There's something to be said for a movie named after the main character; you know exactly what you're going to get when you go in. In Sabrina you know the movie is going to focus on surprisingly unnoticed daughter of the chauffeur, Lawrence of Arabia is going to discuss the life and times of T. E. Lawrence, and King Kong vs. Godzilla is going to bring you a fight between a fire breathing lizard and a great big monkey.

It should be noted that what I'm reviewing here is the American rendition of KKvG, a radically re-edited version of the movie. While I'm normally against pointless tinkering with movies, what I think happened with KKvG is that the American producers took a movie that appears to of been rather silly and fiddled with it until they had a different -but still fundamentally silly- movie. The most obvious addition is the UN News Network, some sort of international television station that acts as a needless framing device and a Greek chorus that points out the obvious progression of the plot. I love every bit of it. Especially hysterical is Dr. Arnold Johnson, a big movie science sort of scientist who uses a dinosaur picture book designed for children to explain Godzilla's anthropological background and manages to deliver such howlers as "Legends about giant gorillas have persisted for some time" with a straight face. The scene where Dr. Johnson and the omniscient newsman Eric Carter discuss the relative sizes of the brain pans of Kong and Godzilla is worth the price of admission alone. Interestingly, the foreign intrusion slacks off by the end of the movie, but everything in a Godzilla movie stops cold when the monsters start having a row.

The main plot, what there is of it, concerns a pharmaceutical company that decides that bringing a giant gorilla to Japan would be great advertising for their company. How this would be an advertising boon is never properly explained. Would that many people pay money to look a giant monkey? Okay, I would, but I suspect I'm in the minority on that one. Anyway, what follows is some nonsense featuring a bunch of Japanese extras running around an island pretending to be aborigines, a couple of guys who I presume are supposed to be the lead characters, a giant octopus that comes out of nowhere, and Kong.

The reason Godzilla works as a guy in a suit is that's the version of the monster we were introduced to. We accept that the suit and the actor inside is Godzilla. King Kong, however, was introduced as a complex stop-motion critter so when a guy in an ape suit waddles onto the screen it's hard to take him seriously as Kong. Too make matters worse, it's a really bad ape suit, the sort of suit where the head is obviously not attached to the body. It's the sort of suit you would expect to see in a Gamera film; it's just that bad. The only redeeming thing about Kong is that he's a total buffoon. In his first scene in the movie Kong manages to get drunk and pass out- quite the introduction to the character. After that he spends a lot of the movie hooting and running around with his arms up over his head, biting into electrical cables for no reason, dragged through the air by a collection of helium balloons, slamming his own head into a rock, and getting the crud kicked out of him by Godzilla.

Lest I forget, Godzilla is in this flick as well. In spite of the bluster of Dr. Johnson there's no real reason given for Godzilla's rampage; he simply woke on the wrong side of bed and decided to take it out on Japan. About the only difference between this and several other Godzilla rampages is the look Godzilla is sporting. Easily one of the most husky versions of Godzilla around, it looks as if Godzilla hadn't worked for a few years and had let himself go, spending too much time gulping down snack food and beer instead of getting out and destroying cities and other aerobic activities. Still, at least Godzilla stomps buildings, blasts anything that gets in his way, and generally does his Godzilla thing so there's never any question who he is, even if he's so stocky his neck blends into his shoulders.

But a monster movie is only as good as the fights, and when the two title characters decide to kick up a ruckus it's hysterically entertaining. Other scenes to look for include natives doing a rather impressive synchronized dance routine around a stone-drunk giant monkey, several scenes where the two monsters are replaced by finger puppets, and Godzilla's repeated attempts to bury Kong. It also should be noted that this movie is the first film to feature monsters rolling off of Japan and into the ocean; a trick that was loved so much that Toho used it again and again.

Just go watch the movie already, it's a riot.

Questions, comments, and fan mail for Eric Carter can be directed to gleep9@hotmail.com. If you don't manage to roll off of Japan, swing on back to either the Godzilla movie or the main Godzilla page.