Destroy All Monsters

 

Crouching Eiga,
Hidden Dragging

Destroy All Monsters
aka Kaijû sôshingeki
Japan 1968 Directed by Ishirô Honda
Toho/Criterion Collection
Blu Ray Zone B

Well, the next up in my rewatch of The Showa Era Godzilla films, courtesy of Criterion’s lovely Blu Ray Book Edition, is Destroy All Monsters and... well it’s a bit of a curio. Especially since only one monster is actually destroyed in it.

Depending on which version of the film you are watching (Japanese or American), the film takes place in Earth’s far future... at the end of the century (Japanese) or 1999 (American). After being introduced to some of the characters on the moonbase we are straight into a title sequence that, for some reason, I have no recollection of in terms of visuals but... well... the opening title music is absolutely stunning and you can tell right away that Akira Ifukube was back on board. One of the biggest strengths of this film is its wonderful score and, even if the visuals and drama in this were terrible, it almost wouldn’t matter because I spent most of the film tapping my toes along to the music.

As it happens, it doesn’t have terrible visuals or drama. Like Honda’s previous films in the series, this one is strong on story and plot twists but, unlike his earlier works, this one gets straight to the monsters after the end credits. It seems that in our future, the monsters from various Toho films all live together on Monster Island... so Godzilla, Minilla, Baragon, Mothra, Rodan, Varan, Manda, Gorosaurus and Kumonga. Eagle eyed monster movie spotters will no doubt wonder why some of these creatures are still alive, having been killed off in earlier kaiju eiga but, I’m afraid I don’t have an answer for you on that one.

Anyway, tragedy strikes as the people in the control sections of Monster Island (referred to as Monsterland in this iteration) are gassed... along with all the monsters. What is going on? Then tragedy strikes as the ‘escaped’ monsters start attacking the rest of the world. Rodan attacks Moscow, Baragon (kinda) destroys Paris, Mothra sorts out Beijing, Manda is malevolent in London and Godzilla takes out New York. What’s going on?

Oh, wait. The monsters didn’t escape at all. Instead they, along with the human staff of the island, are under the control of the Kilaaks, a race of space aliens who want to take over our planet. It’s up to Captain Katsuo Yamabe (played by series regular Akira Kubo... who you might recognise from films like Mantango - Attack Of The Mushroom People and some of Kurosawa’s masterpieces) and his trusty moon rocket crew, with the aid of Dr. Yoshido (played by another Gojira and Kurosawa regular, Jun Tazaki) to help the military resist and get up to all kinds of shenanigans as each twist and turn of the plot is revealed.

Luckily, the humans finally defeat the aliens who have been calling the shots on the moon and then regain control of the various ‘Earth kaiju’ so they can lead a big, all out monster attack on the alien’s not so secret base under Mount Fuji. One complication is, as an eleventh hour surprise for everyone, the aliens summon space monster King Ghidora. There is much glee from the alien antagonists as they tell their human enemy, “Earth’s monsters are no match for him.” Which seems to be a bold claim and I can only assume the aliens haven’t watched the previous Godzilla films to feature King Ghidorah. The Big G has needed much less aid than he has in this one to try to take down his old, three headed foe and, predictably, the ‘big monster team’ fight ferociously and suffer no casualties as they defeat the behemoth. Little Minilla, Godzilla’s son, puts in a finishing touch by blowing one of his cute, trademark smoke rings over Ghidorah’s last, surviving head, which proves to be the surprising last straw that breaks Ghidorah’s defensive back. What’s more surprising though, for a film set in the Earth’s far future in the year 1999, is that little Minilla hasn’t grown to become a big Godzilla like his father already.

This film probably has both more monster and human VS alien action in it than the majority of Honda’s work in the Godzilla series but, in amongst all the set pieces, he still finds time to give us bright colours, nicely lit sets and some creative shot designs. There’s a scene where a doctor who has been taken over by the aliens is being interrogated by Katsuo and Dr. Yashida, in which a kind of decorative screen is placed between the three actors and the camera. The elabourate screen has three circles in a row going the whole width of the shot and from the top to the bottom of the screen. The back of the doctor’s head is large and more than fills the middle circle. However, with the perspective of the shot, the other two actor’s heads are perfectly framed in the centre of the two circles on either side of this character. Yeah... there’s some great stuff here.

This was supposed to be the last hurrah for the Godzilla films as the box office returns for the kaiju eiga were diminishing with every new entry... thus the idea to have a load of monsters in the one film (it would be many decades later before this many monsters in the series would be matched... or exceeded, in fact). However, this was a pretty entertaining movie and, I guess the audience thought so too at the time because, this one was a huge financial success for the company and kept them going with the Godzilla series for quite a few more films comprising the Showa era.

