All Monsters Attack

Yo, Ishirō Honda is back with a movie about Godzilla! Kinda. It's mostly about Minilla and a little kid. But Haruo Nakajima is, of course, back as Godzilla for the few minutes of original monster footage they shot for this movie. Let's just get to it.

 

If You Haven't Seen it Before

- The opening credits are new, showing monsters doing monster stuff before staff are named. It's fun.

- Children walk down the street singing a song about baby Godzilla, Minilla, before being attacked by a bully named Gabara.

- The main character is a little boy named Ichiro who dreams of going to Monster Island. He spends a lot of time alone as his parents work a lot.

- He grabs a toy from his closet and day dreams about going to Monster Island and watching Godzilla fight Kamacuras and Ebirah in reused footage from Son of Godzilla.

- He falls down a hole and meets Minilla, who literally talks to him about the giant monster Gabara, who is bullying Minilla. Godzilla won't take down Gabara for his son because he thinks Minilla needs to learn to fight his own battles.

- We now rewatch one of the battles between Godzilla and Ebirah, as well as G vs giant monster Kumonga.

- After the stock footage finally, mercifully, ends, Minilla is attacked by Gabara again. Before we get the conclusion of this, Ichiro is grabbed by a legitimately surprising man covered in leaves in the forest.

- Back in the real world, Ichiro has been kidnapped by villains because of a convoluted and stupid reason.

- Stuff happens, and we're back on Monster Island where Gabara and Minilla fight.

- Minilla finally outwits Gabara, and Godzilla comes by to congratulate his child before being ambushed by an angry Gabara.

- He soundly destroys Gabara, throwing him right on his head and neck. Gabara is lucky he doesn't break in half. He runs away.

- Back in the real world, Ichiro uses the lessons he imagined to thwart his own attacks and stand up to his own bully: little boy Gabara.

- Fin.

 

Kaiju Notes

- Gabara sucks.

- I do like Gabara's electric hands powers.

- Gabara also fights like a bully, which is kind of fun. At one point he literally places a hand on Minilla's hand while Minilla helplessly swings and that's pretty cute.

 

Overall, this movie blows. I knew going in that this is generally considered one of if not the worst Godzilla movie, but goddamn was I not prepared. This movie actually actively sucks. It does have a message, which I typically enjoy in my kaiju flicks, but it's surrounded by weird, horrible nonsense. All of the monster battles are the literal figment of a child's imagination, and rather than that being a great excuse to do wild shit you might see in the dreamworld of a kaiju fanatic that is also 9 years old, you get stock footage showing battles we saw several movies ago with about 10 minutes of unique monster action. It's... disappointing, to say the least. When I was a child, my dreams about monster fights would've included alongside Godzilla riding a laser-shark into battle against King Ghidorah, each head holding a sword (all different types, of course) and them having a battle on the surface of Venus, complete with acid volcanoes and traveling lightning storms. But apparently little Ichiro is not the creative type so we get Ebirah and Godzilla playing rock volleyball again. I thought that scene was ridiculous but amusing the first time, I hate it this go round.

The message isn't necessarily a bad one. Ichiro did need a confidence boost and the incredibly annoying Minilla did give him the (fantasy) inspiration he needed to stand up to his own Gabara, but just because a movie might be good for a small and impressionable child does not make it amusing, enjoyable, or good. Skip it unless you're showing it to the children in your lives and also hate them.

Next: Godzilla vs. Hedorah!

Destroy All Monsters

It is time to Destroy All Monsters, a star-studded movie about many monsters doing many monstrous things. Ishirō Honda returns to the director's chair with Haruo Nakajima retaining his crown as the King of the Monsters. I have no major facts or news to share on this one, so let's get right to it.

If You Haven't Seen it Before

- Every monster on Earth has been gathered into one place, a place appropriately called Monsterland. They are trapped by various containment systems and provided with plenty of natural food so they can live relatively peacefully.

- Monsterland is attacked, the human researchers and monster themselves all knocked unconscious with yellow gas.

- The various monster of Monsterland seem to have escaped, causing destruction worldwide!

- The Kilaaks, an alien race, are revealed to be in control of the situation: demanding that humanity surrender to their rule or be destroyed.

- Human story begins here, with resistance to the Kilaaks being critical to the plot. They search for a way to free the monsters (and thus, humanity) from the Kilaaks rule.

- Confident, perhaps too much so, in their strength, the Kilaaks send almost every monster in their control to Tokyo to obliterate it.

- An attack by the humans on the Kilaaks' moon base is successful, breaking their control of the monsters on Earth and switching it to the humans.

