Godzilla (1984)

Godzilla smashes a lot of new, shiny stuff.

6/10

The Terror of Mechagodzilla (1975)

Adding sexy cyborgs into a Godzilla movie seemed like such a good idea.


3/10

Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla (1974)

Japan's answer to Planet of the Apes.

The word mediocre fails to describe some of the Godzilla movies made in the 1970's. Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla is another feeble attempt at making an entertaining movie out of really nothing good and it does a great job of summing up the problems the Godzilla movies of the era had. It's easy to see where the film goes wrong and watching Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla feels more like a chore than anything else.

As the original Godzilla series was beganing to wind down, long-time Godzilla director Jun Fukuda gives us his last entry in the series. This time around Godzilla must fight a giant robotic version of himself with the help of some sort of monster half lion, half dog creature named King Caesar. This time, the goal is to stop an evil race of monkeys from taking over the earth. The film was, technically, a success. It sold more tickets than the previous entry in the series and managed lukewarm reception from fans and the general public. Honestly it's hard to see why though.

Somewhere between it's lackluster plot and it's cheesy rip-off of planet of the apes aliens, I found myself dozing off during Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla. In a pleasant change of pace, the monsters show up pretty early this time around, but that seems to prolong the wait for the final climax of the movie. The sooner you show the monsters, the more jaded you feel when they don't show up again until the last several minutes. Ultimately, Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla has the same problem as nearly every movie in the original era. It lacks creativity and it focuses far to heavily on it's non-monster plot. You can't title a movie Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla and only spend about fifteen minutes with them fighting. That's just disappointing. I'm nearly done with the original run of Godzilla films and I have to say that I'm looking forward to moving on in my viewing. I sincerely hope the 80's and 90's have better things in store for me.

3/10

Godzilla vs. Megalon (1973)

Magic Jack Nicholson bot to the rescue!

When I was a young man, I owned a VHS tape that had, confusingly, a picture of Godzilla fighting some strange insect monster on top of the World Trade Center buildings. While I still haven't figured out the World Trade Center thing, I have come to terms with the movie. Godzilla vs. Megalon, A.K.A. the best episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000, is an off-the-wall, puzzling movie that pretty much embodies what everyone wants in an old Godzilla movie. The plot is a nonsensical mess, the action is goofy and the monsters fight in hilarious ways.

I've probably seen this film two dozen times over the course of my life, but it still makes no goddamn sense. Apparently an ancient undersea civilization, with the stunningly creative name of Seatopia, is pissed that humans are nuking stuff again. Their response? Send the monster Megalon to destroy earth. Unfortunately, Megalon is the retarded midget of the rest of earths monsters and must be guided to his targets. The solution is easy; steal some random dudes super robot and reprogram him. Luckily, the robot has more special powers and programing than expected and he breaks free of his control and calls Godzilla to help. The tag team monster action that follows it pretty stellar. The film is directed by hit or miss director Jun Fukuda, his Godzilla movies are really all over the place, and it is universally hated as being one of the worst movies in the series. This is most likely due to the exceptional Mystery Science Theater episode for the film because, all things considered, Godzilla vs. Megalon is really not a bad way to spend an hour and a half.

The reason the Mystery Science Theater episode for the movie is so good is that there is about an hour of absolute absurdity in Godzilla vs. Megalon. From the very beginning, with the kid riding the worlds strangest boat, everything is just falls further and further into hilarity. With a snarky attitude, it's a blast to watch. What people often forget, is that all of the Godzilla movies from this era are almost as bad as this one is. There's a lot to laugh about, make fun of and enjoy in Godzilla vs. Megalon. The fight is pretty entertaining and the monsters have really entertaining personalities this time around. Megalon hops around like a retarded rabbit for most of the movie and Godzilla's tail-slide fatality is one of my favorite goofy moments in the whole series. Godzilla vs. Megalon required me to rethink why I am watching these movies in the first place. I don't expect the films to be good, just that they keep me amused. This movie does as good as job of that, if not better, than almost every other movie from the era.

Personally, I would recommend watching the Mystery Science Theater version of Godzilla vs. Megalon. It's a riot. If your not convinced, here is the theme song for Jet Jaguar complete with subtitles. Enjoy.

5/10

Godzilla vs. Gigan (1972)

Kill every cockroach you see.

I'm finding it harder and harder to give objective scores to Godzilla films. The simple truth is that most of them sit somewhere around the same level of respective quality. Godzilla vs. Gigan is another film in the series that falls somewhere between mediocre and entertaining, but that's about as good as you can hope for with the original set of Godzilla films. On simple entertaining destruction and campyness alone, Godzilla vs. Gigan is one of the more enjoyable films of the era.

Get this, evil alien cockroaches from outer space are planning on taking over. They're going to mind-control some space monsters and it's up to Godzilla and random earth monster #154 to save the planet. Luckily, hippies are on Godzilla's side and, with their help, everything turns out OK. Jun Fukuda is back in the director's chair after a five year absence, but after the awesome shift that Godzilla vs. Hedorah, the previous film, might have inspired, Fukuda's direction is pretty disappointing. Godzilla vs. Gigan is commonly listed amongst the worse films in the series, but I just have trouble buying the hatred.

