Director: Ishiro Honda
Year: 1969
Country: Japan
Alternate Titles: Oru Kaiju Daishingeki; Godzilla’s Revenge; All Monsters on Parade
Genre: Kaiju
Plot:
Bullied at school, a young boy spends his days building a special computer he believes will take him to Monster Island, where he gets to interact with various monsters. Befriending Godzilla's son Minya, he learns that the two are quite similar, even down to being picked on by a larger bully. When he retreats to his usual abandoned warehouse to escape the bullies, he finds two robbers have also utilized the warehouse as their hideout, and he is soon discovered and tied up. Once again thinking back to being on the island with Minya, he helps the monster overcome his bully, and in turn, is helps himself in learning how to overcome the robbers and then his own bullies.
Review:
This is quite a disappointing film and is one of the lowest points in the entire series. Among the factors here is a setup which is the film’s greatest ploy, becoming a fairly entertaining kiddie movie. By featuring a title character that can be easily relatable, the young children may be able to see themselves on-screen, and the adventures shared will be no doubt enticing. By endowing both the little boy and Minya with the same traits, the scenario plays out to both entertain and also to teach a series of lessons that are never heavy-handed or condescending, keeping them in amazement throughout the entire film. These lessons on bullying, humanity, and family are quite prominent with how everything is handled involving the connection with the family dynamics at play within his household and the corresponding setup involving Godzilla and his son teaching him to stand up to his bullies is incredibly strong providing some intriguing elements showing how it all comes together. The most outrageous part, though, is the humanizing of the monsters, especially Minya. When he shows the ability to talk, then it just becomes completely absurd and is so juvenile and kiddie-ish that there's no real point in it being there, and as such is the root cause of the resentment towards the film, though there are a few other ones as well.
Outside of this, this does have some good points. In the new scenes, Godzilla still looks quite nice and again makes for a distinctive and powerful version. It does feature a rather action-packed story, always moving forward with some kind of sequence showing monsters battling each other or the military that will no doubt keep the younger ones entertained. That the film is aimed squarely at the most discriminating adolescent crowd and features so many different ideas that it really takes a lot to get through it. As it relies so much on stock footage, most notably on films that were cheap and on the lower rung to begin with but also contained different Godzilla designs both from each other and from the one used in the new footage here, results in his appearance changing from scene to scene and is quite obvious and disorienting, even to the target audience. They will pick up on them right away, not the kind of factor that will win over those who it was made for. The bullying monster, Gabara, is also a terrible disappointment, an upright ogre with a pug-like face, long neck, a glowing horn on its head, lack of tail and crudely designed body and legs leave nothing to fear of this being and his scenes come together without a real sense of menace, reducing most of the rest of the film with it. While not ridiculous, the film is really lackluster.
Overview: *.5/5
While not the worst one in the series, it's really close and contains many flaws that even the most hardcore Godzilla fan would have trouble getting past. Only use this as an introductory film for little children, as it shows the wonder and awe with an approach more at their level, and also for fans of the Gamera series as well.
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