Editorials
How Does ‘Godzilla’ Stack Up Against ‘Pacific Rim’?
A few days back a good number of readers took issue with my review of Godzilla, which was the kind of thing I would have hoped they would do after they had actually seen the movie. I stand by my review, but I want to point out one thing – it was mixed down the middle. The 2.5 out of 5 score was very deliberately meant to indicate that there was still just as much to like (for me) as there was to dislike.
In the comments, I was asked how this film compares with last year’s Pacific Rim. Good question. Both are giant Kaiju movies. Both are Legendary/Warner Bros. films. And both get a lot right. Mainly, they get their Kaiju right. As I noted in my Godzilla review, the new movie’s treatment of the big guy is fantastic. Not only are his scale and appearance imposing and powerful, but there’s a lot of strong character work going on in the pixels that animate him. You get what his objectives are and you can even understand his battle plan. Gareth Edwards does such a good job of getting you on his side that there are several moments during the end battle that will make you want to stand up and cheer, regardless of your feelings on the rest of the movie.
Edwards also does a fantastic job of setting Godzilla himself up. Seen only in fits and starts, from a series of fins protruding from the water to brief full body glimpses, he retains a satisfying sense of mystery up until the end. There, the film goes whole hog on the full body shots as Godzilla and one of the MUTOs wage war in San Francisco. Godzilla might wear you out with its human characters, but there’s no monster or battle fatigue.
Pacific Rim, on the other hand, wears you down a bit on both fronts. I believe that Rim would benefit from perhaps one less robot on Kaiju battle scene, just as I believe that the film suffers from a huge missed opportunity when it comes to developing its concept of “the drift.” The final version of the film explores surprisingly little in the way of character possibilities offered up by that conceit. It’s the perfect scenario to make the chances of overcoming external obstacles contingent upon the triumph over internal obstacles. There’s a little bit of that with Rinko Kikuchi’s character, but the movie could have gone full (as a friend once suggested) Strictly Ballroom here, with Hunnam and Kikuchi learning to work together – to dance – in a way that fuels their ultimate romantic entanglement.
While Pacific Rim has hugely broad characters, they almost sort of fit in with the old fashioned innocence of the film. It feels like Guillermo del Toro engineered the movie as something of a futuristic riff on those old WW2 propaganda reels, so the broadness feels earned (even if I personally find some of it grating). The characters in Godzilla are broad in a different way – they’re ciphers. There’s nothing cartoonish or exaggerated about them, which puts them miles away from the Pacific Rim universe. They are fairly bland. However, if the intent was to reduce their function to POV access points, they get the job done superbly. Since much of Godzilla is built around a slow, Jaws-like reveal, it helps to have plenty of different characters on the ground who can gape at his majesty without giving away the money shot every 5 minutes.
Pacific Rim boasts a higher quantity of Kaiju with varying designs and sizes. Its beautiful rainswept neon environment keeps them at arm’s length from our current reality. The destruction brought upon us by Godzilla and the battling MUTO’s feels much more recognizable, the terror more relatable. As I’ve said before – the monster stuff in Godzilla is fantastic. The set pieces are alternately suspenseful and grand and they don’t overdo it. The only fatigue you’ll feel from this movie is from the half-baked exposition that threatens to destroy all of the human scenes.
As far as preferences go, I’d have to see Godzilla again before I decided. While my review demonstrates a degree of disappointment, there’s enough praise coming from people I respect to warrant a second look. As it stands now, Pacific Rim beats it out for me as a movie – but the character of Godzilla himself is better than any single element of GDT’s film.
Maybe it comes down to this. If you like your Kaijus as beautifully anonymous cannon fodder, Pacific Rim wins. If you want them to be characters you can root for, Godzilla stands triumphant. Either way, if you like big lizards, you’ll probably be fine.
In this day and age, the word “troll” is often used to describe various online nuisances. Yet as abundant and irksome as the modern troll can be, they aren’t usually as fearsome as their mythological counterparts. I’m not talking about the small and gentler versions that have become more common to see in media. No, there are much bigger and scarier trolls out there—and André Øvredal’s movie Troll Hunter is one of the best places to find them.
It doesn’t take long for Troll Hunter (or Trolljegeren) to dump the Blair Witch Project-esque setup and aim for something a lot fresher. The trajectory of the story is augmented by Otto Jespersen’s character Hans, the titular Troll Hunter. The second he comes barreling out of the deep, dark woods and shouts “troll” at the camera, this movie takes a turn into what feels like uncharted territory. Not only subject-wise, but also conceptually.