It's obvious that Godzilla vs. Gigan is not great. It's low budget, even for a Godzilla film, and the plot and dialog are pretty much incomprehensible, but it just packs enough awesome camp to keep me entertained. Stupid stuff like the monsters talking, which probably would have bothered me if I had watched a dub of it in English, and the corn-cob wielding Japanese hippie make me chuckle. The fights are pretty decent, even if there is a little too much stock footage being used, but the destruction Gigan and Ghidorah cause right after they appear is fantastic. That destruction sequence alone makes the rest of the movie almost worth watching.

OK, you're right. Godzilla vs. Gigan is not the series at it's best. The film has obvious flaws, but I'm going to be daring and say that I don't care. I would still rather watch this film over a vast majority of the other early movies. The mistakes and goof-ball writing make it kind of fun. I'm starting to look forward to getting out of the early era of Godzilla films. I'm finding them all quite underwhelming and familiar. Godzilla vs. Megalon is next and it's a pretty awful piece of film-making.

5/10

Godzilla vs. Hedorah (1971)

Godzilla jet pack powers activate!

Godzilla vs. Hedorah, A.K.A Godzilla vs. The Smog Monster,  is something of an anomaly as far as Godzilla movies go. By 1971, the franchise was more than ten years old and the last time that a Godzilla film had an overt agenda was Mothra vs. Godzilla in 1954. At this point, the series was also declining in popularity and quality. Godzilla vs. Hedorah signaled a radical shift for the series, one that showed legitimate promise if it had been continued, and it stands as one of the most unique and enjoyable entires in the series.

In the waters of Japan something horrible is growing. A organism from space lands in Japan, starts feeding on pollution and grows into the terrible monster Hedorah. Hedorah takes hits from Japan's industrial smog bong and  becomes an unstoppable force. It's up to Godzilla and the people of Japan to tag team the smog monster and save the world from it's horrid stench. Godzilla vs. Hedorah was the first, and only, film for director Yoshimitsu Banno. The long time producer of the series was hospitalized during the entire filming of the film and he was so appalled by what he saw. He promptly banned Banno from the series forever and canceled production on a sequel. Why exactly Banno was banned is a mystery to me. Godzilla vs. Hedorah is the first legitimately unique entry in the series and one of the most enjoyable movies overall.

Godzilla vs. Hedorah is a one of a kind blend between Godzilla and the counterculture movement. It's like an art house film with giant monsters fighting. Somewhere between the trippy acid rock music and the animated sequences, the film manages to be enjoyable and weird at the same time. The film is significantly darker than recent entires in the series as well. Godzilla vs. Hedorah actually shows people dying at the hands of the monsters rather than implying the fact. It's a little bit jarring but amazingly effective. The monster design is good and bad at the same time. Hedorah is distinctive and interesting, but his huge eyes give the monster a fairly silly feeling. The flying version of Hedorah is also not the most appealing of designs. Where Godzilla vs. Hedorah really succeeds though is in it's pacing. The film starts off quickly and the tension is always high. This is mostly a movie about the monsters. The people are just struggling to keep up and stay alive. Lastly, this is the first Godzilla movie, since the original, that I would actually say has decent production values. The film just looks so much better than the other entires in the series. Everything from effects to cinematography is a step above the previous chunk of films.

Godzilla vs. Hedorah is certainly one of my favorite entires in the series and one that I was absolutely surprised by. A film with the title Godzilla vs. the Smog Monster does't sound like it would be good, but I was happy to be wrong. The movie is exciting, well made and, most of all, different from the other movies in the series. It has singlehandedly revived my passion for watching the series and it's a Godzilla film that I can recommend to anyone who enjoys monster films. It's everything you want from Godzilla.

6/10

All Monsters Attack (1969)

The short shorts on a prepubescent boys was apparently a huge problem in Japan.

When I embarked on my mission to watch every Godzilla film, I knew there would be moments that it became difficult. They can't all be winners right? All Monsters Attack might be the biggest looser in the entire series. The movie is clearly aimed at children, but not in a tactful or appealing way, which makes it an absolute chore to watch for an adult.

All Monsters Attack has nothing to do with Godzilla. Seriously nothing. A young japanese boy who is being bullied, imagines that he can visit monster island and make friends with Godzilla and his son Manilla. Manilla sounds exactly like Barney and through the monsters the boy learns to be brave and to stand up to his bullies. This is one of the least successful films in the series financially and a absolute bomb for Godzilla originator Ishiro Honda.

Other than the fact Godzilla isn't real and never steps of monster island, the biggest problem with this movie is the fact that it uses literally 20 minutes of stock footage from previous films. I really never wanted to see Godzilla fight the giant crab again, but here it is just in case one time wasn't bad enough. While I get that the movie is a kids movie, there is just no excuse for the poor writing here. Everything is dumbed down to a level that makes my head throb and if I never have to watch All Monsters Attack again, I will be thankful.

2/10

Destroy All Monsters (1968)

Launch the Cooling Missile!

After taking several weeks off, I am back with the next installment of the Godzilla series and boy was it a silly one. Destroy All Monsters was a movie I saw as a kid and loved, but it had been nearly 15 years since I had last seen it. How does it stand-up now? Fairly good when all is said and done. Destroy All Monsters suffers from some of the same mistakes as previous movies, but also does quite a few things right.

