"GODZILLA"
AKA "THE RETURN OF GODZILLA"
It's been a decade since audiences saw their favorite giant monster from Toho hit the big screen, and even though Toho was planning on making more Godzilla films over the years after "The Terror Of MechaGodzilla", they unfortunately never followed through. However, when Toho held a successful film festival called "The Godzilla-mania of 1983" that featured all the previous Godzilla films and a couple of other of their Sci-Fi monster movies which created a new generation of Godzilla fans. Toho decided it was finally time to bring their most famous and iconic monster back to the big screen. But instead of making Godzilla a hero like he had been in most of the films made during the "Showa Era". They thought it would be better to bring him back to his dark and animistic evil roots, as the film itself is designed to be a direct sequel to the first Godzilla movie to have ever been made that ignores all the previous Godzilla films that followed after the first movie. While the film does sound like a quick cash-grab on the franchise considering that it was released the year after the festival was held, and that Toho cheated to make Godzilla evil again by disregarding all the events that happened after the first movie (though lets face it. The Godzilla films in the "Showa Era" have already done everything that this film is doing); is the film itself a welcoming return to Godzilla's evil roots and a good way to start off this new era of Godzilla movies; ON WITH THE REVIEW!
Taking place 30 years after Godzilla's attack on Tokyo Japan. A new Godzilla emerges from a Volcano to once again attack Tokyo. However, things get worse when Godzilla destroys a Russian Nuclear Submarine which puts Japan right in the middle of Cold War tensions between the Soviets and the Americans. As the three nations try to figure out a way to stop the monster without using an Atom bomb to put the country at risk; a News Reporter (Ken Tanaka), a sailor (Shin Takuma), a Professor (Yosuke Natsuki), and the Sister of the sailor (Yasuko Sawaguchi) discover that Godzilla can be lured away by a homing signal from a flock of birds and try to use his instinct to their advantage by setting up a trap for him.
When it comes to building-up to Godzilla, the film does a pretty good job with it. The sound of his roar where he is nowhere in sight in the opening scene sounds just as scary as his roar in original, along with the dark atmosphere, the scared reactions from the sailors, the eruption taking place on the Island, and the wind sound effects adding to the creep factor of the scene. His off-screen attack on the Russian Nuclear Submarine is a cool and suspenseful scene, despite that I personally don't find it as awesome as when he attacked a Submarine off-screen in "King Kong VS Godzilla". And the talks about Godzilla returning are interesting and well acted out. The film also gives Godzilla a new power that's shown during his build-up, which involves the radiation that he leaves behind. Even though we've seen people suffering from Godzilla's radiation, I can't at all remember a time when Godzilla's radiation has mutated anything into a monster. And during the build-up to Godzilla as we see the News reporter search a deserted ship, he comes across a giant monstrous Sea Louse that has been mutated by coming in contact with Godzilla's radiation. It's a new idea that I really admire, and how the scene builds-up to the Mutated Sea Louse (aside from ripping-off a classic scary moment from "Psycho") is as suspenseful as the build-up to the Meganulons in Toho's classic giant monster movie "Rodan". But much like the Meganulons in "Rodan", the reveal of the monstrous Sea Louse itself doesn't look at all scary. And aside from how it crawls, the rest of effects for it look horrible. The way it leaps looks like it was a lifeless puppet being pulled on a string, and the struggle that the reporter has with it looks like the actor is just moving the puppet around. Also the idea of Godzilla mutating other creatures with his radiation is never shown again after the sequence, which makes the sequence pointless as well as leaving me in wonderment of what other creatures that Godzilla's radiation has mutated?
