Godzilla Review

Godzilla review.

This Godzilla review is likely to look a lot different than most of the franchise. Godzilla has become a defender against the kaiju who threaten us. He’s become a movie star with giant summer blockbuster action movies sold based on his name. He’s been on t-shirts and lunchboxes and immortalized in action figures and cartoons. But that’s a far cry from how it all began.

Classic movie reviews will contain spoilers.

Godzilla

Directed by Ishiro Honda

Screenplay by Takeo Murata and Ishiro Honda

Starring Akira Takarada, Momoko Kochi, Akihiko Hirata and Takashi Shimura

Godzilla Review

What do you do with a problem like Gojira? That’s the central question of the 1954 monster movie masterpiece Godzilla. There is memorable large scale (for the time) spectacle mixed in…but that’s not what Godzilla is about. The monster’s destruction is the why…the conversation about how to deal with it is the what.

Nuclear weapon testing unleashes an unstoppable monster upon Japan. The country looks for a solution to the beast’s attacks as it makes its way further into populated areas. One scientist may have found a solution…but at what cost?

Godzilla was released a little over nine years after the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. These world altering acts of destruction coat every frame of this monster movie. Godzilla has a clear message, and its monster is the delivery system. Born out of nuclear testing, the 160 plus foot monster destroys everything in its path. It appears indestructible, uncontainable.

There are some stories that can only work to their greatest effect in the time and place they are told. Scream needed to be made in 1996 because it was the exact right moment in the time of technology, societal generation, and horror film history. Change any one of those and it won’t be as effective. Set it now and the idea that cell phones let a person call you from anywhere isn’t new and scary…it’s a way of life. Make it about anyone but the tail end of Generation X and the characters will all have different motivations and fears. Existing 18 years after Halloween makes it the only time that the characters and target audience literally grew up with slasher movie dominating horror.

Godzilla had to be made in Japan following World War II. It’s for a much more important reason than getting the timing of a slasher movie right…but you get my point. This movie, and its giant fire breathing metaphor, exist because of something terrible. Despite later installments turning into camp and monster throwdowns, it also exists as a warning that this could happen again.

It starts on a relatively smaller scale. Ships are being destroyed in the same area over and over and no one knows why. Investigators head to a nearby island where they are told stories of a massive monster named Godzilla. The creature will come to shore looking for food when it has run out of sea life to eat. We eventually see this monster for ourselves sticking out over a mountain top.

Most of Godzilla involves a debate regarding what to do as the monster makes his way toward Tokyo. They try to destroy it with depth charges and bullets…but nothing can seem to harm it. Dr. Yamane is adamant that the creature should not be killed and instead studied. The secrets to its survival of nuclear attack being of obvious great interest. Everything from what the public should be told to erecting defensive measures is up for debate.

Yamane’s daughter Emiko had been engaged to a colleague of her father, Dr. Serizawa. She broke it off because she was in love with a ship captain named Hideto. When she goes to see her ex-fiancé, he reveals to her that he has discovered something incredible. Emiko promises to never tell anyone what he is working on, but Godzilla’s fiery destruction of Tokyo leaves her no choice. She tells Hideto that Serizawa has created an Oxygen Destroyer. A weapon capable of destroying the oxygen in water and kill anything inside of it.

Emiko and Hideto run to Serizawa to beg him to let them use the Oxygen Destroyer to stop Godzilla. Serizawa is terrified that should anyone know of its power they will use it as the next great weapon of mass destruction. Although he is conflicted and tortured at the idea…he eventually gives in. Serizawa destroys all his notes and research so that only he will be able to construct another weapon.

The mission is a success, at great cost. Godzilla is destroyed in a thrilling underwater scene, but Serizawa, knowing that he alone possesses the knowledge required to create a weapon so terrible, chooses to sacrifice himself so that his work can never be used by anyone again. A final warning about continued use of nuclear weapons unleashing more of the monster’s kind is given before we go to credits.

Often in these kaiju movies the human characters are the weak points. Not so in Godzilla. Emiko, Serizawa, Hideto and Dr. Yamane are all fantastic characters. Serizawa’s tortured state of believing that he created something that could be used for good…but knowing it will be used for evil, is heart-breaking. I don’t think the character has ever been topped in these types of movies. Again, aided by the time and place that this story is unfolding.

The monster’s rampages look dated, for sure. Still a lot of the miniature work is a lot of fun to look at. Sometimes it looks too goofy…usually when they are depicting a car accident. But the miniatures and monster projections give Godzilla a distinct feel that stands the test of time even if the effects do not. There’s real horror happening in these scenes…and real loss.

We see a news reporter broadcasting his final moments knowing the monster is about to destroy them. A mother holding her children close, assuring them that they will be with their late father soon. A child screaming as her mother is taken away on a stretcher. Godzilla may concern itself most with the discussion of avoiding destruction, but it does not turn its head away from the reality of it.

Scare Value

Godzilla is an appropriately heartbreaking movie. A not-so-subtle warning about the fallout from weapons of mass destruction and the danger of their continued use. The damage Godzilla leaves in his wake represents the damage caused by these weapons. It’s all metaphor here, of course. Bombs unleased the monster and the monster did the damage. Like I said…not so subtle. But also, necessary. Godzilla wears his “King of the Monsters” moniker proudly. He has from the very start…just in a very different way than he would come to be thought. But those are Godzilla reviews for another time. This Godzilla review? Masterpiece.

5/5