Many years have passed since Godzilla and his brat were left frozen on an island and now we find him and every other monster on earth living on Monster Island. The parties there are wicked. Unfortunately, Aliens interfere again and mind control the monsters so that they will attack major cities. These aliens, which turn into some sort of rock when they die have only one plan, to take over earth for their own, surely devious purposes. It's up to our cast of people no one cares about to free the monsters from mind control and retake the earth. This time around, Ishiro Honda is back and his presence is certainly noticed and appreciated. The child-like feel of the last two films is gone and we're left with a fun, even if it is highly cheesy, monster adventure.

Like most of Honda's film, Destroy All Monsters falters because it spends way to much time with the people and the aliens. It starts off great. The monsters are immediately the focal point and less than 30 minutes in, cities are being trashed. It all is going so well and then suddenly the monsters, for all intents and purposes, disappear and the people have to take charge and carry the story. These people are boring, probably some of the most boring people in the entire series up to this point, and it's pretty difficult to get excited about what they do. Luckily, once they free the monsters from Alien control, we get an excellent, although a little lop-sided, brawl between Earth's monsters and Ghidorah. That brawl is one of the most fun fights in the series so far and the four monster destruction of Tokyo is the best city destruction scene since the first film.

All and all, the movie is entertaining for Godzilla fans and it offers some mild entertainment for non fans. At the very least, Destroy All Monsters is much better than some of the other movies in the series. While it does nothing to make the series a serious film, it is fun to watch. I know there are some bad movies on the horizon, the 1970's weren't the best years of Godzilla's life, but many of those movies were my favorites as a very young kid.

5/10

Son of Godzilla (1967)

Babies are stupid and ugly.

Son of Godzilla is the culmination of a major shift in tone for the Godzilla series. The Godzilla movies in the later 1960's were slowly but surely becoming less scary and sillier in an attempt to appeal to children. Son of Godzilla is one of the flagship movies for Godzilla as a kid's franchise. The lighter tone, the silly looking Godzilla, and his even sillier looking "son" Manilla, and the simplistic story all work to make the movie a lighthearted, enjoyable adventure, even if it isn't up to par with the rest of the series.

I'm not sure why I bother giving plot details for Godzilla movies, but it's a habit now. Let's see if you can guess what happens here. Godzilla shows up on an island to protect his son from giant praying mantids, yes mantids is the plural of mantis, and a big ass spider. All the while, the creatures on the island are interfering with some people trying to master climate control for the good of the world. If you want to know why this is a bad idea, look into the several snowstorms China has accidentally caused. Godzilla shows his son the basics of being a monster, but fails all along because his son clearly has down syndrome. Son of Godzilla is the second movie in the series directed by Jun Fukuda and a major step up from the abomination that is Godzilla vs. The Sea Monster. There were a few members of the routine Godzilla cast and crew involved here, but what makes the movie work is that it took a different route from most of the previous films.

Son of Godzilla is, for all intents and purposes, a family comedy with fire-breathing monsters in it. Manilla, Godzilla's son, is ugly and clumsy but one of the most oddly lovable creatures ever. Everything in Son of Godzilla is just so goofy and off-the-wall that it's hard not to smile most of the time. There is still a little too much character development for the people in the movie and the science is worse than ever, but what really shines through about Son of Godzilla is that it doesn't totally suck. It's fun to watch, in the same goofy way that King Kong vs. Godzilla is fun to watch, and it ends on a surprisingly touching note. The last scene of the movie is actually pretty great. I can't believe I just said that about Son of Godzilla, but it's certainly a better flick than I initially gave it credit for. Don't let my praise for it fool you, the movie is still only enjoyable for die-hard Godzilla fans. It would make a great introduction for young viewers and it is certainly enjoyable for adults too.

The highest praise I can give for Son of Godzilla is that I wouldn't dread watching it again. There are some fun fights, some really silly situations and a surprisingly touching element that makes the movie enjoyable. After the soul crushing Godzilla vs. The Sea Monster, I was worried that I would loose interest in watching the whole series. Thank you Son of Godzilla for not sucking. Next is the very awesome, from what I remember, Destroy All Monsters, and I am thrilled to be back on the horse. If you have kids, Son of Godzilla would be a nice way to introduce Godzilla. If not, you're better off sticking to some of the other movies.

4/10

Godzilla vs. The Sea Monster (1966)

Godzilla fights a giant lobster, seriously.

I don't know if it was the dubbing, the poor VHS tape recording or the movie itself, but Godzilla vs. The Sea Monster is just plain bad. Somewhere between the 45 minutes of monster-less story and the fact that Godzilla fights a giant lobster lies the reason why this movie sucks so hard, but I don't think I want to dig that deep to find it. Suffice to say, this is, without a doubt, the worst film in the series so far.

