"GODZILLA VS HEDORAH"
This is a Godzilla film that is unlike any other Godzilla film I've ever seen. The film is just about Godzilla fighting off a pollution based monster named Hedorah, as a kid and his scientist Dad observe it and try to figure out how to stop this new giant monster since Godzilla has trouble defeating him. The rest of the film is full of completely random stuff happening. I mean seriously, the film is such a giant mess of so many genres that the film isn't sure what it wants to be. I mean its a Godzilla film; a horror film; an educational film for kids; a surreal drug movie; an anti-pollution movie; and a cartoon; and none of these different elements mash well together. So despite sounding like a mess of a film, is it worth a look for how strange it is and maybe at times looking artsy with these random decisions; ON WITH THE REVIEW!
Our new monster Hedorah while being a threatening opponent that can change into three different forms; shoot lasers and acid; move his separate pieces when being torn apart; and being indestructible; the monster sadly sucks because when you get down to it since Godzilla is just fighting a living giant pile of crap! I'm not even exaggerating this either, this monster is literally made out of garbage, mud, sewage, radiation, and smog! What's so cool about that? It’s really gross! I know that the monster is supposed to represent how bad pollution is like how Godzilla in his first film represents the atom bomb, but unlike the first film, the save the earth from pollution message doesn't at all feel like any thought went into it when making this film, thus making the message become pointless and forgettable. There's not even an effective or powerful scene involving this message, nor does the film try to make the message effecting and powerful. The design for the monster is not only disgusting looking but it gets sillier and sillier as he keeps on changing his form. We see the monster go from being a Tadpole that swims through the ocean at the speed of the Nautilus from Disney's "20,000 Leagues Under The Sea" with his vagina shaped red eyes (Which by the way, the director of the film actually did intend his eyes to be shaped like vaginas); to a giant walking monster that looks like the giant monster Cthulhu as if he was made out of crap; to a blob in the shape of a flying saucer! In-case if you are wondering how he changes his form, he does it by feeding off of pollution, almost like the villain that Tim Curry voiced in "Fern-Gully: The Last Rain-Forest" just minus the fun and Tim Curry charm. Actually, wouldn't it be cool if Tim Curry who did an official dub of the monster with his voice; that would be awesome! As I said earlier, the monster can also move when it’s being torn apart and while the effect is good, it’s still really disgusting looking, as well as the sound effects making the disgusting images worse than it already is! Even the roars that this monster makes sound disgusting. The only terrifying thing I can think of that involves the monster is when we see a person slowly turn into a skeleton after making physical contact with it, but as the film keeps showing people being turned into skeletons, it starts to become silly and goofy (And not in a so bad its funny way).
Godzilla is sadly just as lame and goofy as our monster. Ok, when I first saw Godzilla appear in front of a sun that's setting I started getting hyped up despite his out of nowhere appearance, but it all gets ruined by the terrible music (The music in the film is just as awful as the music in the last Godzilla film); the kid randomly narrating about how much Godzilla hates pollution as Godzilla destroys a pile of crap in the ocean with his atomic breath (Its so awesome, right?!); and we find-out that the kid was dreaming all this the whole time. What an epic failed entrance! The fight scenes between Godzilla and Hedorah are really some of the worst fight scenes that I've ever seen in this whole franchise, everything about these fight are awkward, boring, unexciting, and utterly disgusting to the core, especially when we see Godzilla being covered in sludge! There's even a strange moment when Godzilla rips out two yellow balls from the monster’s body that have evil red eyes on each of them which many have wondered if they are the monsters eyes, or his balls. The director said they are meant to be Hedorah's eyes, but considering that we still see Hedorah's eyes still attached to him, I'm going to go with the idea that those are Hedorah's living evil balls. When I think of moments of scenes that just involve Godzilla that are silly and goofy, I can think of three right off the bat. In one scene we get an uncomfortable awkward wide-angle lens close-up shot of Godzilla's face that look like he wants to kiss me. In another scene as a kid is riding a roller-coaster, everything suddenly goes silent and time freezes as we zoom into a painfully obvious drawn blob like silhouette of Godzilla arriving in the city, as the kid screams "uh" which doesn't at all sound like he's scared (The film by the way does have plenty of those painfully awkward silent moments). However, the goofiest, strangest, stupid, out of nowhere, and most out of character scene for Godzilla is the scene when he makes himself fly by using his atomic breath, and this is the only film where he ever does it! What the hell was that all about?! The only method to the madness for this decision is because the director needed that scene to make the film less dark for kids, which I think is a stupid excuse considering how over the top, weird, and childish the film already is!