When we do finally see Godzilla, he makes an incredible and frightening entrance where a security guard of a power plant gazes at him in absolute fear after seeing a part of the ground being cracked by Godzilla's footsteps, as the camera slowly tilts up to reveal Godzilla's presence. When I finally saw Godzilla I was hyped but at the same time frightened by his appearance. From his first on-screen appearance to his last, Godzilla never stops being scary and intimidating. I mean my god, he looks just as scary as he did in the first film with his eerie movements, evil roar, and having a threatening looking design, as he walks around a dark and gritty apocalyptic like background with some cool lighting, and horrifying music and sound effects to help emphasize how frightening he is. Also, while this film is a direct sequel to the first Godzilla film, I'm glad that they still kept his blue atomic breath instead of the mist effect that was used in the first movie. However, the one thing that I do hate about this film in terms of continuity regarding the first film is despite that Godzilla's attack in 1954 is mentioned, nobody ever refers to Godzilla as the new one. Being a direct sequel to the first film, I find it pretty stupid that they refer to this Godzilla as the same one, especially since the first Godzilla was killed in the first film and has completely vanished without a trace after being killed, as the film ends with one of the main character's fearing that we might have another Godzilla appearing in the future if humanity keeps up with their Nuclear Testing’s. I mean "Godzilla Raids Again" treats itself more like a direct sequel to the first movie than this film does by having the characters not only discuss about Godzilla's attack on Tokyo, but also have them discuss about what killed Godzilla in the first film and question how they are going to kill the new one since they no longer have the weapon that killed first one. They also refer to him as the second Godzilla, just as the Professor at the end of the first movie predicted, rather than thinking that this is the same Godzilla that previously attacked them. They even have one of the main characters from the first movie make a brief appearance where he tells everybody about the situation as he shows footage of the first Godzilla attacking Tokyo. The point I'm trying to make is that this film doesn't have any of that stuff that made "Godzilla Raids Again" stand-out as a direct sequel to the first film, nor does it really dive into the terror that the first Godzilla has brought to Tokyo previously, which as a result makes the film (like the majority of Godzilla films) seem more like a stand-alone reboot of Godzilla than it does as a sequel, and quite frankly I wish that this film was its own film that completely reboots the Godzilla franchise!
The special effects in the movie, as primitive as they are by today's standards, they definitely do look like that they have been updated thanks to the film’s bigger budget. The buildings look a little less toy like (especially when comparing them to the majority of Godzilla films made during the "Showa Era"). The optical effects for Godzilla's atomic blue breath and his spikes lighting up look a little more real than it used too look. And the way that the scenes with Godzilla are shot is for the most part up to size and scale as how the first film was shot. Godzilla himself with his scary new design aside, for the most part looks cool with the many different effects they use such as having a guy in a Rubber-suit, a life sized dummy, creating props to indicate Godzilla's presence (like a giant foot and tail prop), and occasionally using an animatronic of Godzilla for close-up shots (which the animatronic itself was 20 foot high). But while Godzilla does look scary throughout the film thanks to the effects and design, there are a good amount of times where Godzilla's face would look like a dead Chuck E Cheese animatronic with his beat-up looking derped face. As for the scenes of destruction that Godzilla causes as cool as most of it looks with the explosions, the buildings collapsing, the bright red sky, and so on and so fourth. To be perfectly honest, I didn’t really find the actual scenes themselves all that exciting or even that intense for that matter. I can’t exactly put my finger on why they don’t look or feel all that exciting and intense as they should be, there’s just something very lacking about these when it comes to on the edge of your seat action and suspense. They just seem to move at a very slow pace where the direction itself seems pretty off half of the time which I suppose is the overall reason why I find myself getting bored by these scenes, despite its cool moments and overall look. Godzilla even on two occasions fights against a cool futuristic Spaceship by the Military called the "Super X" that carries various weapons and is immune to Godzilla's breath. And as cool as the idea is, as well as getting a few kickass moments from this battle. I still find myself pretty unamused by the overall fight itself for how slow and lacking in terms of tension between Godzilla, and the pilots inside the “Super X”. The scenes of Godzilla causing destruction also have a few dumb moments as well, such as the painfully obvious 2-D animated flock of birds. The out of nowhere and awkwardly unfunny moment with a homeless bum eating and talking to himself in an empty restaurant as Godzilla is attacking. And clumsy editing of Godzilla attacking a train, as the train looks like its stopping to be attacked by Godzilla instead of trying to avoid colliding into him as the scene was trying to do. There's also a passenger inside one of the train cars that Godzilla picks up, who acts happy to see Godzilla, instead of being flat out scared by him.