Let's see if I can remember what happens in Godzilla vs. The Sea Monster. Some dude gets lost at sea, his brother tries to find him, but he's attacked by a sea monster and ends up on a weird island where some shady people are making some shady stuff. About an hour later Godzilla fights a giant lobster and Mothra shows up to rescue everyone before the island explodes. Godzilla vs. The Sea Monster is directed by newcomer, Jun Fukuda and he certainly doesn't prove his qualifications here. I'm worried that he went on to direct four more films in the series, one of which I know is almost as bad as this one. The film has some familiar faces, it uses a lot of the same actors that were featured in previous films, and it brings back Mothra, for the last time until 1992. None of this matters though because the movie is truly awful.

Like all of the Godzilla movies, this one has a few great campy moments. Godzilla's game of tennis with the Sea Monster and the part where he rips off the monsters claw and claps it at him were moments that made me chuckle out loud, but those moments make up such a small portion of the film that you forget them amidst the sea of crap. Like many of the movies, Godzilla vs. The Sea Monster focuses way too hard on the human characters in the movie. This is always an issue, but unlike the last few movies, the characters here are just plain boring. Nothing about their lives or relationships is remotely interesting and you're left with an hour of plot development that doesn't make a whole lot of sense and is entirely boring. The other issue is that the movie just doesn't feel like a Godzilla movie. Godzilla vs. The Sea Monster was originally supposed to be a King Kong movie, but the filmmakers couldn't secure the rights. Rather than do some rewriting, they just replaced all instances of Kong in the script with Godzilla. What you end up with is a bunch of King Kong motifs and ideas, like Godzilla having a crush on a human girl, and a disjointed movie. The combination of these elements makes for a film that isn't even laughably bad.

This is a time to be very blunt about a movie. Don't ever watch Godzilla vs. The Sea Monster. Unless you have some silly ambition, like me, to watch every Godzilla movie out there, this is an easy one to avoid. While I would never watch Godzilla vs. The Sea Monster again, it is one of the few Godzilla films to get a Mystery Science Theater 3000 episode and I would suggest watching that instead.

2/10

Monster Zero (1965)

Trusting aliens is always a bad idea.

At some point in the mid-1960's something horrible started to happen to Godzilla movies. The started to get really bad. Before watching Monster Zero, I could never pinpoint what happened. I could never explain why Godzilla vs. Mothra was pretty good, but the movies from the late 60's and early 70's were really bad. The reason, simply put, is aliens. Not monsters from space, but actual, intelligent, humanoid aliens with the goal of conquering earth for their own purposes. While those aliens make their first on screen appearance here they don't immediately doom the series. Monster Zero, while little more than a B-rate science fiction film on the surface, is still an enjoyable member of the Godzilla franchise.

When last we left our fire-breathing hero, he had just defeated King Ghidorah with the help of Mothra and Rodan. We pick up an unspecified amount of time later, literally the year is 196X so your guess is as good as mine, and things are boring, without monsters and relatively pointless. An Asian dude and a Cracker go to space, meet some weird aliens on Planet X, not actually a planet, but a moon of Jupiter, and discover that King Ghidorah is there, blowing up rocks with his lightning breath. In return for a cure for cancer, the people of Earth agree to let the aliens borrow Godzilla and Rodan to fight King Ghidorah again. After they are victorious, and Godzilla does the greatest victory dancer ever, the monsters are nabbed by mind control and brought back to earth to conquer it for the water crazed aliens. In their time of need, man falls back on the questionable science of the Godzilla universe to defeat the aliens and break their mind control over the monsters. Monster Zero is the only film in the series to feature an American lead actor, Nick Adams, but that doesn't seem to change much since he's dubbed in Japanese and treated like a Japanese character. By this point, the Godzilla films were still popular with segments of the population, but the film is neither a critical or a major financial success. It remains one of the lesser known film in the series even though it's significantly better than some of the other movies.

In a lot of ways, Monster Zero has a lot in common with Godzilla vs. Mothra. Both films are action light, featuring less monster violence and destruction than I would like, but both movies are surprisingly fun to watch. Monster Zero takes the series into full on science fiction mode and it works fairly well this time. Even though the science fiction here is pretty bland and generic, the uniqueness of Godzilla and the other monsters prevents it from seeming too cookie-cutter. The film is paced briskly and has enough drama to keep it from getting boring. The monster fights, when we get them, are fun to watch, Godzilla's victory dance is one of the best moments in the series so far, and there are some surprisingly effective jokes. The problem with Monster Zero, and why it is not as good as Godzilla vs. Mothra, is that we spend far too much time with our characters here. We have painfully lame love stories, including the American falling for an alien woman, and several bits of character drama that serve no meaningful purpose. The last few movies had veered away from pigeonholing character drama into the movies, because the movies didn't need it, but Monster Zero is a step back in this respect.

I'm cautiously optimistic that the next few Godzilla movies will hold some surprises for me, but with the next film being Godzilla vs. The Sea Monster, which is in fact a giant lobster, my prospects don't look very good. Monster Zero is, at least, a solid entry in the series and one that I wouldn't mind seeing again. At least it features some great destruction and the greatest victory dance of all time.

5/10

Ghidorah, the Three-Headed Monster

Caterpillar jizz defeats space monsters too.

