer at the box office? Well, me, a fool with a blog, an opinion, and an out of control obsession with Godzilla, will now try to provide you with some answers, and I'll be doing this while dabbling in spoilers for King of the Monsters, which is your obligatory warning, I'm going to talk about the scenes in Godzilla: King of the Monsters that turned me into a weeping mess, talk about bias.

Let's get the grimmer topic out of the way first; the Box office. Godzilla: King of the Monsters was projected to gross fifty to sixty million dollars domestic on its opening weekend, in reality it fell a hair shy of those projections at forty-seven million. It fared better internationally, grossing one-hundred and thirty million with half of that coming from China, thank you China. The film opened in the top spot in America, dethroning the previous champion; Aladdin, and the same is true in China, but in my miserable neck of the woods, it failed to kick Aladdin off the top spot, I knew I should have seen it a fourth time. But why are these numbers worrying, apart from the obvious, well; the 2014 Godzilla opened to ninety-three million domestic, which was crazy good, right there you can see the issue though, its behind its predecessor by basically half, almost fifty million dollars. Compounding this issue is the fact that King of the Monsters could have cost as much as forty million more to make than its predecessor, which has no doubt given investors far and wide the heebie-jeebies. Things didn't get better at all in the second weekend where the film dived to forth at the domestic box office with a dismal fifteen-million dollars, though the drop in the international market wasn't quite as frighteningly sharp. But let's be realistic, this isn't bomb territory, not yet at least, the film managed to claw in its alleged production budget in its opening weekend, but it is hard to deny that the film is failing at the box office, or that it even managing to break even is getting more unlikely with each passing week, even with an extended run in China, its most successful market.

This is very disconcerting for this budding cinematic universe, one I fully want to see succeed because it's Godzilla, of course I do, but the third instalment and the lead in to its Avengers event; next year's Godzilla vs. Kong, falling short of even breaking even at the box office, yeah, not good. I feel that the reason for this is unfortunately simple however, and that would be the size of this film's audience. Like a lot of Japanese properties, Godzilla's core audience isn't very big, and outside of that core audience, there just isn't enough mass appeal. Now, you may be wondering, it's selling itself as a big, loud, spectacular monster mash, how could this go wrong, well, Godzilla and Kaiju as a whole just isn't that big in the west; obviously everyone's heard of him because he's a sixty-five-year-old icon of culture, but in western, English speaking countries, people who have actually watched a Godzilla film are much harder to find, and if you ignore the two American films, that number shrinks massively. As a favourite YouTube channel of mine; Midnight's Edge hypothesised, the 2014 film was most likely boosted at the box office by the novelty factor of it being the new American Godzilla, and that's almost certainly right. This film however doesn't have that novelty factor, nor does the novelty factor of it starring Ghidorah, Mothra and Rodan carry much weight because these guys are practically unheard-of outside of Godzilla's core audience, and since the first film was so restrained with its monsters, making it very divisive, that certainly turned off a good chunk of the film's potential audience.



A blurry photo I took a few years ago at my local supermarket
I was so surprised when I saw it that I, well, took a photo

It's here that the film's nature becomes an issue too, because it being so unapologetically Godzilla doesn't exactly make it accessible; it being a film in the spirit of Godzilla's goofier, more absurd adventures of the 60's and 70's, its outlandishness was never really going to stick with any massive, modern audience of normies who's favourite film franchise is the MCU, and that's despite this film not even being that weird compared to the old Godzilla films it's so lovingly paying homage to. In the UK, where the film opened in second place at the box office, the matter of Godzilla just not being that popular is made all the more apparent. You can't even buy Godzilla films on DVD and Blu-ray over here, outside of the original, Shin Godzilla and the two American films, they're stupidly inconvenient to get your hands on unless you're prepared to pirate, not that anyone cares because no one gives a shit about Godzilla. Being a fan of Godzilla has been a very lonely existence for me and this is still the case, despite the 2014 film and despite King of the Monsters. Godzilla and the kaiju genre as a whole just isn't big enough in the west, it's still a very niche genre that still hasn't and probably never will reach the same level of success as the Superhero genre for example. That being said, next year will probably be an exception to this rather depressing rule, since the novelty factor that propelled the 2014 film to success may very well return for Godzilla vs. Kong, a clash of two of the oldest and most iconic monsters of cinema, of east and west, of King and God, either that or it'll be in the same boat as King of the Monsters, a very rickety, unstable boat where breaking even is a best case scenario. But was the film's box office effected by the critical response, to be honest, I'm not sure.

