I can remember the time a place that I first became aware of Godzilla's existence. It was at a drive-in, back when their were still drive-ins in this world, I was the tender age of 13 and, while siting in the back of my parents pick-up truck, waiting for the movie to start (if memory serves it was a quite disgusting piece of trash called Dinosaurus). Before it did though they played a trailer for Godzilla: 1985. From then on, I was hooked on all things Godzilla. The title of this web site is, in fact, taken from the back of the video box for Godzilla: 1985. The full line reads "And you thought it was safe to return to Tokyo." It seams only fitting that I would begin AND YOU THOUGHT IT WAS SAFE's inauguration with a review with the original Godzilla.
Dateline: Japan, 1954. Reporter Steve Martin (Raymond Burr, and no, not that Steve Martin, he won't be born for years) is on his way to see an old friend from college, Dr. Serizawa (remember that name, it becomes important latter). Unfortunately he is detained by customs and questioned about an incident involving a Japanese ship that sunk right under his planes flight path. His interest peek, Steve decides to stay on and investigate this. His interest if further peeked when 7 more ships are sunk in the same general area. This leaves the Japanese military (and Steve) scratching their colective heads. What could be causing these sinkings?
For lack of anything else to do the government dispatches a group of scientists (with Steve in tow) to Odo Island, an island near where the ships have been going down. Once there the team finds giant foot prints (radioactive foot prints no less) and the creature that made them, a giant lizard.
Conveniently one of the scientists is a paleontologist (why the government would send a paleontologist to investigate ship sinkings is beyond me, but I digress), Dr. Yamanie, recognizes the animal as a from of amphibious dinosaur. He names it Godzilla (ta da) after the legends of Odo island. Yamanie, being the movie's scientist, takes the "We must study him" position so standard of movies of this genre. The military, being the military, wont have any of it and decides to bomb Godzilla with depth charges, so Yamanie sulks in his house while the navy pours lots of charges into the sea.
That night the entire country of Japan believing that Godzilla is
lying in little pieces at the bottom of the ocean. Everybody is surprised as hell when the
creature comes ashore and walks through he dock section of Tokyo. Because of his size (in
this movie he towers 164 feet tall), the Big G causes lots of damage by simply walking
around. Thankfully, he leaves quickly, as the cast (and Steve) watch and look relieved.
The next night the military decides to keep Godzilla out of the city with a ring of high tension electrical towers strung around the city. Unfortunately, the electric fence proves completely worthless. As do the various tanks and mortars fired at Godzilla. All the army succeeds in doing is antagonizing Godzilla and pissing him off. Thus, Tokyo is torched as Steve looks on and narrates. Finally the beast is driven away by jets (that don't seam to be able to hit a big, slow moving lizard, but I digress).
Is there anything that can stop Godzilla? Yes, but the key lays in the hands of moody, eye patch warning scientist Dr. Serazawa (told you he would come in handy). Serazawa is about to marry Yamanie's daughter Emiko, but she has fallen for a naval salvage officer named Ogata. This little love triangle becomes the central human plot for the entire movie; at least the parts where Steve is narrating or Godzilla smashing stuff.
If you've watched a lot of daikaiju (Japanese for 'giant monster') movies, you'd recognized the plot as the almost standard plot for most 1950's monster movies. In fact the entire movie is almost a carbon copy of the American The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms. Even Godzilla's creator Tomoyuki Tanaka, once said that Beast was his direct inspiration. Since Beast hit Japan just one year before Godzilla and was a smash hit its not surprising.
What
sets this movie apart from most other daikaiju movies is the fact that the
creature is brought to life through a SPFX technique called suitmation. What suitmation
involves is putting a man in a giant, latex suit and having him stomp around blasa wood miniatures. This technique, while not the most realistic way to
portray a living creature (the book "The VideoHound's Golden Movie Retriever"
calls the technique "ridiculously primitive even in its own day.") it does
achieve a certain degree of realism by shooting scenes of Godzilla smashing stuff in low
light and from low angles giving the illusion that Godzilla is hundreds of feet tall, and
the low lighting obscures most of the details of the suit. Thankfully, it also obscures
shots of Godzilla's tail being manipulated by a little piece of invisible string.
In fact, the only real complaint I have about the FX here is the fact that, for close up shots, hand puppets where used. Two in fact. You can tell them apart because they don't resemble the head on the full suit in any way, nor to they resemble each other. No amount of bad lighting can obscure that.
On to the acting. On that front, we have mixed results. For American
audiences to have a Caucasian face to stare at Raymond Burr was inserted into the original
movie and some quite liberal editing took place. As a result, Burr clutters up the movie
with his palpable overacting. Also annoying are his voice-overs as he explains what (nine
times out of ten) you can already tell what is going on.
As for the original Japanese cast, they're all better then they need to be in their roles. The love triangle between Serazawa, Emiko, and Ogata could easily have become trite and boring but, thanks to the acting skill of Akihiko Hirata (Serizawa), Momoko Kochi (Yamane), and Akira Takarada (Ogata) its pulled off without a hitch. Bravo.
What surprises me is that, even in this era of Jurassic Park, and Dragonheart the monster here still looks pretty darn good. Not as good as he would look in later movies, but not bad for a first time. Also quite interesting is the fact that, while the creature does do some damage on his own, its not nearly as much as when he is attacked by the military. This business of Godzilla causing more damage when attacked then he would if simply left alone is a trend that would run through all the Godzilla movies worth their salt, and is yet another thing that sets Godzilla apart from other lesser daikaiju and establishes him as the king of the monsters.
Long live the king.
MOVIE SCORE(OUT OF A POSSIBLE FIVE)
A TRUE CLASSIC MONSTER MOVIE
GO HOME VAULT RATINGS MISSION STATEMENT LINKS
E-MAIL GOES TO dr_psy_chosis@hotmail.com
GODZILLA TRADEMARK TOHO CO., LTD.