Coming right off the heels of Godzilla vs. Mothra, one of the better movies in the Godzilla cannon, Ghidorah, the Three-Headed Monster continues the previous films success by playing off a lot of the same ideas. While this is the first movie to come without an overt, political agenda, it doesn't really suffer because of it. In fact, it was a little refreshing to avoid the ideology in my monster movie. Ghidorah, the Three-Headed monster continues the pleasing science fiction and fantasy aspects that were introduced in Godzilla vs. Mothra and further builds the world that these monsters inhabit. This results in a generally pleasing experience even if it's steeped in camp and a little slow to develop.

After his previous defeat at the hands of Mothra, Godzilla finally re-emerges 45 minutes into a obnoxious detective movie and things start to get good. At the same time, the dreaded King Ghidorah, destroyer of planets, emerges from a meteor and starts shooting stuff with his lightning breath. It's up to Godzilla, Mothra and Rodan, a monster that looks like a reject bird, to join forces and fight King Ghidorah. If they don't, earth will be totally destroyed. The movie marks the first movie for recurring villain King Ghidorah, the first Godzilla movie for Rodan and the first time that Godzilla doesn't trash Japan. It's a fan favorite for these reasons and more, but it never really transcended it's cult nature to impress the masses or the critics.

Ghidorah, the Three-Headed Monster has a lot in common with the previous film in the series Godzilla vs. Mothra. It is a direct sequel, bringing back Mothra and Godzilla exactly as they were left off, and it also maintains much of the same tone and charm that made its predecessor so appealing. The movie expands on the world that Godzilla and Mothra inhabit, adding new monsters, like Rodan, and the idea of aliens and space monsters, to create the Godzilla world that most people know. If Godzilla vs. Mothra was the first step towards building a world, Ghidorah, The Three-Headed Monster was the completion of that work. The monsters here have real personalities finally, especially Godzilla, Mothra and Rodan, and the monster fights are hilariously campy and entertaining. They play kind of like Three Stooges acts except the Stooges are wearing giant rubber dinosaur suits. This results in fight scenes that are, sometimes, laugh out loud funny and very enjoyable. The movie also manages to avoid bludgeoning the audience with some sort of political agenda. While some the films were successful in this respect, it was boring and uninteresting in most of them. While the film-makers made the right decision to leave out the moral lesson and the unnecessary love story, they failed to cut the plot in key places.

The biggest problem with Ghidorah, the Three-Headed Monster is that the first 40 minutes of the movie are dull and tedious. Once again, we are introduced to more characters than is necessary and burdened with too much plot development. It's not that the characters here are poorly written or portrayed, it's just that they aren't what I came to see. For some reason, we have a lot of manufactured drama to keep the plot development rolling instead of just using the actual drama of the giant monsters that are on the loose. The movie also suffers from an extremely abrupt ending. Just as the fight is starting to get interesting, Ghidorah just flies away. There's no back and forth here. Ghidorah is winning, then he is loosing and he flees. After that we see Mothra returning to her Island and we learn nothing of what Godzilla and Rodan do. Maybe this will be addressed in the next movie, but it felt like an odd way to end the film.

Ghidorah, the Three-Headed Monster is a worthy follow up to Godzilla vs. Mothra and another exciting addition to the series. I was worried that, after the huge drop off in quality that Godzilla Raids Again and King Kong vs. Godzilla represented, the series was going to be painful to watch. I didn't want to have the memories of my childhood crushed quite like that and it's good to see that there is still a lot to enjoy in these movies. Ghidorah, the Three-Headed Monster is goofy, fun and almost exactly what any Godzilla fan could ask for. You might be best off skipping the first half of the movie, but the fights towards the end will bring a smile to the face of anyone who has ever enjoyed a cheesy movie.

5/10

Godzilla vs. Mothra (1964)

The answer the Godzilla question was always caterpillar jizz.

In a lot of respects, Godzilla vs. Mothra is as lame as you would expect it to be. Godzilla is a fire breathing, irradiated dinosaur from the bottom of the ocean and Mothra is, well, a large moth. Even though the two monsters don't make for the most exciting fights, the non-monster aspects of Godzilla vs. Mothra are, by far, the best since the original film. The themes in the movie are quite similar to those in King Kong vs. Godzilla, but they are better executed and more interesting here. What helps this movie stand out is a sense of wonder and fantasy that the other movies lack and a simple, to the point, agenda that isn't muddled by too much plot and character development.

A Typhoon washes a giant egg ashore in Japan and the local people do what any reasonable group of people would do with an egg the size of a building; they sell it. The people who buy it, obviously the evil, cold-hearted, money grubbing capitalists, refuse to give the egg back to it's true owners, the people of Infant Island, represented by singing, Japanese leprechauns, and the monster Mothra. Just as the leprechauns are returning home to Infant Island to turn their back on the human race, Godzilla busts out of the ground and starts wrecking shit. It's up to two journalists and a scientist to get Mothra's assistance against Godzilla or Japan will be crushed by the drunken, stumbling monster for the fourth time. This is another cross-over film for Godzilla, Mothra had appeared in her own Toho film a few years earlier and it signals the last time that Godzilla would be the villain of a movie until 1984. The film performed well at the box office and it commonly regarded as one of the better Godzilla films of the era.

