Director: Ishiro Honda
Year: 1965
Country: Japan/USA
Alternate Titles: Kaijū Daisensō; The Great Monster War; Godzilla vs. Monster Zero
Genre: Kaiju
Plot:
Exploring the newly-discovered Planet X, two astronauts soon find the planet inhabited by a race living underground through fear of a giant monster, King Ghidorah. Offering humanity medical advances in exchange for using Godzilla and Rodan to fend off the creature, they return and the offer is accepted. Taking them back to Planet X when Ghidorah attacks, he is successfully driven away. Living up to their end of the bargain, they send the astronauts back with a tape containing instructions for the medicine but instead reveal the whole event was a ruse to put all three monsters under their control and hold the world hostage. When an inventor discovers a weakness in the alien's signal through a device he created, the humans free the monsters from alien control and battle it out for the fate of the world.
Review:
This has a couple of really good ideas in it. Among the better features here is a move into a far more obvious bent toward science fiction than any other entry in the series until that point. Before becoming a series staple, the idea of the alien invasion plot attempted here is original and unique at this particular point with this one coming off quite nicely involving the trip to the foreign planet, meeting the inhabitants living there, and the secrecy of their plans slowly getting unraveled. Realizing the ruse and their devious nature trying to take over the planet for a rather reasonable motivation that plays out like a real B-movie of that time, the mix of scientists and military personnel working together to investigate the way of stopping the invaders carries this one nicely throughout the second half. The clock being implemented against them and the discovery of the one weapon to finally stop the invasion adds a lot of stakes to everything and has some rather solid scenes getting this spelled out. The inclusion of futuristic weaponry, with the A-Cycle Light Ray generators used here, are among the most creative ones utilized and attribute some crossover appeal to the more science fiction-oriented fans out there.
There’s also a lot of fun to be had when this one starts getting to the monster action. Again, Ghidorah fares quite spectacularly, being essentially the same as before and looking every bit as good here. Getting in a spectacular scene of city destruction in a small city where it actually uses the conventional method of city destruction that's not just repeat shots from the original, and getting into several fights he looks great all the way. Godzilla isn't that bad, more human-like than ever with a larger, more-rounded head and jaws, thinned eyebrows, and legs spread wider out, giving them a more columnar, human shape that helps him nicely. He gets in some great scenes, including several matte shots of him rampaging in the background while the populace flees in the foreground that come off quite convincingly, and his city destruction isn't that bad getting in some major damage to the structures as the mind-control aspect of the aliens means he can revert back a bit to his menacing side from before. The other special effects, including the outer-space and Planet X sequences, and the several military campaigns to stop the monsters hold a certain charm to them from the others found in the other films as is the fight at the end. It’s not really much different from the first film except Mothra isn't present and therefore Ghidorah isn't cocooned, but it's still great to see Rodan pick up Godzilla and fly into Ghidorah. It's all quite entertaining in a way.
This here has some serious flaws that are hard to ignore. The main issue here is the monster humor is still apparent, including a rather infamous scene where Godzilla performs a jumping dance on Planet X. It is highly embarrassing and very absurd to see such a maneuver occurring and is in very bad taste as they make Godzilla look cheap. The film also suffers a few bad monster looks that don't gel as Godzilla especially has a major flaw in his appearance. The body is thin with no defined shape, appearing sack-like and unnatural, and the fingers are grouped together losing a lot of its menace. Rodan still doesn't look that good, with the head enlarged and often equipped with a large bump in front of his eye that proves quite distracting. The tail is redesigned, with the reptilian one replaced with a fan-like tail that doesn't look good. The aliens are also too campy to take seriously, with their outfits looking quite bad and not at all something that would inspire fear. They take it seriously, but the aliens are too cheesy and campy that it's hard to take them seriously. These flaws knock it down a couple notches.
Overview: ****/5
With as much to like as despise about it, this is really more of a guilty pleasure in the series as it's too flawed to be great but too enjoyable to be dismissed. Its mediocrity places it squarely in the middle of the pack and is heartily recommended for 60s Sci-Fi fans or those who have to see the entire series while those turned off by these factors might want to heed caution.
Comments
Post a Comment