For fantastical and made-up subject matter in cinema, found footage is a fast way to add a guise of believability. After all, what we accept to be the most crucial aspect of documentaries—the truth—rubs off on pseudo-documentaries, despite our understanding of the pretense involved. That is what Øvredal delivered with Troll Hunter: a movie so convincing that some viewers wondered if trolls really do exist. So, had this been straightforwardly made, it likely wouldn’t have been as effective. Conventional narratives would be more inclined to treat something like trolls as flat out unreal, and never try to convince the audience to think otherwise.
Hans petrifies the three-headed Tusseladd troll.
The viewers, like the characters trailing Hans, are quickly thrown into the deeper end of that extraordinary story. They have to process all this new information while staying on the go. So, although there is no significant amount of meandering, narratively or physically, there is still a good amount of atmosphere, not to mention tension building. It’s never anything frightful, but then again, Troll Hunter isn’t your standard offering of horror; it’s more on the low end of the dark fantasy spectrum. We aren’t ever spirited away to a faraway world—we stay in rather familiar surroundings, as well as dip into those less so. The outcome is a movie where you’re constantly more in awe than in terror.
As fantasy fiction might do, Troll Hunter prefers not to deal with incredulity. There is no time to waste on doubt, as interviewer Thomas (Glenn Erland Tosterud), soundperson Johanna (Johanna Mørck), and cameraman Kalle (Tomas Alf Larsen) all follow Hans around, recording whatever this character is willing to reveal about his bizarre job. Of course, the Troll Hunter himself is not an open book; in that respect, the diegetic documentary fails to fully capture and unpack the more interesting of its two subjects. Yes, all those giant, monstrous trolls are indeed incredible, but understandably, your mind wanders to their pursuer. What kind of person signs up for this gig and then chooses to stick with it for so long?
Reviews have called out Troll Hunter for its lack of character development. In regard to Thomas and his fellow documentarians, that criticism is valid, but bear in mind, they aren’t the focus of the story, either. Meanwhile, Hans is a well-crafted character. At least better than first realized. Before he was introduced, Hans had already grown tired of the troll grind. Fed up with that low compensation for his services, resentful of the bureaucracy, and wanting to expose his employer on a large scale, Hans’ discontent is glaring.
Then there are those finer details about the Troll Hunter, such as that indifference to both the natural splendor of his everyday surroundings and the affections of an obviously smitten colleague, that also suggest some level of despondency. So it is fair to say this movie doesn’t feature any sizable growth for its characters; however, the namesake isn’t underwritten. No doubt, putting a real-life character like Otto Jespersen in that role is partly why Hans is so fascinating—maybe even relatable.
Otto Jespersen as Hans the Troll Hunter.
There is always a small risk whenever using the term “mockumentary” to describe a found-footage movie, as the word could imply humor where there is none. In the case of Troll Hunter, the term’s usage is appropriate. Some folks have claimed the English-dubbed version has the more comedic tone, however, the Norwegian cut isn’t exactly humorless. Apart from the trolls’ absurd appearances, this is a movie where the characters nearly choke on the monsters’ farts, and Christians are like walking targets. Hans’ complete apathy towards everything is another cause of laughter. Overall, the comedy is intentionally dry and inconsistent. Unfunny, though? Absolutely not.
In a movie where endemic creatures are maltreated, as well as disavowed from living freely and peacefully, it’s hard not to notice the ecological message buried beneath the story. In addition to that is the unmistakable political satire. There is this whole business about intrusive and unsightly power lines—like trolls, they’re big blemishes on the land—that leads to what is perhaps the movie’s funniest moment. The scene in question is that one where certain electric lines, the ones secretly being used to keep the trolls at bay, go in a loop and don’t actually send power to any residents. Yet the monitors of said lines don’t find this at all weird. So it stands to reason that Øvredal was having a go at those who accept the government’s doings without question.
Looking past the fact that trolls aren’t actually real, this movie is an enlightening source of information. And not just for international audiences; Norwegians, too, get schooled about their homeland’s own mythology. It’s also evident from everything on screen that Øvredal and his crew were enthusiastic about the topic. The creature designs are the most indicative of that zeal; those imaginative yet myth-accurate manifestations are equally amusing and grotesque. One second you’re laughing at their phallic noses, the next you’re white-knuckling during a hairy sequence. Most surprisingly is how well the trolls’ visual effects hold up after fifteen years. It’s not all spotless, but on the whole, they remain impressive.
Vouching for a mockumentary about trolls isn’t easy, but those who do come around and give it a shot will more than likely be grateful for the recommendation. For Troll Hunter is a real find in that vast and varied genre we call “found footage“.
A bridge troll reaches up for food and finds Hans decked out in armor.
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