Between Reviews: Monster of a Message
MONSTER OF A MESSAGE
APR 26, 2009 – AMONG THE MANY ATTRACTIONS OF THE SHOT-IN-3D Monsters vs. Aliens (as opposed to being shot in 2D and projected in 3D) is the title. How could any self-respecting fan of creature features not be lured by the clash that that “vs.” promises, between two of the most terror-inducing species that populated the cheesy B-movies of a certain era! Just leafing through a synopsis of the main characters, the mouth waters. A heroine who, struck by a meteor on her wedding day, shoots up to 49 feet and 11-1/2 inches? An amorphous mass of wobbly goo? A mad scientist who, after attempting to imbue himself with the indestructibility of a cockroach, winds up with the head of the insect? An extinct gilled monster that once haunted the planet’s wastelands, and now thawed out from a fossil?
Why, these are but loving rejuvenations of the eponymous mutants from Attack of the 50-Foot Woman, The Blob, The Fly and Creature from the Black Lagoon – all in the same movie, and all in search of a trashily disreputable story worthy of them. The building blocks of such a story are certainly in evidence – the screaming hordes of scrambling innocents, the ineffectual deployment of brute government forces, the subsequent rescue from an improbable source – but, bafflingly, they are assembled into a towering monument to female empowerment. Yes, you read that right. The rallying cry of this Dreamworks feature isn’t “Take that, monster scum” – an alien lord has his (multiple) eyes on the all-powerful “quantonium” embedded in that meteor – so much as “You go girl!” And this contrivance proves to this film what hazardous radiation was to its predecessors, the cause of ungainly mutations in undesired directions.
Susan, the heroine, dreams of going to Paris, but her fiancé cancels the trip on account of his career. She stoically swallows this disappointment in the fashion of a self-sacrificing fifties’ housewife, but after the meteor hits, she transforms from a metaphorical creature (a nodding bovine) to a monster-movie creature. At the altar, she begins to tower over her future husband, eventually bursting through the roof of the very church that threatened to shackle her to a life of cooking and cleaning and service to family before self. Now named Ginormica, she leaps over tall buildings in a single bound, like a Super(wo)man. She vanquishes an appropriately one-eyed phallic monster, makes a new life (with new friends who love her for who she is), and, finally, sets forth to Paris on her own terms. Clearly, “the most powerful substance in the world” isn’t, as the plot suggests, quantonium but oestrogen.
The men, in contrast, are wimps. Susan’s father is the one who bursts into tears on her wedding day, and elsewhere, a woman hoists her whimpering date in her arms and races excitedly to the site of what appears to be a meteor crash. (Earlier, she was the one making the moves on him, as he cowered in a corner.) And tucked away in the corners of this celebration of woman-power are the additionally ennobling notions that one should be accepting of differences even if they creep you out (Susan shrieks when her mother-in-law reveals unequally-sized thumbs, little realising that she’s just a few seconds away from becoming a giant freak herself) and one should always, always think of others (despite being able to make a dash for freedom from the alien spaceship, Ginormica sticks around to rescue her friends).
Have we officially entered an era where family films are bound, by law, to function as repositories of moral instruction? Is it illegal for a movie to be just an hour-and-a-half of inconsequential entertainment, especially when its antecedents were the very definition of inconsequential entertainment? At least, with spectacular set pieces and dazzling wit and breathless pace, we’d chew on these messagey nuggets only later. But if the 3D visuals are inexplicably tame, the alien invaders are nowhere as magnificently demented as, say, the villains of Mars Attacks. Even the inevitable pop-culture quotations barely evoke a chuckle. (The gilled monster, freed at last, wonders if the earth has gotten warmer, “because that would be a convenient truth.” Get it?) Ginormica’s mutant friends provide the occasional burst of amusement, but not nearly enough to compensate for all the dead air, when the only ginormous monster on screen is the message.
IF THERE’S ONE THING YOU WON’T FIND in Ayan, it’s dead air. KV Anand’s unpretentious entertainer zips by like a rocket on steroids, propelled by a can’t-do-no-wrong Suriya dropped into a series of international smuggling scenarios that, at least on the Tamil screen, seem utterly new. What’s old, however, is the insistence on virtue. The hero stumbles into a den of flirty prostitutes, and to see him flap around like a flustered rooster, you’d think the worst fate that could befall a man who can single-handedly dispatch scores of villains is to have his privates groped. We’re still in an era where it isn’t just the heroine who needs to stay pure, but also the hero, who’s such an innocent, he appears unaware of the purpose of sanitary napkins. But to be fair, these scenes are played for laughs, and more importantly (and despite a doddering latter half), there’s little opportunity for these ruminations during the running time. That, really, is the success of Ayan.
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Interesting piece on film criticism. I wish there was some way to lay hands on this documentary in India.
How I wish the “Between reviews” stays as random ruminations about the world of art that includes cinema, and not a way to sneek in reviews (and horror of horrors they even take the form of tweet like post scripts).But if wishes were horses..and all that I guess.
paadhi: lol. In my defence, I can only say that, week after week, it’s difficult to ruminate “randomly” about “art.” Sometimes, it helps to have a concrete film to tether your thoughts to — plus, this is the only way I can sneak in views on the films I don’t review for the paper. Thanks, btw, for adding a new word to my vocabulary. The only “tweet” I knew so far was the birdsong. Now I just have to use this someplace
My own 2 cents on the need to tether even the most escapist of fare to a moral message in Western film-making (it’s practically de riguer for Tamil Cinema, methinks) is largely an American pre-occupation. Scratch below the smut of the raunchiest comedies like the American Pie movies and the recent spate of Judd Apatow fare like Knocked Up and Superbad, and the underlying message is one of monogamy and the value of friendships. Hell even the recent Kevin Smith movie with the naughtiest title in recent memory for a mainstream flick, Zack And Miri Make A Porno, was about the blossoming love of it’s 2 titular protagonists amidst the moans, groans and cumshots of a skin flick set (Awwwwww! Cho Chweet!)