While almost every Godzilla movie doubles as some sort of political satire, most of them are laughable at best. Unlike the criticism of corporations in King Kong vs. Godzilla, which was extremely poorly executed, the political agenda of Godzilla vs. Mothra is surprisingly decent. While it's still heavy handed, it's treated more seriously and it pays off. It's actually helpful that the characters are archetypes rather than fully formed individuals because the movie doesn't need to spend time developing characters that are under 200 feet tall. By pushing the characters aside a little bit, the movie gets to spend time world building and creating effective atmosphere and plot. This is the first Godzilla movie that feels like it belongs to an unique universe or in a series of movies. Part of this is due to the fact that Mothra is a fully formed character, already having been the subject of another film and another part of it is the fact that Godzilla finally seems to fit into a world full of monsters rather than just showing up once in awhile to break stuff. The world these monsters inhabit is an interesting one too. The cult of Mothra and the tiny twins that speak for her are really interesting and a breath of fresh air in a series that seemed to be stagnant only four movies in. The elements feel like something out of a fantasy movie and, because of this, the movie has a charm to it that the previous movies lacked.

Don't let my praise of the movie fool you. Godzilla vs. Mothra is still a pretty silly movie. The fights between Mothra and Godzilla aren't all that exciting and the movie is full of cliches. Mothra doesn't really have any exceptional powers and it makes for boring action. Even her most powerful weapon, the poison dust, is kind of an unexciting finisher. On the plot front, the movie drops in cliches at really strange times. Why we learn that a bunch of school children are stranded on the island where Godzilla is going will never be clear. We don't need any extra drama when a giant, fire-breathing dinosaur is on the loose. The film also features a wildly anti-climatic ending. It's basically five minutes of big caterpillars spraying goo on Godzilla. I don't find that exciting for the same reason I don't find bukake arousing. The fact that the movie falls off in the end is one of the big reasons it fails in the long run.

Lots of things make Godzilla vs. Mothra an entertaining and, overall, decent entry in the Godzilla series. It's a little light on action, but it's not bogged down by too much unnecessary character development. The films in the series have been slowly, but surely, getting better and I'm excited to enter a whole new frontier with Godzilla as the hero rather than the villain. It's also nice to know that I've seen Godzilla fight one of the lamer monsters on the list and it didn't make the film an unwatchable mess. Godzilla vs. Mothra is a film that is great for Godzilla fans, but it doesn't make a great entry point in the series. You won't be wowed by the action or the plot here, so it's a bad place for someone to begin. For fans, it's actually one of the better movies because it just feels so different from what's normally offered from the series.

5/10

King Kong vs. Godzilla (1962)

King Kong tickles Godzilla with his lightning fingers.

If you want to know where Godzilla movies got their camp, look no further than King Kong vs. Godzilla. While the first two films attempt to take the the monster seriously, with varying degrees of success, the third movie in the series just throws caution to the wind and makes one of the funniest and campiest entries in the series. While nothing about King Kong vs. Godzilla could be called good, the movie is a blast to watch and it's full of hilariously bad moments.

After Godzilla's last bout with questionable science, he busts out of his ice prison and returns to Japan with a vengeance. Simultaneously, a Japanese pharmaceutical company visits the island of racial stereotypes and captures King Kong who parties a little too hard after winning a cage match with a giant octopus. King Kong is brought to Japan where he and Godzilla decide the island isn't big enough for two dudes in rubber suits after all. There's a lot of brawling, an ingenious plan to airlift Kong with hot air balloons, and King Kong's lightning powered fingertips. The film was a smash hit in Japan, it made more money than any other film in the series, and it single handily revived Godzilla as a movie star.

As a kid, I owned a copy of the movie and watched it almost every week for several years, but this viewing marks the first time I have seen the Japanese version of the movie. Normally that wouldn't be an issue, but the American version of the movie differs greatly from the Japanese one. In a lot of ways, the Japanese version of the film is far superior. While most of the overt humor was cut out of the US release, it's all there in the Japanese version. This constant stream of comedy and humor gives just the right mood for the movie. There is nothing serious about King Kong vs. Godzilla and the Japanese version of the film pushes that point home. There is just a little more than just monster fighting going on here. The movie is a fairly basic and simplistic satire of capitalism, even if it's not a very interesting one, but at least they tried. The place that King Kong vs. Godzilla really succeeds though is in giving the monsters personalities of their own. The foundation for the later films is that Godzilla is the main character and this is the first time where the monster seems to fit this bill. Overall, as a film watching experience, the movie is fun and exactly what I wanted to get out of a Godzilla movie.

While the movie is great as a campy monster movie, it's really an embarrassing piece of film-making. The monsters in the movie look outrageous, their fights are awkwardly choreographed and everything about the movie feels sloppy. Putting the movie in color really makes the movie's special effects look even worse and the King Kong suit in particular is one of the dumbest looking things I have ever seen. The characters are goofy rather than funny and none of them stick out as particularly interesting or memorable. One of the few places that the America version of the film succeeds is that it cuts out a lot of the useless character development. There are a lot of people in King King vs. Godzilla and most of them do absolutely nothing.