And I honestly don’t have much more to say on that. I think Destroy All Monsters is one of the most fun in the series of films and, despite the unintentional hilarity of many of the scenes (or possibly because of it), it’s certainly one I’d watch more enthusiastically than some of the others. Next up for the series, though, would be a very different kind of Godzilla movie indeed. I’ll let you know about it after I’ve watched it again soon.

Mushroom Clouds and Mushroom Men

Fungi With The Kaiju Eye

Mushroom Clouds and
Mushroom Men - The Fantastic
Cinema Of Ishiro Honda
by Peter H. Brothers
CreateSpace Books ISBN: 9781492790358

I’ve been wanting to acquire and read a copy of Peter H. Brothers’ book Mushroom Clouds and Mushroom Men - The Fantastic Cinema of Ishiro Honda for quite a while now and I’m kinda glad I held off for so long because the one I was gifted by a very special friend on my birthday proudly states on its cover that it’s a “Revised and Expanded Edition” so, yeah, I’m glad I didn’t have a prior copy from before this new edition was launched.

Now, I have to say that overall it’s a really great book and really held up to my expectations in most departments but there are also a couple of criticisms I could level at it too and, since they’re mostly minor and don’t affect my overall positive reception of the book, I’ll just get my main problem with it out of the way first so I can concentrate on the good stuff for the rest of the review.

Which is... it’s full of typos and I don’t know why. Especially since it’s a revised and expanded edition. It feels like nobody actually bothered to proofread this because, frankly, it’s over 400 pages long (and it’s coffee table tome sized with very few pictures) and so, in all this density of very welcome text, there are maybe 3 to 4 typos per double paged spread once it gets going. At least, that’s the way it seemed to me but that’s my only real glaring problem with it and the rest is all good.

My only other slight concern was that it turns out that it doesn’t actually cover all of the films that Ishiro Honda directed. Which I thought was a puzzling omission until I started reading it and realised just how much in depth research and coverage there is here on the films that are included. I’ll side with the author on this one in that, the book is a bit of a doorstop as it is and to try and cover all of Honda’s creative output in the same fashion as what’s been done here would have been... well... an almost impractical task. And, as I read further, I have to say I appreciated and applauded the author’s decision to limit himself to just the horror, fantasy and science-fiction films of Ishiro Honda.

So in the opening of the book, Brothers talks a little bit about Honda’s movie making colleagues and friends. So people like the producer Tomoyuki Tanaka, the special effects wizard Eiji Tsuburaya (I read a good book about him many years ago) and also his great friend Akira Kurosawa, who regular readers of this blog will know is my favourite director. After Honda found himself retired from directing after his last picture, Terror Of MechaGodzilla, Kurosawa would often employ him as his assistant director on his films in their twilight years and even, on occasion, during their early careers (Honda was also assistant director on Kurosawa’s wonderful Stray Dog, for example). Apparently, Honda had a late start graduating to directing features because of his career in the war but, it turns out that Kurosawa was also a good friend to Honda’s wife when her husband was on one of his many tours of duty for the Japanese military in the 1940s.

The writer also says some interesting things about Honda’s signature style of directing including something I’d never really thought of before but which rings absolutely true now I reflect on the many movies I’ve seen by this director... that they don’t focus primarily on one heroic character and, instead, they always come across more as ensemble pieces with a number of important characters all getting their own screen time. In the second section here, the writer fills us in on Honda’s life both before and also after the films under the spotlight in this tome, leading up to the point where the book splits up into several more chapters, each split into mini sections highlighting each of the director’s fantasy films in more detail. Much more detail, as it turns out.

So the films covered in this book, not necessarily under these variant titles but I’ve basically chosen the title choices I know of from various DVD and Blu Ray releases as a trade off for familiarity so the average movie goer can see what’s explored here, are... Godzilla (reviewed here), Beast-Human Snowman (reviewed here), Rodan, The Mysterians, The H Man (reviewed here), Varan, The Battle In Outer Space (reviewed here), The Human Vapour, Mothra (reviewed here), Gorath, King Kong VS Godzilla (reviewed here), Mantango - Attack Of The Mushroom People, Atragon, Mothra VS Godzilla (reviewed here), Space Monster Dogorah, Ghidorah - The Three Headed Monster (reviewed here), Frankenstein Conquers The World, Invasion Of The Astro Monster (reviewed here), War Of The Gargantuas, King Kong Escapes (reviewed here), Destroy All Monsters, Latitude Zero, Godzilla’s Revenge, Yog - Monster From Space and Terror of MechaGodzilla.