- The monsters are sent to Mt. Fuji to finally and fully destroy the Kilaaks' base. As one last defense, King Ghidorah is sent by the Kilaaks to ward off their enemies.

- An epic battle commences, with King Ghidorah fighting Godzilla, Anguirus, Gorosaurus, Rodan, Mothra, and Kumonga while Minilla (baby Godzilla), Manda, and Varan cheer them on. Godzilla stomps one of King Ghidorah's neck near the end and it's actually pretty brutal.

- The Kilaaks' use a final weapon called Fire Dragon to destroy the human's control center so they also have no control over the monsters now. They seem to think this will matter but Godzilla interrupts whatever they were about to say to fuck their base right up just like the humans planned. Everyone dies.

- With the Kilaaks soundly defeated, the monsters return to Monsterland of their own accord so they can be in harmony again.

Kaiju Notes

- Rodan looks goddamn terrible. He always has, but this version is especially bad. Most of the other monsters look pretty much the same but they've brutalized my boy Rodan. King Ghidorah also took a hit in that he is more golden but less magnificent looking. It'll do, but it's not ideal. Your big end scene villain should definitely look as good as your best looking beast, if not better.

- Gorosaurus has an excellent color that they don't emphasize enough. His blue colored back is baller. Just like his first appearance, I think his design is good (basically just a big dinosaur), but I never noticed the super cool colors before.

- Mothra is significantly less moist in this movie, which is great because I have always found larval Mothra quite distressing to look (primarily because she'e so gooey).

- The scene of all of the monsters arriving at the Kilaaks' base to destroy it is actually pretty dope. It's like the Avengers or Justice League assembling, Godzilla leading every other monster. Especially once King Ghidorah arrives, the 1 vs. All aesthetic is very effective.

- Anguirus has a moment where he clamps onto King Ghidorah's neck as Ghidorah takes flight, and it's awesome. He loses this fight, but these little random moments of weirdness are also random moments of greatness.

Quite simply, the movie definitely seems like it was intended to be a culmination or even final film in the series. Many claims exist on the internet and otherwise that this actually was the case, though I've seen no evidence of it. Regardless, Destroy All Monsters is cool to watch because it is like seeing all of the strings pulled together like an Avengers movie. While crossovers between Godzilla and other Toho kaiju have happened before, this film features basically every kaiju at Toho's disposal and it is truly a sight to behold. As stated above, seeing all of the "Earth" monsters gather in one location to take down the villains is honestly quite awesome, and then adding a big fight with King Ghidorah makes it better. The fight could be more spectacular and amazing because it is over very quickly and there's very little use of the kaiju's various abilities, but sadly this movie clearly didn't have the budget it deserved. The monster action is some of the best in the series so far.

While the monster action is top tier, the human story is honestly quite dull. It's quite disappointing to have such a great ending but being in such a boring place beforehand. While we get a tiny amount of kaiju destruction in the 2nd act, the huge majority of the 1st and 2nd acts are dedicated to human's flying around on spaceships and arguing with aliens. It is not a compelling story at all, and my first attempt to watch it had me dozing off about two-thirds of the way into the movie. In its defense I was a bit sleepy anyway, but believe an interesting plot would've helped me get and stay awake and invested. If I had to describe it in any detail I'm honestly not sure I could, except to say that they fight with aliens and take over the monsters in some way that's either not explained or stupid. In the Justice League version of kaiju movies, everything would have been better off with more kaiju involvement.

Incredibly minor nitpick: while on the moon the humans call one of the Kilaak spaceships a "UFO." It's not a UFO if you know exactly what it is (a spaceship) and who it belongs to (the Kilaaks). This is obviously unimportant, but it amused me in the moment.

Conclusion: the last 30 minutes of this movie is pretty much the best 30 minutes in a kaiju movie since 1954. Unlike the original Gojira, however, the human story sucks and must be balanced against the monster fighting. The monster fighting is pretty great, ultimately making this a great addition to the series. If you're at all interested in kaiju movies this is likely an excellent start, as the crap human story will make up for itself when you see a monster stomp on another's neck while it coughs up blood. Other films in the series may be more balanced, but they're not more spectacular.

Next: All Monsters Attack!

Son of Godzilla

Let's talk about Son of Godzilla. It's directed by Jun Fukuda, with Haruo Nakajima of course returning as Godzilla, now a dad. The titular Son of Godzilla is played by newcomer to the franchise Marchan. I'm going to keep this short and sweet and get to talking about the movie as quickly as possible.

If You Haven't Seen it Before

- Scientists do weather stuff on an island.

