Gojira...the Original King of the Monsters (Film Review)

If you haven't been hiding under a rock for the past fifty-something years, chances are that you've seen at least one Godzilla movie, or at the very least a few snippets. Typically these films are simply sheer camp, with extremely fake-looking models and horribly dubbed dialogue. No matter when they were made, there is a maniacal sense of fun to them.

Not so with the very first movie, 'Gojira'. A more subtle and serious work, it opens up with mysteriously sinking ships, destroyed coastal villages on Oda Island and baffled scientists. After a while, Japan's best paleontologist declares that the monster is...an intermediate creature between terrestrial dinosaurs and marine animals; a Jurassic-era creature that lived 2 million years ago (Only off by 142 million years, as stated on Internet Movie Database). Because of American testing of nuclear weapons in the Pacific, the beast has not only recieved a ridiculously high dose of radiation, but is now pretty pissed off.


What also distinguishes this film from all of it's successors is that it revolves much less on Godzilla's actual presense, but his toll on human lives. The scenes of destruction are surprisingly well-made, but the typical sense of detatchment seen in most disaster films is completely absent. After all, 'Gojira' was only made nine years after the destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki; and all the war scars are highly visible. People grumble about having to go into shelters 'again'; makeshift hospitals can barely keep up with all of the injured; a mother comforts her three children during Godzilla's rampage, assuring them that they'll be seeing daddy soon. 'Gojira' is not a run-of-the-mill Cold War monster flick, but closer to an anti-nuclear weapon statement. It commands far more emotional depth than the average, CGI-bloated Hollywood disaster movie ever could.

In other words, 'Gojira' is completely worth it. Rent it, buy it, whatever you can, go see it. The majority of monster movies, the monster remains on the screen and goes out with the click of your remote. This one leaves the sense that the monster, especially for a fifties Japanese audience, lurks far outside of the screen; and will keep returning if humanity does not change it's ways.

RATING: ***** out of *****