Revisiting a film from your childhood can be a challenging experience. Expectations, memories and simple nostalgia can cloud your judgement or alter your perceptions. King Kong vs. Godzilla is a movie that I will always love, but it is, and always has been, a bad movie. It's an hour and a half of questionable film-making that somehow still amounts to an enjoyable experience. It's certainly better than Godzilla Raids Again, and a large portion of the movies made after it, but it will forever be one of the silliest movies ever made.

4/10

Godzilla Raids Again (1955)

Stopping two pyromaniacs in rubber suits from trashing your model train set requires twice the faulty science.

Everyone seems to be talking about sequels nowadays. Movies are spawning 4 or 5 sequels, coming out a year apart, in a never ending string of franchises and poor, rushed film-making. This isn't a new trend though. Godzilla Raids Again is probably the most rushed, cash-in, sequel ever made. Released less than a year after the first movie's success, the film is a really poor follow up to the pleasant surprise that Godzilla turned out to be. The film, while it introduces some of the hallmarks of the later entries in the series, struggles in almost every area that the first film succedes in. Character, pacing and simple creativeness all seem to be thrown out the window in favor of a quick and dirty follow-up.

You might be asking yourself, what exactly is Godzilla Raids Again. If you've never heard of it, that's probably because it was never released in America under that title. The film, which was released in a bastardized, dubbed form in America under the name Gigantis the Fire Monster, is the second film in the Godzilla series, a direct sequel to the first film. On a remote island, two pilots discover a new Godzilla doing battle with a 200 foot tall hedgehog. The new creature, and my favorite Godzilla monster, Angurius harbors a prehistoric grudge for Godzilla, probably over some dino-bitch Godzilla stole from him. The monsters give Osaka the same treatment that Toyko gets in the first film, but this time it's filmed in fast-forward. Their wrestling match and the subsequent resolution of our plot require two times the questionable science, including some mind-boggling physics and some revisionist paleontology, and more bottle rockets than you can shake a fist at. The movie did well at the box office, but was, unsurprisingly, shunned by critics and fans of the series.

The main reason for this shunning is probably the lack of creativity with the second film. In a lot of ways, it's a simple re-hash of the first film, except that this time there are two monsters. The new monster is, surprise, pretty much the same creature as Godzilla except that he was created from a different fictional dinosaur. Angurius, although I have professed my love for him many times, is an unremarkable accompaniment for Godzilla and both monsters lack any form of distinct personalty. In the first movie, this could be ignored because of the fact that Godzilla was just a simple force of destruction. In this movie, the extra monster creates a layer of complexity that wasn't present the first time around. Neither monster ends up being all that interesting and their show down in Osaka is boring as a result. This issue gets remedies in later films as the monsters become characters instead of simple, mindless creatures. This, coupled with the movies poor pacing and unremarkable characters makes it, unfortunately, boring to watch.

The pacing in the Godzilla Raids Again is really odd. The showdown between Angurius and Godzilla, which is certainly fun to watch, takes place in the middle of the movie. Once that conflict is resolved, all we're left with is underwhelming characters and a surprisingly uncreative solution to the Godzilla issue. The characters are really the big problem here. Most of them can be seen as inferior versions of the original cast and the one real compelling character, Takashi Shimura's Yamane, only appears briefly before disappearing entirely. With our boring personalities, we also have some odd, misplaced humor, and some convoluted character relationships that bog us down even more. All this leads to a fairly interesting first half and a painfully dull conclusion. While the solution in the first film is laughably silly, it at least carries some emotional weight and creates for interesting character dilemmas. In Godzilla Raids Again, we get a equally silly solution, but without any real conflict or drama. The solution in Godzilla Raids Again is silly in a different way than the first film. Rather than being a result of absurd science, it's just a matter of simple physics and and common sense. How exactly do you bury a 200 foot tall monster who breathes fire under ice?

While I have a lot of negative things to say about Godzilla Raids Again, it's still an important part of the Godzilla cannon. It's the first movie that features a monster fight and it's problems lead directly to the changes in the series that make the later movies worth watching. It's also still fun to watch because it's just so silly. Godzilla didn't reappear for seven years, but his return in, the glorious, King Kong vs. Godzilla is a film I loved as a kid. In fact, it's the first Godzilla movie I cried in. While that movie waits another week, I will remember Godzilla Raids Again as the Godzilla movie that shouldn't have been made and one I won't ever bother to watch again.

3/10

Godzilla (1954)

The only way to stop a pyromaniac in a rubber suit from destroying your model train set is with faulty science.

I thought that my fist viewing in my latest series, Go-Go Godzilla!, would serve two purposes. First, it would allow me to finally see the original Godzilla film, something I have been meaning to do for ages, and, second, it would knock another film off the 1001 movies to see list. I just assumed a film as pervasive in the world-wide pop-culture as Godzilla would have made the list, but I was wrong in my assumption. Other than being the second glaring omission from the 1001 movies list, the first being The Triplets of Belleville, Godzilla is a surprisingly profound and fairly exciting movie.