- There's a woman here, unexpectedly.

- There's also giant mantis monsters: Kamacuras.

- A giant egg hatches and a baby Godzilla pops out: it's Minilla!

- Godzilla swings by to save his apparent child. This is a monster island!

- Scientists do boring science stuff and there's a light love story between the island woman and one of the guys. Minilla bonds with the woman and her beau.

- Monster Island isn't over: eventually, the giant angry spider Kumonga also wakes.

- Kumonga tries to kill everybody, monsters and humans alike.

- Realizing they're now in a giant monster turf war, the scientists devise a plan to freeze the island using weather science.

- Godzilla and baby Minilla take on Kumonga and another Kamacuras as the island begins to freeze.

- The humans escape the island safely as the surviving father-son pair slowly hibernate, tugging on our heartstrings as they seem to think they are dying.

Kaiju Notes

- Godzilla does full-on wrestling moves now. He's been getting more mobile in each movie, but at this point he's just like Lizard Stone Cold and I am here for it.

- In Minilla's intro scene there is an absolutely awesome shot of a flaming Kamacuras leg flying above the heads of the human characters escaping from the scene and landing in front of them.

- Kamakuras' play soccer to kick a ball into Minilla's face. Hilarious.

- Kumonga is unsettling. I attribute this mostly to him being uncomfortably hairy.

- New Godzilla suit is ugly as hell. You can't tell in this image, but trust me. Also this image plays into my next point:

- Minilla is a terrible hellspawn. Also his weirdly little body reminds me of Frank Reynolds Wanting to be Pure and I hate it.

First things first: this is a comfort movie, almost like a comfort food. It's not interesting or even particularly good, but decidedly comforting. 80% of the run time is just watching ugly ass Minilla run around while we watch a pretty dull human story. But somehow, it's a good time while not being a good time. Very strange experience, watching this, but it's not as though the concept of comfort movie's make no sense. I attribute part of this to the direction. I am ready to say it: I greatly prefer Fukuda to Honda. The shots I've spent several blogs mentioning now are still here, the aforementioned entirely awesome flaming leg throw, and even the fluff is more engaging than it might be under different direction. Also, having looked him up now, I know that he is also the director of my favorite Godzilla movie that I've seen so far. But we'll get to that.

Of note: Godzilla is a bad dad. After saving Minilla he immediately hits him in the head with his tail and walks off while a human actually takes care of him. Later, Minilla is literally just crying and begging for attention while his dad sleeps. Sure, this could be accounted for by them being animals/monsters and having different needs when it comes to child-rearing, but Minilla's actions tell us otherwise. Unlike a super-independent giraffe or something which just gallops off and comes back at feeding time, Minilla clearly wants love and affection from his pops. Daddy G does provide lessons on how to blow Atomic Breath and other steps in how to be a badass, but that's not really the same as giving Minilla the warm fuzzy feelings he's going to need to think he had a nice childhood. How Godzilla became a father is unclear and never touched on, and I honestly don't want to think about it at all because giant monster sexuality is not in the venn diagram of my interests (for now).

Another interesting note, and this applies to both Honda and Fukuda directed films: Kaiju are getting more aggressive as these movies continue. They have always done violence to each other, and Godzilla did literally murder an at-the-time defenseless Anguirus in Godzilla Raids Again, but even then the violence was fairly "tame." For a spell the violence was relatively non-deadly, many monsters escaping on their own or dying by their own hand instead. But recent films seem to trending toward escalation: King Kong breaking Gorosaurus' jaw in King Kong Escapes, and Kamacuras' attempts to murder a freshly born Minilla in this followed by Godzilla ripping off one of their legs, setting it on fire and throwing it across the island. Kumonga is also literally set on fire by Daddy G, just to ensure he stays dead (after faking his death moments before).

The end scene of the two remaining lizards freezing seems almost out of place in this otherwise charming but insubstantial movie. The kaiju seem to think they're going to die but the human characters are quick to remind us that this is not the case. Nonetheless, Godzilla embracing little Minilla as they settle in for a long hibernation is framed and filmed exactly like a parent comforting a child when they expect the bomb to drop, so it's an oddly specific and narratively unnecessary decision to end the movie on this relatively dour note. Not uncompelling, but truly odd, especially considering everything that came before it essentially just being a lovely jaunt through monster island. Then BLAM, a whole family is dying in front of your eyes as the baby cries and the parent tries to comfort him. Then BLAM AGAIN, they're not dying at all but just going into a nice and safe hibernation. What the hell.

Next: Gorgo