Godzilla Tokyo S.O.S.

Decent continuation I'd say.




Bit different from what I expected though, the story picks up a year later on where we focus not on our lady pilot Akane but with one of the technicians for Mechagodzilla, Chujo who actually shares some lineage with a previous kaiju main character, Shin'ichi from the original Mothra film which was pretty mindblowing to see. And yes we do meet slightly less clothed fairies and a giant colorful moth, a bit unexpected but it's never a bad time with Mothra! Though it really does make me want to seek out both the original 1961 Mothra and the Rebirth Of Mothra trilogy, because almost everytime Mothra appears in a Godzilla film it pretty much goes as follows: Fairies show up and request peace or Mothra will throw a shit fit, Mothra shows up, Mothra gets her ass beat and dies, egg hatches, two larvae continue on fighting, Godzilla gets webbed, FIN. Not much different here I will freely admit. Maybe we can get a solo Mothra movie in the Monsterverse and get something new in the future. I do very much like the concept though of the spirit of the original Godzilla not wanting to fight and be used as a puppet for Japan's safety, that the dead should remain at rest, and that humans cross lines that they need to learn from, you can tell that's some deep rooted belief in Japan. Not one for conflict, immense respect for the departed, recognizing the failures of man and trying to improve the world through it. Regardless of era, iteration, or story, Godzilla movies have positive messages in some form or another. And I think that helps the overall film, the human plot works and isn't a bad one plus I like seeing just a tiny bit of character growth for Akane who's mellowed out a bit, it's slightly better than the first one and it does indeed feel that the story has concluded. If anything I feel the effects get to show off more now that we have 3 kaiju in the mix, from practical to digital, it has that same stamp of quality and I for one actually love that some of the effects aren't as flawless as some CG in american films, it gives it charm and when looked at with the right set of eyes even the silly becomes awesome. Definite improvement I would say, I give 3.5 stars, 7.5/10! Is it the end already? Is it really just one more film? I feel this is more a momentous achievement because of how many years it took, it's not like all the Marvel movies one right after the other in the span of a month. I'm kinda speechless I'm going to be able to say tomorrow that I have seen every Godzilla film ever. And if you want to get real technical, it's taken me about 24 years. All good things to those who wait.

Godzilla Raids Again

Yes, we're doing this. I got the Criterion collector set.

Released just 6 months after the original, Godzilla Raids Again is a unfortunately average entry in this series. Which sucks to say because the original is like a 9 if not a 10/10 film, it's a masterpiece. But here? Well let's talk about it. I genuinely did get to thinking before I ever watched this movie, who had the idea to make a sequel to Gojira? I mean it had a pretty strong definitive ending, so who gave the green light to make another? I think that's the most interesting thing about the Showa era is to find the reasoning as to why the series kept going on. Well I sort of have an answer, apparently the executive producer of Toho, Iwao Mori heard of the huge success the first film made and told long time producer Tomoyuki Tanaka to make another. That's right they pulled a Son Of Kong, ironic that the international re-release of King Kong inspired Toho to make Godzilla. But boy that's a decision that changed the scope of cinema forever. The story this time around is two air pilots discover an island where not just another creature of Godzilla's species is found but a mutated Ankylosaurus dubbed Anguirus, who in future films is a trusted ally but here a bitter rival. And that's basically it, the humans try to find a new way to handle Godzilla and minimize damage to Osaka while he battles another monster. Now I'm not going to judge the first kaiju clash, the crew members barely figured out how to make Godzilla work let alone a new monster suit which also had to fight one another. I respect it for introducing such a concept and trying their best to make it work. Which they mostly do but there's no way of getting around it, they goofed hard on production. The camera crew was supposed to undercrank the camera so you would see the appropriate speed for the monsters, but they didn't so when you see Godzilla or Anguirus on screen they move in real time, it's not slowed down to where they look like they are huge monsters with significant weight to them. It literally looks like two guys in suits scuffling in a model city. Yes that's what it is, but there is an art for such special effects, and it's not here. Sometimes it looks totally fine but this does add to the more "cheap" quality of the film. I genuinely don't think it's bad, but there are elements I dislike. Which is two aspects, but they are big important aspects. First is the music, the score is subdued at best with hardly any music throughout, now if this was a film made in 1932 I could forgive it because sound in movies was new, but here it's blatantly obvious. The only scene where it works effectively is when they show news footage from the 54' film where Godzilla levels Tokyo, it makes sense why it wouldn't have sound you needed actual equipment to capture sound back then so if only the footage survived it only makes sense there's no sound recordings with it. But the biggest issue and what drags this movie down so much is the pacing and the movement from scene to scene. This feels more like a film from the 1940s when it comes to the human scenes, they have the full gambit of a romance scene, a scene set in a club with a lounge singer, and even a big group laugh scene and spoiler alert, none of it feels like it's connected to a giant monster movie. They even have this fraking bizzare sequence where for 5 minutes we follow these escaped prisoners from a convoy in the middle of a monster fight scene. Are you real right now?? And it is horrendous writing at that because I know the filmmakers were like, "We need to get Godzilla back on land somehow, how do we do it?" so like the prisoners steal a car, with really noticeable jump cuts as the police pursue them, they crash the vehicle into like a factory or something, everything blows up, and Godzilla sees the mass of flames and goes to it. That is the most bullshit writing I have ever seen in a Godzilla movie. What the fu-, oh my God! I'm absolutely speechless! The best part of the entire movie isn't even in the movie, it's in the english dub, this is the movie that has the line banana oil. Find this clearly early 2000s documentary, it's called It Came From Japan and you will hear George Takei bring this up. It's amazing. And thank God that Toho broadened their horizons and did stuff like Mothra and Rodan before getting back to Godzilla cause they needed time to actually work out a movie. This is a definite skip in the annals of Godzilla history, I'd give it 2 stars, 5.5/10, but they came back swinging with King Kong Vs. Godzilla so balance was achieved. Now we gotta jump alllll the way to Invasion Of The Astro Monster, go read the previous reviews and I'll see you back here next time.

