This week at the movies: TV stars Bryan Cranston and Jon Hamm come to the big screen in Godzilla and Million Dollar Arm.
Godzilla
The classic monster is revived for a remake with an all-star cast, including Juliette Binoche, Sally Hawkins, Elizabeth Olsen, and the great Bryan Cranston of Breaking Bad fame (that’s Heisenberg to you), in the role of Joe Brody, the whistleblower who tries to figure out just what is causing this crazy seismic pattern in San Francisco (he thinks the government is holding out, of course). The director is Gareth Edwards, who made waves with a small monster movie called Monsters that made a very small budget go far, has all the money in the world to play with and the results are apparently awesome. Godzilla—a post-dinosaur/lizard creation born of nuclear fallout (or is he?!)—is angry (very angry!) and back for revenge.
Perfect For: You’re ready for your first summer blockbuster.
What the Critics Say: They are lukewarm to positive. They like the effects, like that there’s an actual plot, but gripe that there’s not enough character development, outside of Cranston. Writes Rolling Stone: “In the last third of this lumbering reboot, the latest Godzilla springs to life and wakes up the wide-eyed kid in all of us.”
Our Take: Apparently, you really, really, really have to see the last twenty minutes.
Million Dollar Arm
Mad Men hottie Jon Hamm stars in this based-on-a-true-story mashup of Moneyball and Jerry Maquire as a baseball agent who tries to save his bankrupted agency by looking for the first Major League pitcher from India. He holds a competition overseas (the titular “Million Dollar Arm”), and unearths two cricket players-turned-baseball hopefuls and brings them back to America to try and get them signed.
Perfect For: Men: You like feel-good sports movies. Women and gay men: You like Jon Hamm.
What the Critics Say: Mediocre and predictable, sadly. Writes the New York Times: “This watchable but rambling, flaccid movie, based on the true story of Mr. Bernstein’s 2007 journey to India in search of future baseball superstars, has little of the bite or tension of “Jerry Maguire,” whose obnoxious hotshot agent is a prototype for JB. Nor does “Million Dollar Arm” have the surreal exoticism and charm of its other obvious forerunner, “Slumdog Millionaire.” This, after all, is a Disney family movie, and every conflict is softened by inspirational clichés.”
Our Take: It seems pleasant. But not sure I’d go out of my way to see it.
