darth-tobe

I see a lot of disappointed reviewers here that gave this film 1 or 2 stars. While it isn't a masterpiece I think the film does not deserve such a low rating.

I believe this may have to do with expectations: The Maus is listed under "horror" so people may expect either jump scares or cathartic violence and this film doesn't really offer either. It does offer a very personal nightmare ride that is rooted in the genocide of Bosnian Muslims perpetrated during the Yugoslavian civil war in the 1990s. If that is not something you know or care about then this may not be a movie for you. In particular, since it expects you to have a basic understanding of the conflict and does not do much explaining. Sadly, this probably is a factor that limits the film's audience to mainly Europeans.

The film is also not very verbose in spelling out everything that happens or explaining everything you see or hear. Even though gory visuals may arguably have been appropriate for the subject matter this film goes for subtlety and uses sound over visuals - leaving a lot to imagination. To me this was a good thing but it is also a potential limiting factor.

Contrary to other reviewers, I actually thought the writing of plot and characters was pretty plausible and relatable. It carries across very well the notion that the main character has endured things that her "innocent" foreign boyfriend cannot begin to comprehend and this is why she relates differently to the events in the story.

Overall, I found The Maus is not horror in the conventional sense but still a grim and unsettling experience. It is not without flaws and a few unnecessary, drawn out sequences but definitely a film worth giving a chance and, moreover, one that will make you think.

Visually this version of Godzilla is pretty impressive. And most of the last 25 minutes or so are quite cool. There, that's all I can see that the movie has going for it. Hollywood took 18 years to try again and remake the Japanese classic. Let me say they are still struggling.

It's as if studios were criticized once too often that blockbusters lack characters so now they cram sad excuses for characters into every movie and forget what it was supposed to be about. Think of Transformers which fed viewers the personal life of Sam Witwicky instead of fighting robots (or their characters). Think of Iron Man 3 which was about the personal struggles of Tony Stark instead of, well, Iron Man. This Godzilla is about an American soldier and bomb expert and his relationship with his beautiful wife and little son who miss him a lot because he's away a lot. It's also about his relationship with his father who went a bit cooky after loosing his wife. The movie is also about the US military who are mainly there to look cool and fail heroically. It's furthermore about the Japanese scientist who has been studying Godzilla, has some unexplained motivation and is mainly there to look concerned. Do you realize which character I've been leaving out so far? Yes, it is, of course, Godzilla, the literal father of all "dai kaiju". I am sorry to report that he doesn't appear very much in what's supposed to be his own movie. In fact, you could probably skip to the 90 minute mark and not miss much of him. There is a new kaiju, which vaguely reminds me of Mothra, and it seems to get more screen time than Godzilla.

Another reviewer compares this to old horror films, like Jaws, that (driven also by technical limitations of the time) would tease the viewer with glimpses of the monster until the climatic reveal. I disagree. In Jaws you would not see the shark but it would always make its presence felt - it would kill people. Actually, think of Cloverfield as a kaiju movie in which, I think, both the focus on the people and the monster-teasing worked pretty well. You get some backstory of the characters but from then on the monster's presence drives everything they do.

I'd recommend Shin Gojira instead of this one.

What can I say about a film I only watched the first quarter of? It's not my habit to stop a film once I've started watching. With this one, I hit the 30-minute mark and the film was just plodding along. I didn't have the impression that anything important had happened. Don't get me wrong: events had occurred but it didn't feel like there was any weight to any of them. To illustrate my point I've transcribed the beginning of the film. For the above reason you don't need to worry about spoilers.

We're in the middle of the desert, middle of nowhere. A fence runs through it. A voice narrates something about a "bad batch" as two police officers lead a young girl through a gate in the fence and lock up after her. A sign tells us that this is Texas and beyond the fence she's no longer a citizen of the USA and doesn't enjoy any rights. She stares gormlessly after the police car as it leaves. Next scene: she eats her rations. Next scene: she starts walking, even does a little dance and basically seems completely unfazed by her situation. Next scene: she finds a car and sits in it. Not because she feels hot and wants to get out of the sun, not because she wants to try and start it up and have a means of transportation, not because she intends to loot the car, she just sits in it - and applies some make-up. A golf cart comes into view behind her, draws nearer, she notices it but doesn't display any reaction. Next scene: she's running for her life away from the golf cart until one of the occupants pounces on her.

I hope I'm getting across the point that even in these first few minutes our main character does stuff but not because she displays any motivation but just because the script seems to call for them. And this goes on and is also true of the other characters. I found it infuriating to watch a movie in which the characters just do meaningless stuff or stare gormlessly into the middle distance. By the 30-minute mark the movie had failed to properly establish the setting, the characters and the plot. It also took until roughly that time for any spoken dialogue to come up - that wasn't grunting or screaming.

I think I know what they were going for: bleak, grim and brooding. And that didn't work because a) they would have needed to establish some contrast, otherwise it's just bleak against bleak. b) it's hard to come off as bleak when the characters have food, water, shelter, firearms with ammunition, electricity, some form of medical care, body lotion (some guys seem oiled up like it's Mr. Universe) and even entertainment. Since the film makers were obviously going for something like Mad Max or Escape from New York they should have checked out how messed up characters in those movie were - with all their gear cobbled together from spare parts. You could see plainly that they were living in harsh conditions. c) if they were going for brooding and grim they should show the violence and have characters react to it appropriately. Our leading lady doesn't seem traumatised enough considering she should be far from used to the kinds of things that happen to her.

I stopped watching after about the first quarter because I couldn't see the film going anywhere. It was scene after scene of tracking shots of people walking or close-ups of people staring silently. In better films such techniques might have been used for pacing or building atmosphere but here they only come across as pretentious. Maybe I stopped watching before the film gets good but somehow I doubt it and I also don't really care. If the film can't seem to make an effort to engage my interest why should I continue watching it?