I'm not going to waste my time talking about the human characters in this movie because they are all just as bad as the characters in the last Godzilla film! They hardly even build-up the monster, its really all the random stuff that the film constantly throws at you that builds-up and explains the monster, which fails at doing so, due to how horribly bizarre they are! When the film first started, already we know that the film is going to be completely different from any other Godzilla film you've ever seen as we see a Japanese lady singing in a surreal drug like environment during the opening credits, which look like the opening credits that you'd see for a Bond film! Actually there's a random moment in the film where we see dozens of TV sets with people comically complaining on half of the sets, while the other sets show random stuff; and when this out of nowhere sequence ends, we see all the TV sets turn into colorful blocks that look almost exactly like the colorful circles in the opening credits for the Bond film "Dr.No"! The scene also looks like a bad sketch from a TV show meant for kids and believe me the film has plenty of moments that look like they came out of some kind of show for kids, especially shows for Pre-Schoolers. We get random cartoon segments of Hedorah that look exactly like the cartoon segments you'd see on "Sesame Street"; and in the majority of scenes of the kids Father talking about scientific stuff, we get a slideshow with subtitle cards underneath the picture as the characters explain what's going on (Which is quite hard to keep up when it comes to reading the subtitles for the cards and what the characters are saying at the same time), which looks like something from an educational video for kids. There's even a random moment when we see a statue that looks like "The Thinker" smoking as the Dad talks about Sulfuric acid.
If you think these scenes are random, I'll tell you the two scenes that I found to be the film's most random and weirdest moments in the film. In one scene, everything is now in black and white as the characters along with a group of people sit outside together and calmly play guitar. Things get even more strange and out of place in the scene, when the film suddenly goes back to color when the characters start playing rock music as the people dance, light torches, and gather around in a circle around the a campfire! While that scene was random and stupid, the most trippy and weirdest moment in the whole entire film is the dance club scene. We see a woman in a tattoo dress singing the song that we heard in the film’s opening credits in an uncomfortably surreal looking club with some really odd shots, edits, and imagery. Things get even more strange and uncomfortable when a guy randomly starts hallucinating as he sees people wearing silly and awkward looking fish masks. And than everything becomes flat-out disgusting when we see Hedorah's separate pieces moving down stairs passing a picture of Martin Luther King JR., to going back the upstairs as we see a cat covered in its sludge looking completely unharmed. The random stuff that just pop-up out of nowhere aren't smart and clever, nor are they fun or cool to look at, they're just weird and stupid, making you wonder what the hell is going on and why the director made these horrible and strange choices?
While a part of me feels like I should recommend this film to people to see the film for how bad and weird it is with its bizarre choices making it look as odd as the choices in a film that Ed Wood would direct; my experience watching this film was painfully unpleasant. The whole entire film is so uncomfortably weird, awkward, silly, and gross that it literally makes me sick. It’s just all around unpleasant on so many levels! The film was so bad that the producer of the series Tomoyuki Tanaka fired the film's director Yoshimitsu Banno from making any other Godzilla movie! Ironically though, after the death of the Tanaka, Banno would somehow manage to require the film rights to the series and become the executive producer of the most recent Godzilla film. If Banno getting the Godzilla series film rights is not weird enough for you; famous film critic Roger Ebert said that this was his favorite Godzilla film of all time in his review of "Godzilla 1985". While we all have our different opinions, I just wonder why he claims this film to be his all time favorite Godzilla movie? I can see people enjoying this film for being a so bad its good film for its random and bizarre choices that might interest viewers; but I can't at all see it as a so bad its good film that must be seen because of how ugly and uncomfortable it is. I'll admit though, it’s not as insultingly bad as "Godzilla's Revenge" and the 98 film, as well as not being dull or obnoxiously loud and annoying, but its still a really bad Godzilla film!
RATING 1/5
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