On one hand, Rotten Tomatoes, which will once again by our punching bag of the day, has been losing credibility for years; with its verified critics getting more and more out of touch, the divide between them and the general public getting wider and wider, and of course the time they torpedoed their own integrity in response to the Captain Marvel controversy, which only happened a few months ago. On the other hand, however, people outside of, shall we say, certain circles don't seem to have caught on that Rotten Tomatoes is cancer or, for that matter, what's really going on every time we get a situation like Captain Marvel or Ghostbusters. This side of the movie going public doesn't exactly have their finger on the pulse of the culture war or any similar internet conflict, either not knowing, not giving a fuck, or mindlessly toeing the line every time a backlash bubbles up. it's this group that has me worried since they're much more inclined to take RT's Rotten rating at face value or worse, misinterpret the RT score as an objective measure of the film's quality, which isn't even remotely the case. Making the problem worse is the existing public perception of Godzilla which, outside of his depressingly small but fanatical base audience, isn't good, with Godzilla being seen as a cheesy, dumb movie about a rubber dinosaur crushing buildings which, ironically, is the strain of Godzilla this film homages. The obvious downside to this is that while the film would almost certainly be embraced by that fanatical fanbase, it would never have been accepted by either the snobby, politically correct intelligentsia of film critics, or by the normie army that made Captain Marvel a smash hit despite it being a mediocre movie with an aggressive and corrosive political message.

That being said, we once again have a huge split between the RT Critic and Audience scores, which isn't surprising in the slightest because it's such a common occurrence on this piss-take of a site. It's a meme at this point that the critics are completely and utterly out of touch when it comes to this film, and films in general but particularly this one, because the RT critical consensus reads; "Godzilla King of the Monsters delivers spectacular Kaiju action and reaffirms that cutting edge effects are still no substitute for a good story." I'm sure the meme potential of this is obvious, the critics seem to not like that this movie about giant monsters fighting each other is dumb, which is kind of ironic given that many of these critics probably wouldn't give any Japanese Godzilla films outside of the original and Shin Godzilla the time of day because they're cheesy and dumb. But that might not be fair, after all, it's only Rotten Tomatoes' silly consensus, so what are the individual critics saying. Fortunately, some critics can see the glaring hole in criticising this film for its silliness, unfortunately, they're in the minority, hens the Rotten score. The big issues are issues that most people, even including me, would concede exist, like the boring human story and the heavy exposition scenes, not to mention that were all of this real, bringing Godzilla back from the dead by blowing up a nuke in his face is one hell of a stretch, even if that doesn't break the rules of the Monsterverse and isn't even close to the dumbest thing a Godzilla movie has pulled off. But that's just the thing; none of this would be very shocking if these critics gave the "cheap" and "schlocky" Japanese films a chance, unless they did and they didn't like them because they are "cheap" and "schlocky," though admittedly, the film isn't doing itself any favours by being so blunt in its respects to Godzilla's past, a past that many critics ignore, wilfully or otherwise.

The film's reliance on exposition is a more pressing issue in my eyes, but like all the issues with the film, the critics are putting far, far too much weight on that crutch. I say crutch as it is one for both the film and the critics; for the film, it's cramming in as much lore and world-building as possible to the point that it risks hampering the audience's enjoyment, for the critics, it's singling out this narrative issue and using it as a stick to beat the film. Both of these things are true; King of the Monsters does have a lot of scenes of people explaining things which are bound to bore some people, but on the other hand, the critics are making a much bigger deal of it than I think they should because this exposition heavy method of storytelling is something that a lot of casual movie goers don't notice, it's only a film-breaking issue when it's done badly, take this year's Hellboy for example. But King of the Monsters' expositional scenes aren't that intrusive in the film, they don't crash the film's pace or insult your intelligence, nor do they stray away from the point of the film; the Monsters. I will admit that a lot of it's very convenient; giving Monarch a supersonic flying fortress is very silly, but who cares, it's cool and it means the human characters are always conveniently on the scene when the monster shit goes down. The human characters have plot armour and always manage to avoid getting stomped or eaten or gravity beamed, once again, who cares, it's cool; sure, Ghidorah could have just flattened Fenway Park and killed her that way, but Gravity beams, man, come on, and this franchise tried to be realistic in its depiction of mortality last time and everyone complained about it, they already killed Walter White, they wouldn't dare kill Eleven.

