Director: Ishirō Honda
Cast: Akira Takarada, Momoko Kōchi, Akihiko Hirata, Takashi Shimura
Have I Seen It Before: I want to say yes, but in my dim memory, I might have seen any number of films in the series, or even parts of Godzilla: King of the Monsters (1956). I’ll be honest, the series never meant all that much to me. Godzilla Minus One (2023) changed all that.
Did I Like It: No review of the film will be complete without talking about suitmation. Essentially abandoned by even the powers-that-be at Toho by now, and having spent years looking blissfully silly to almost everyone, there is something to be said for the innovations on display here, to say nothing of the fact that of all large-scale effects photography, climbing into a rubber suit seems like the only one in which there is a risk of dehydration on the part of the performers. Here, it is put to far greater effect than I am guessing you are imagining. The trick is making sure scale works for you, not against you. The less your Kaiju interacts with buildings that can’t help but look like carboard boxes, the better. Setting a scene in a giant, radioactive footprint of your monster at least helps me believe that the creature might actually be that big. I was prepared to laugh at the special effects, but they are surprisingly effective, even before I start grading on a curve for 70 years hence.
The movie’s political message is lean, and well argued, especially for a concept that involves a giant lizard breathing fire down on the world. If indeed I had any complaint its that the metaphor takes a front seat here, as opposed to in Godzilla Minus One, where the human element leapfrogs both the post-war meditations and the monster that wrought them.