So Godzilla looks as scary as he did in the first movie, but the scenes that involve him lack the same amount of terror and awesomeness that the first film had. Are the characters at least anywhere near as interesting or likable as the characters in the first movie were? Well, when I was first introduced to the characters, I did find them to be interesting. Goro Maki the News Reporter shows a good amount of determination of wanting to expose the news of Godzilla’s return to the public, who seems very skillful at his job. The actor who plays Hiroshi the sailor that first witnessed Godzilla, and survived from being killed by the Mutated Sea Louse, who now wants Godzilla dead for revenge, gives a performance that's almost as haunting as Kenji Sahara's performance as the trapped miner who witnessed Rodan hatch out of his egg in the monster's debut film. Professor Hayashida who also has a personal vendetta against Godzilla's species after losing his parents to when the first Godzilla attacked Tokyo, seemed to come off just as interesting and sympathetic as Hiroshi. And Hiroshi's sister Naoko did seem pretty charming, despite being not as engaging or strongly acted as the other characters I mentioned. But as promising as the characters started out to be, as I let the film play on, they all just suddenly stop being interesting, and become boring to the point where it feels like their only purpose in the movie is to just move the plot along. We hardly feel any of the determination from the Professor and the sailor who want revenge on Godzilla for what he’s done to them as the film moves on. And Goro suddenly has a bit of a relationship with Naoko that feels very rushed and downplayed in the movie. It's really a pity to see such promising characters suddenly become flat out boring before the film even reaches an hour.
One of the aspects that I do like about the film is involving Godzilla with the "Cold War" since he was originally created as a metaphor for the Atomic Bomb, which was done very effectively in the first movie. Just the idea of the Soviets thinking about nuking the Americans after suspecting that the American's bombed one of their Nuclear Submarines; to suddenly having both nations thinking about using their Atom Bombs on Godzilla when he reaches Japan that might put Japan at risk from being destroyed as the Prime Minister of Japan tries to reason with them after already suffering a nuking in the past, is without a doubt an ingenious idea! But unlike the first film where it’s morals about nuclear destruction were executed so cleverly that it made the message feel powerful and perfectly stand-tall. This film doesn't do much for me. While the acting for these scenes aren’t bad (aside from the American Ambassador who's just saying his lines, as the actor looks like he doesn't understand what the others are saying), and the moral is there, the talks about destroying Godzilla, as well as the conversations themselves move so slow and are dully acted out that it's really not as interesting as hearing these conversations when compared to the first movie. What supported the talks about Godzilla and the Atom Bomb in the first movie wasn't just the writing and acting. They were also supported by the suspense that was carried all throughout the film, and were spoken by characters that we cared about, as well as giving us cool and scary scenes of Godzilla to balance those scenes of dialogue out. And while the suspense and messages about bombings that involve the "Cold War" is there and is carried out well in a few scenes, the overall level of suspense and emotion just isn't as strong. Nor do the scenes with the characters and Godzilla destroying the city support these boring scenes of dialogue for how uninteresting and lacking those other aspects to the film are. Also why didn’t the Prime Minister just simply tell the Russians and the Americans that Godzilla is created by the Atom Bomb which makes him invincible to nukes? That moment where he gives his speech about the dangers of bombing his land seemed pretty pointless when he can just simply tell both nations that important fact.
I know a lot of people love this movie, and maybe it’s just me, but as hard as I try to get invested in what’s taking place in front of me, I just simply can't. The characters are boring. The scenes of chaos and destruction from Godzilla feel pretty dull. Some of the effects at times are lame. The emotional impact that the film tries to capture by putting the "Cold War" into it feels lacking. And making this a direct sequel to the first Godzilla film is completely pointless since it hardly ever treats itself as one. However, while the film doesn't do a lot for me personally, there are still things in it that I do admire and think should be at least appreciated amongst fans of the franchise. Bringing Godzilla back to his scary looking evil self is a welcome return where he does on many occasions look pretty frightening. The film's overall dark look and atmosphere is fairly decent. The bigger budgeted effects are an improvement over the original effects and look from the "Showa Era", even if they don't always look great (though let's be honest, when has the effects in any of the previous Godzilla films always looked great). The ideas that the film offers are interesting, even though they're not as executed as great as they could have been. And despite me finding the scenes of Godzilla destroying stuff to be lacking in terms thrill and excitement, those scenes at least have a decent amount of cool and awesome moments that make them worth a look. Whether you enjoy it or not, the film does indeed have an important place in the history of Godzilla. And while I can't say that I love the film as much as everybody else does, I do admire and appreciate it for the things that it brought back and changed to the franchise.
RATING 3/5
RATING 3/5
Great review. One of my favorites.
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