Godzilla: King of the Monsters does do some dumb things, that's not for debate, but why is that so offensive in this film when critics were eating up Avengers: Endgame, a film with a plot so convoluted that to even try to make sense of it risks dismantling the entire MCU, a film where one of its most emotionally gratifying moments hinges on a plot hole so wide you could fit Brie Larson's ego in it. That's a point that all of the negative critics have ignored, all of them, this film has emotional gratification in it just as Avengers: Endgame does, the issue is that it inevitably appeals to a much smaller audience than Avengers: Endgame, as while normies and critics have been getting wrapped up in the MCU for the last decade, Godzilla's audience is comparatively tiny but every bit as invested. For many of them, including myself, simply seeing these monsters on the big screen and seeing them done justice is enough; King of the Monsters' interpretations of the Toho monsters is perfect. Call me a bit tinfoil-hat for this one, but there's a notion floating around on the internet regarding the critics and this film and I think it's true; the critics wanted to hate it. Godzilla's later Showa years came to define the franchise in a way that undeniable damaged it; as the films became weirder and dumber and more family friendly, and while this created multiple generations of people who became G-fans as kids, it left a lot of people out; people who never got into it as kids and wouldn't even give it a chance as adults because to them, it's cheap schlock, it's garbage.

It's from this position of borderline ill-intent towards Godzilla that a lot of the film's critics exaggerate its flaws; the character drama sucks for example, even though it doesn't and is entirely functional, the characters are flat and undeveloped, even though they're not, they're just simple and, again, functional, and my favourite, the film is too dark and there's too much rain. I saw this complaint be made against Pacific Rim as well; that the film's action is not only obscured, but outright ruined by the overuse of weather effects, which would be an issue for both films if it was true, but it isn't. There is an abundance of weather effects but it's nowhere near enough to obscure the action, nor is it too dark. I've seen it compared to the Game of Thrones episode; The Long Night a few times, an episode that was bad for many, many reasons, not least of which being how dark it was, but King of the Monsters isn't even close to that level of dark, it also doesn't completely waste its villain and render its heroes indestructible retards, but that's a rant for another time, if I can be bothered. But the lighting has to be really, really bad for it to hamper a film when you're watching it on the big screen, looking at you, Solo, and King of the Monsters is not that bad, critics saying it's too dark and rainy are making a mountain out of a molehill, as they are with the rest of the film's flaws. Godzilla's human characters being little more than functions of the plot is nothing new, and not only is it nothing new, but the Russels, Jonah, Serizawa and company are on the stronger end of human characters, and none of this film's characters come even vaguely close to the level of cheese and annoyance of Roland Emmerich's Godzilla, this film has no Audrey.

Really, the only thing I kind of agree with them on is exposition, but even then, it's not as bad as they say it is, as I said before, this isn't Hellboy. And none of the critics who make this case seem to remember the entire Hollow Earth sequence, a sequence so good that it almost makes up for the exposition dumps in my opinion, or maybe all they remember from that scene was the nuke, not the complete reinvention of Godzilla lore and the film showing instead of telling. Oh yeah, then there's that; I'm sure I've seen this complaint be made somewhere, I can't find it in such explicit terms but I know the Mary Sue review of the film alluded to it, the notion that the film is somehow pro-US Army and that this is an insult to the origins of the character. Well first of all, I've always had trouble buying into the whole 'it's pro Army' argument; naturally, there are films out there where it's a bit too on the nose, usually films from the 90's and or directed by incompetent fools, think Roland Emmerich or Michael Bay, but, and correct me if I'm wrong, this argument feels more to me like people who are anti-US Army taking issue with it being positively represented. This isn't surprising given that, shall we say, certain parts of society today are generally anti-USA, you know the people I'm on about; progressive and communist activists who spend their time bashing the fascists with Twitter hashtags and comedically ineffectual protests, and since sites like The Mary Sue possess a blatant bias in favour of this ideology, it's not surprising at all that the US Army being the good guys would upset them a bit. But does this being the case in a Godzilla movie somehow undermine the meaning of Godzilla, well, that's kind of complicated, but I'd argue no.