The Yanks simply can’t divorce their sermons from their scenes.
It’s just sad that the moralising is snaking it’s way into kiddie flicks.
Well, why not start ‘em young, eh?
Ayan – so neatly summed up in just a parapgraph ! wonderful stuff
Monsters vs Aliens – again a good take ( i guess such comments are redundant !)
movie didnt really match up to what the story suggested but again since it wasnt a Pixar movie i knew i could only expect something like this
But still , this was the ONLY watchable movie in last 2 weeks in Mumbai multiplexes after the fight between filmmakers and multiplexes in first week of April
So in times like these even movies like these are a welcome break ! ofcourse wearing those dark goggles was fun , though why this 3-D i still dont know !
>>The men, in contrast, are wimps.
Heh, it could be a Yashraj movie, then, no? Weren’t you observing in some other review that Yashraj movies are systematically emasculating men?
I liked the attempt to play musical notes (a la Close Encounters of the Third Kind). The blob was quite cute, reminded me of the green blob in Ghostbusters
>> KayKay : It’s just sad that the moralising is snaking it’s way into kiddie flicks
But, haven’t all kiddy movies had messages? Nemo was about finding nerve and letting go of paranoia – and kids. Shrek was about heroism being tucked inside unlikely bodies – and villians behind heroic ones, and friendship and love means not having to look like a princess. Incredibles was about feeling comfortable with your own (weird) identity. Even the non animated ones : Peter Pan was about the triumphant rise of the underdog (you can do it, rahrahed the crowd as he fought with Hook). They all have morals tucked into the subtext – when they are well made (Nemo, Shrek), the pomposity doesn’t jar as much as it does with movies like this one, or HappyFeet
Slight digression.. There is a new IR soundtrack out for the malayalam film bhagyadevatha…have you checked it out sir.?
Radhika: Yeah, I liked that whole segment. The president begins to play the notes from CE3K, then switches to the Beverly Hills Cop synth theme, And a little later, a warhead is inscribed with “ET go home.” The 80s are back, I say
Nirmal: Not yet sir. I’ve heard about it, though. Can you give me a link? Thanks.
http://www.bangaloreliving.com/malayalammp3songs/Bhagyadevatha-Malayalam-Songs.php
hope you will leave a word about them..
http://sonymalayalam.blogspot.com/2009/04/bhagyadevatha-2009-mp3-songs-download.html
either of those links will give you the songs…er… sir
Nice sum up on Ayan, albeit a bit late. I was hoping to read your review first before watching the movie @ the local PVR theater here in Bengalooru.
I did end up watching it a couple of weeks ago.
Also,I was hoping you would at the least, mention in passing, the unmistakable reference to Casino Royale run chase….or was i the only one who noticed ?
The chase had the more of the bourne effect rather than casino royale. the movie could have been much better but for its lame dialogues and uninspiring songs..I for one thought they overdid the rewind and play twists..The funniest part was the interviews that the director KV anand gave before and after the movie releases..before the movie he said ayan is to surya..what nayagan is to Kamal hassan ..after the movie he said..please dont call me a commecrcial director.. dont know how he comes up with these statements..
Did you catch Gulaal, BR? Can we expect a between reviews column now that there isn’t going to be any release for the next few weeks?
KPV Balaji: Yeah, I too thought Bourne was the inspiration — all those rooftop chases, plus that crash through the window.
Adithya: Not yet. I’m hoping to catch Kungumapoovum Konjumpuraavum soon. Been hearing good things about it.
I second Adithya.
Gulaal lacked the polish of Dev D, IMO. But it was different, startling at places, and did not play it nice, which was a real relief. Would like to read your piece on it – loved your Dev D review.
I wondered if it was just me that was suffering from… well, not exactly ADD, but a tendency to be easily distracted. I thought it was a result of growing older and such, but thanks to this piece, I’m reassured that it’s a global phenomenon. Phew! (wipes sweat off wrinkled brow)
with all the links you have been providing, it seems to me you have a lot of time in your hand, why not write reviews for movies you missed.
Like oye lucky lucky oye. after going ha-ha over various abhay deol movies, one movie where his performance was real good and you havent said anything abt it.
Nice article!
And it’s so true. One of the few times I was completely engrossed in just one thing was probably the last HP book. Otherwise, one’s thoughts gets pulled in so many different directions, all the time.
Unrelated, but funny – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ivjybzdXVmI
Letter to the paper
Dear Editor,
I am writing because I found the two so-called film reviews by B Rangan are unworthy of your newspaper.
He spent most of his article berating a Hollywood child’s movie ‘ Monsters vs Aliens’ for championing a strong female character. Most child’s films feature very few female heros, and surely this approach should be lauded, especially in India, when girls have very few female heros that are in non-traditional roles. Mr. Rangan truly reveals himself when he seems to find nothing wrong with a Tamil film, featuring a scene with female prosititutes.
Could you please try to find a reviewer who doesn’t feel threatened by films that feature women as fully rounded, positive characters? If Mr Rangan has a wife and/or female children I pity them. Thank you.
Vat Nunsense!
In the short and crisp review, there was a mention of the ‘virtue’ of the protagonist. But it proved to be a bare mention.
What I found fascinating about the film is this middle class but global Tamilian goes on a smuggling mission to the Africa with full knowledge about where the money goes and all. Fascinating because, the same person is dead against smuggling of narcotics, which are a threat to the society.
Another interesting feature of the film is that way the representation of piracy background of kollywood, foregrounded in a funny manner given the gravity of the issue.