There's pretty much no one in the world who doesn't know what Godzilla is and the first movie gives you everything you could expect from the monster. Awakened from his deep-sea slumber, Godzilla, draped in American flags and spitting the righteous flames of constitutional freedom, single handedly destroys every Honda and Toyota he sees. The only thing that can prevent the world-wide dominance of the American auto-industry code-named Godzilla, which translates literally into "buy ford or perish'" in Japanese, is the collective minds of Japan's finest scientists. The same great minds that gave us the violin playing robot, the flute playing robot and the sex robot must come up with an answer before Godzilla demolishes every model train set they have. Godzilla, even thought it was lambasted by Japanese critics, went on to be a massive success. The film has spawned 28 sequels and is one of the most popular film series' worldwide. 

While certainly dated on the special effects front, nothing made in the 1950's is going to look great by today's standards, Godzilla was certainly an achievement for the time. Nothing will convince you that it isn't just a guy in a suit, but while Tokyo burns, it just doesn't matter. The destruction, once the movie gets there is glorious. Godzilla goes on a spiteful, building smashing, tear through downtown Tokyo and it's a blast to watch. The sequence is not without it's profound moments too. The mother holding her daughters and as flames rain down, telling them that they will be with daddy soon, and the scenes of the aftermath, ruined Tokyo, the hospitals, memorials, children with radiation poisoning are all extremely powerful. The film is clearly an expression of the scars that the bombs left and I was surprised at how powerful that expression was. This is also echoed in the choice of our semi-hero Serizawa. He is required to make a decision over his discovery, a weapon at least equal to the destructive power of the atomic bomb, and his struggles and character journey is really intriguing. In fact, most of the characters in the film are surprisingly well portrayed and written. This is a breath of fresh air when compared to the bottomless pit of suck that the character work in the later film's. Special mention should be made of the score as well. The rousing theme's were a pleasant surprise and they've been stuck in my head for awhile.

While all these traits are remarkable, the problem is that almost all of them occur in the second half of the film. The first half of the movie is a generally underwhelming, lumbering gargantuan that doesn't really entertain or engage. The suspense of the monster didn't really click for me, maybe it's just from experience with the series, but I couldn't wait for the real destruction to start. The pacing was an issue, but the film also failed to make certain character relationships clear. Scenes that helped establish our characters and their relationships were cut to pick up the pace, but that made it difficult to follow at times. While I'm not sure a better balance could have been found, it still bothered me that I never really know who some of these people were. In the long run, the movie still worked despite it's short-comings because you didn't need to know who these people were since the main attraction was Godzilla himself and the wonderful destruction. 

The original Godzilla movie has been on my list for a long time and it feels good to finally sit down and watch it. Suffice to say, I was not disappointed in what it offered and I am giggling in excitement over the next Godzilla movie I will be watching, 1955's Godzilla Raids Again, because it features my favorite Godzilla monster, Anguirus. For those who don't like camp or cheesy, the original Godzilla may be the only film in the series worth watching. It's a really excellent expression of the Japanese psyche, post atomic bomb, and it fits the textbook definition of a must see movie. Godzilla is a pop-culture icon and, without seeing at least one Godzilla movie, I would say your movie watching experience is not complete. If any movie deserves to be added to the 1001 movies to see list, this is it. See it anyway!

7/10

Go! Go! Godzilla! #1: So It Begins...

Go! Go! Godzilla!

Cryptic enough for you? Today is the day that, as a 23 year old man, that I complete an essential piece of my childhood. What could that be? Nothing less than watching every single Godzilla film ever made. Where did this passion come from? I'm not sure. It might be from my childhood love of the Blue Oyster Cult. The only thing I know for sure is that I have cried in no less than two Godzilla movies and that I may have had my first sexual experience with a VHS tape of Godzilla vs. Megalon. There are 29 Godzilla films, 28 of them made by the Toho company of Japan and one made by Roland Emmerich, and I intend to watch every single one of them. Can I do it? You bet your giant radiated lizard I can!

1. Godzilla 7/10

2. Godzilla Raids Again 3/10

3. King Kong vs. Godzilla 4/10

4. Mothra vs. Godzilla 5/10

5. Ghidorah, the Three-Headed Monster 5/10

6. Invasion of Astro-Monster 5/10

7. Godzilla vs. the Sea Monster 2/10

8. Son of Godzilla 4/10

9. Destroy All Monsters 5/10

10. All Monsters Attack 2/10

11. Godzilla vs. Hedorah 6/10

12. Godzilla vs. Gigan 5/10

13. Godzilla vs. Megalon 5/10

14. Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla 3/10

15. Terror of Mechagodzilla 3/10

16. Godzilla 6/10

17. Godzilla vs. Biollante

18. Godzilla vs. King Ghidorah

19. Godzilla vs. Mothra

20. Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla II

21. Godzilla vs. SpaceGodzilla

22. Godzilla vs. Destoroyah

23. Godzilla 2000

24. Godzilla vs. Megaguirus

25. Godzilla, Mothra and King Ghidorah: Giant Monsters All-Out Attack

26. Godzilla Against Mechagodzilla

27. Godzilla: Tokyo S.O.S.

28. Godzilla: Final Wars

29. Godzilla (US Version)

Stay tuned for all the rubber suit wearing, Tokyo stomping, fire breathing, asteroid blasting madness as I subject myself to roughly 60 hours of some of the finest film-making in cinema history.