This notion pisses me off, I'm just coming to come clean on that and explaining why will make me sound like a gatekeeper but I don't care. If we go back to 1954, Godzilla had a very clear anti-nuclear and anti-war message, that not only worked in the film's favour but was an unreplaceable part of its magic, If we fast forward to 2016, Shin Godzilla still has a clear anti-nuclear message but with a different focus, not on war but on Man's abuse of nature, but it's also a commentary on Politics and an expression of the idea that war isn't the only answer and once again, this is one of the film's strengths. These are, as I said before, the only two Godzilla films that non-Godzilla fans take seriously, and in the sixty-two years in-between is where this notion crashes and burns. Godzilla is nothing if not flexible, he's been everything from a force of nature risen to punish humanity, to a morally ambiguous antihero, to a demon fuelled by the raging vengeance of the dead, to a necessary evil in the battle for Earth, to a hero for children and a guardian of the Earth, all the way up to a physical embodiment of nature's dominion over all things, Godzilla has meant and can mean just about anything, and this isn't even considering the Monsterverse. If this American Godzilla somehow ruins the meaning of Godzilla, then it doesn't matter because Japan ruined him half a century ago, somewhere between sending him to space and making him a hero for environmentalism.

Which brings us to another criticism I've definitely heard about the film, it's ham-fisted environmental message, and once again, I'm going to throw this King of the Monsters defence into the ring of Politics. In my review for Aquaman, I made the joke that a lot of progressive types would be confused about the film because of its villain's fanatical environmentalism, that turned out to be unfounded, but fast forward to King of the Monsters and it's actually ringing true because this film's human baddies are eco-terrorists. I'm honestly baffled that people find the film's environmental message too aggressive, as if the villains' plan to end the world with giant monsters is even supposed to make sense. That's the point of their plan, it doesn't make sense, they're bad guys who want to end the world, their motives and methods don't really matter at that point. But somehow the critics seem to think these guys and their plan should be taken seriously, how. Going back to my joke from Aquaman and to my point about people being anti-USA, a lot of these critics have a strong, left-wing political bias, and just as the political left seems to hate America, they seem to just love saving the world and fighting climate change because they're just so virtuous. Similar to Black Panther's villain, Killmonger, it's a question of the ends justifying the means, Kilmonger wanted to end discrimination and oppression of black people, which is very virtuous and progressive, but his means of doing this was potentially killing billions of people in a race war. Jonah and Killmonger both want to save the world but they both intend to do it through genocide, which is why the Progressive left latch onto them so much because they are sympathetic to the ends and, in many cases, too morally deficient and collectivistic to see the inherent evil in the means, which sounds extreme, I know, but #KillAllMen was a real hashtag.

But unlike Killmonger, whose plan to arm the world's black population with sci fi weaponry and send them to kill the white population apparently made sense, Jonah and Emma's plan to level civilisation with kaiju and let them restart the world's natural order is stupid and silly. The notion that the Titans will rebirth the world with their 'good radiation' is daft, especially to anyone who's recently watched people's skin rot and melt off in HBO's Chernobyl, but unlike Chernobyl, King of the Monsters is science fiction, it's not real, and it's about giant radioactive dinosaurs that were worshiped by ancient humans, creatures whose radioactive footprint could very conceivably trigger the growth of prehistoric, radioactive plants in their wake, which effectively makes the Kaiju of the Monsterverse walking terraformers, creatures that create their own environment rather than adapting to it. It's silly for sure, but it isn't out of the realm of possibility for a film in which the heroes nuke Atlantis. Oh yeah, there's another thing, nukes, because the Japanese Godzilla films, or at least the two important ones, are very anti-nuclear, yet in King of the Monsters, not only do they use a nuke, but they actually do good with it; reviving an incapacitated Godzilla so that he can get back in the fight. This is undeniably a twist on Godzilla's history, given that he was originally an allegory for the nuke, a walking manifestation of their terrifying power, but as I explained before, Godzilla's flexible, his meaning has changed, his personality has changed, and most importantly, his relationship with humanity has changed. In the Monsterverse, Godzilla is portrayed as a literal god, an all-powerful, ancient force that protects the natural order and, by extension, mankind, who once worshiped him and build entire cities in his honour.

Godzilla in the Monsterverse is a good guy; in the first film, he is shown having no trouble killing humans in his way, but never deliberately killing or attacking people, even when they're shooting at him, yet in King of the Monsters this is changed, he goes out of his way to spare humans in the sequel, and the film very clearly establishes a history of him being worshiped by ancient humans. As I keep saying, Godzilla can mean and has meant many things, to the Japanese of the 1950's he was a terror; a manifestation of Japan's deepest anxieties and of Man's scientific hubris, but when interpreted by a different culture sixty years later, it's not only forgivable but expected that he would change, just as he did in 2016 with Shin Godzilla, and speaking for myself, I really love this interpretation of Godzilla as a hero, and can see his heroic quality winning over a lot of people because he's a badass. The same cannot be said for one aspect of Godzilla's history that's thrown into Godzilla: King of the Monsters, the Oxygen Destroyer, which is far less flexible in its meaning, not that that matters because it has no meaning in this film at all. I said as much in my review; that the ethical conundrum of Serizawa and his doomsday weapon isn't done justice in King of the Monsters, and that it being the creation of the US Army is a complete rejection of what it once stood for, I stand by that. But curiously, I haven't heard a single person bring this up, especially all the critics who love Godzilla but hate this movie, not to name any names, right, Chris? I'm not going to beat around the bush with this one, if anything the critics aren't saying about the film exposes their real thoughts on this series, it's this, because it's something the film undeniably does wrong, but they're too ignorant to see it because they're not actually fans and they cannot be trusted, I'm just going to say it.

