Welcome to the Monster Mania, where we'll review the exploits of some of the world's best-known monster movies.
This review does not represent the opinions of the general public. It reflects my personal thoughts and opinions on the movie.
That said, on to the review!
The world trembled when America dropped the atom bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki during the closing days of World War II. The world trembled again ten years later, but this time it was to the heavy, devastating steps of Godzilla. H-Bomb testing drew the great beast from the ocean depths to terrorize Japanese waters. Nothing seems capable of stopping Godzilla: not bullets, not missles, not even 300,000 volts of electricity flowing through high-tension wires surrounding Tokyo. The world watches with bated breath as Japan fights for its very survival against a 400-foot-tall behemoth. A scientist has the secret of the one and only weapon that may have a chance at destroying Godzilla, but is success worth the price the world may later pay if the weapon becomes general knowledge?
Raymond Burr plays reporter Steve Martin, an American correspondent originally traveling to Cairo, but he stopping over in Tokyo to look up an old acquaintance. However, he finds himself drawn into the strange news story circulating about missing ships and strange happenings at sea. He joins the scientists investigating the disappearances and is with them when the true cause of the disappearances rears its massive head. Martin, faced with the world's biggest--no pun intended--story, remains in Japan, risking life and limb to chronicle the rise, the reign, and the ruin of Godzilla.
Someone who sees Godzilla for the first time today might consider the movie of poor quality with cheap and poor-quality special effects. In some instances, I'll agree with this assessment. The SPFX people usually did a good job of making the toys and models used in the filming seem life-sized (when compared to the man-sized Godzilla). However, there were a couple of scenes that were too obviously models. For example, the scene where a train crashes into Godzilla's foot seemed amazingly real to me. On the other hand, seeing Godzilla with the train car in his jaws reminds me of Cookie Monster and how the cookies just keep falling out of his mouth. I can forgive this, however. The scene I really can't forgive is the night of the storm when Godzilla's island trek destroys a home and a helicopter. The house looked real--perhaps that was done with a different technique--but the helicopter was too obviously a toy. It keeled over in the high winds more easily than I'd expect it to do in reality.
I want to say things about the Japanese cast, but it's difficult when I have no idea how good they really were. English dubs usually can't compare to the original, but if the dub was anything like the original, then the actors were excellent. Some of the voice-overs didn't quite match with the characters, though. The tonal qualities of the English voices didn't always coincide with the situation on the screen. For example, there were scenes when the topics under discussion were terribly serious and involved, yet the dubbed voices seem emotionless or--what's worse--happy and pleasant. I suppose the American acting craft has grown since the invention of cartoons and animation, but surely the voice actors back then knew how to convey feelings and emotions!
I have it on fairly good authority that the original movie, called Gojira and without Raymond Burr, was more dramatically pleasing than the American release. Unfortunately, the only way I can possibly find this out is if I can somehow view the original, albeit with English subtitles. Toho Studios, the makers of the Godzilla films, never released it in this format in America; bootlegging operations did it for them. I think Toho should offer all the Godzilla movies in English subtitled editions. If there's anyone out there connected to Toho or one of the established movie studios like Columbia-Tristar or Paramount, then perhaps you could suggest this option.
Come back next update (December 1, 1998) for a review of Rodan, the next Toho Studios monster movie generally available in the U.S.!
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