Godzilla Vs. Mothra (1964)

Ohhhh yeahhhh!!

You knew it was coming, there's a new Godzilla movie out Friday it's time again to dive into the kaiju action! And we start with one of the shining films of the early Showa era, a beloved fan favorite, and it deserves the credit. Godzilla Vs. Mothra is a great movie in the Godzilla series, with excellent production design, a good human story, a pretty good share of both monster and military action, with the return of the winged goddess herself Mothra and one of the best designed Godzilla suits ever made. This does have sentimental value for me cause waaaaay back, before I was even 9 years old I owned this movie and three other Godzilla movies on DVD, so watching it again not only put a smile on my face but brought back good memories. It has a simple story but it's more about execution than really anything in a kaiju movie, a massive monster eggs gets swept away in a typhoon and lands on japanese soil, and a greedy buisnessman takes possesion of the egg even after he's made well aware it's the egg of Mothra. People all over the city wonder what the egg could contain and that's where our main characters come in who are reporters, but soon Godzilla emerges and causes devestation in his wake while our heroes try to get Mothra to fight him. So it's one of the good entries of the series where the humans have a significant stance on the story and it doesn't feel like filler. The monster side of things is exemplary, with better production value after Toho gained major financial results after King Kong Vs. Godzilla, the Godzilla suit itself has one of it's best redesigns already after a great design in the last, and the sets and miniatures are greatly done and most of them are in broad daylight with little to no faults in them. Mothra herself is a formidable opponent for Godzilla and isn't a pushover, with a lovely design and as far to my knowledge the first instance of her theme which is wonderful and only got better in the Heisei series in my opinion. Plus you can't bring up Mothra without mentioning her twin fairies that she guards, and the way they handle the special effects of their mini size must be commended, and I wonder if they will take some shape or form in the new Godzilla movie. It's a fan favorite and highly regarded for a reason, it does everything right in all aspects and entertains everybody regardless of age. You can obtain a copy of the movie easily on Amazon, or you can rent it, or if you know the right places watch it for free and it's worth it. The copy I reviewed was the japanese version, though I had the english dub way back in the day and I think both versions are very good. The next one we talk about however is one even I haven't got to which is surprising because it is the movie that introduced not only Godzilla's archnemesis but also the monster rumble we would see in many other future sequels. Until next time G-fans!