This is starting to get really long now, so I'm going to start wrapping this up. I said earlier that the film has emotionally gratifying moments, comparing it to Avengers: Endgame, which has them in spite of glaring holes in its storytelling that many a critics have wilfully ignored, and if they can do it, so can I. Except it doesn't matter anyway because the plan to end the world with Ghidorah isn't supposed to make sense and the plan to resurrect Godzilla with a Nuke doesn't break the rules of the Monsterverse, outside of little things like the idea of good radiation, the film makes a lot more sense than the critics claim, and it certainly makes more sense than Endgame. And at the end of the day, even if nuking Atlantis to save Godzilla was stupid, I wouldn't care because I'd be too busy sobbing over Serizawa's goodbye and how his sacrifice was worth it in the end. That's what I mean when I say emotional gratification; the film has multiple moments that are almost designed to burrow into the hearts of Godzilla fans, you could call them fan service if you want, but at the end of the day, it's all about effectiveness and King of the Monsters is a very effective film. It's why the characters only being functional doesn't really matter when the whole film is taken into account, if they were bad characters, it'd be different but they're not bad, they get the job done and deliver a passable human drama, one that's ultimately just there to reinforce the monster drama, which with where it's at. The passable humans matter less than the execution of the monsters and as I've said many times, if the execution of the monsters sucked, the film would suck, but Dougherty clearly understands what makes these monsters tick and more importantly, what makes them so loved, giving us monsters that live up their Japanese counterparts and I'd argue even surpass them in some ways.

A scene I didn't want to spoil in my review was the scene where Mothra dies, it's the scene that got the strongest, most undignified reaction out of me because I was crying like a baby when it happened. Mothra's bravery and sacrifice cemented her as my favourite monster in the film as she, now barely able to fly after her fight with Rodan, suicidally charges at Ghidorah so that Godzilla may have the strength to beat him, and that magic, that absolute beauty, is something no one who hates this film seems to see, because to them, a big Moth just turned into magic dust that made Godzilla magically supercharged. That is what happens, but the emotional gratification of seeing it happen is something I can't put into words, just as simply seeing Mothra on the big screen and done justice is something I can't put into words, and maybe the novelty of seeing it just isn't enough for some people, but it is for me and no doubt countless others, because if this film was a Tour De Force that completely ruined the monsters, I'd have hated it, I'd have never forgiven it, whereas if this film was a Tour De Force that did them justice, I'd be calling this one of the best films ever made. It's all a matter of priorities; critics who want every film to make them feel smart will ignore what the film gets right because it doesn't suit their highly sophisticated tastes, Godzilla fans who just want to see their favourite monsters lovingly brought to the big screen will ignore what the film gets wrong because Big Monster, and I proudly find myself in the latter camp, because Long Live the Fucking King.


One King to Rule Them All
So yeah, the critics are wrong, Godzilla: King of the Monsters isn't some egregious sin of Hollywood, some abomination of writing that can't even be saved by the monsters, this is an attitude towards the film that is informed either by ignorance and inherent disliking of Godzilla, or by the misguided notion that the Godzilla film was ever supposed to be Oscar worthy. As I said, it's about priorities; the stuck up critics are looking at its simplistic and unremarkable human drama as if that's all that matters, the Godzilla fans meanwhile are looking at the monsters as if they're the only thing that matters, and I know that neither side is entirely wrong because the film could have been better, but that doesn't matter because Monsters, I'm a Godzilla fan and for better or worse, that's all that matters to me. It's just a shame that the film has suffered at the box office like it has, because it in no way deserved to, and while I think things will get better with Godzilla vs Kong, we'll just have to wait and see, either way, there's a good chance I'll be in the film's corner and, more importantly, that the critics won't, because they know nothing.