So starting with Godzilla, we get the origins of the character as an attempt to cash in on the success of The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms (which in itself was a late cash in on the original King Kong) and with Honda coming on board after another director refused the assignment, retooling it to align with his world view and becoming a reflection on the perils of nuclear power (inspired by the Lucky Dragon 5 fishing boat incident still very much in the Japanese consciousness) and, of course, accidentally kick-starting the kaiju eiga cycle in Japan. And each film is looked at in detail with each long section going roughly to the same formula. Brothers starts off with a brief overview of the film and also a summary, then he’ll talk a little about the cinematography, then he’ll go into all the effects work done on the picture, and then he’ll go into a detailed account of the score on each film (a great many of these were scored by the great Akira Ifukube, of course), then he’ll talk about the various actors and how they perform in their roles in the movie and then he’ll talk about the critical and box office reception of each film, sometimes bringing in the various incidents and elements which would lead to the next assignment in Honda’s string of fantastic cinema.

And, of course, he’ll highlight how Honda’s style and approach would both change and sometimes adhere to his original ideas over the years, not to mention telling some great stories that I’d never heard of before (or forgotten) along the way. Such as the incident during the shooting of Godzilla when the guy in the suit got electrocuted in a water tank and had to be giving resuscitation in order to get his heart beating again. And again when the suit actor drowned on King Kong Vs Godzilla and had to similarly be brought back to life. Or the time when Ifukube felt betrayed and angered by Honda for cow-towing to producer pressure and moving the placement of a musical cue where he didn’t want it on Godzilla Vs Mothra. He’ll also highlight any problems Honda might have had with various actors and actresses over the years and there are some interesting incidents, both good and bad, with some of the American stars he got to be in his films to sell them overseas over the years... so you’ll get a little insight into people like Rhodes Reason, Nick Adams, Russ Tamblyn and Joseph Cotton as the volume progresses.

And, overall, yeah... great book. This must have been an exhausting one to write and put together and you can see that a huge amount of research has gone into this one. I’m really pleased to have had the opportunity to finally read Mushroom Clouds and Mushroom Men - The Fantastic Cinema Of Ishiro Honda and I would wholeheartedly recommend this to fans and followers of either the director or the kinds of Japanese fantasy films of which Honda was one of the absolute masters (and arguably the originator of... at least in terms of the proliferation of kaiju eiga which came after his first go round). If you like these kinds of movies then do yourself a favour and give this one a read... very illuminating and entertaining, to boot.

Ghidorah - The Three Headed Monster

Ghidorah With Excitement

Ghidorah - The Three Headed Monster
Japan 1964 Directed by Ishirô Honda
Criterion Blu Ray Zone B

So this next kaiju movie, which I am reviewing as part of Criterion’s lovely Spine 1000 box set of The Showa Era of Godzilla films, is very much a direct sequel to the previous film in the series, Godzilla VS Mothra (reviewed here). That’s not to say things haven’t moved on a little in this entry, Ghidora - The Three Headed Monster, as we’ll soon discover but some of the characters (human and kaiju alike) recur and many references are made to the original film.

This one is directed, once again, by Ishirô Honda... who was responsible for kick-starting the series with his original movie Godzilla (reviewed here), as well as directing other films starring both The Big G and a variety of other monsters, such as Mothra (reviewed by me here). And like his previous kaiju eiga, this one has a very slow build up but, where that really seemed to hamper the previous film in the series, this one has a very entertaining plot which is developed over a half an hour before the first monster even turns up... in the form of Rodan (or Radon as he was know  in Japan... wish a legitimate Blu Ray release was available for this monster’s debut feature). In fact, this is probably the best in the series so far since the original Godzilla movie and it never once gets dull.

The opening titles are a bit strange, showing a series of 'moving to freeze frame' monster moments from the forthcoming movie and I can only assume that this was done because of the slow build up on this one (much like the inclusion of ‘home video footage’ of Godzilla in Godzilla Raids Again, reviewed here). In this case, the decision is not the best because, as I said before, the plot development on this one is quite interesting and holds its own against the forthcoming attraction of battling behemoths.

Okay, so lets get to that plot then. Characters and their relationships with each other are established very economically with some nice, catch all lines which make any subsequent patter redundant, so it cuts to the chase very quickly compared to some of the other dialogue writing in the series... for instance, the line when a character is asked if there’s "anything up" is followed up with the answer... “If so, your paper would be on it before us cops.” Stuff like this really moves things along nicely and cuts a lot of extraneous material which might have been there in an alternate approach.

Primarily, the film centres around the princess of a fictional country called Sergina, played by Akiko Wakabayashi. She was in a few of these kinds of films but Bond fans may remember her for her performance as Aki in You Only Live Twice, three years later. Everybody in Sergina seems to dress with big Elizabethan ruffles around their necks, making them look totally out of place in the modern world in which this movie is set. Even their briefly glimpsed military look completely strange, as they all appear to be dressed in bright red Santa suits. Thankfully, not many of the princess’ scenes are set in her home country and she is the unfortunate victim of an assassination plot as her plane explodes from a bomb planted within. Or, at least she would have been if a strange alien voice in her head hadn’t urged her to leave and caused her to jump out into a bright light outside the aircraft before it explodes... could this have something to do with the mysterious UFOs that Naoka, the other female lead played by Yuriko Hoshi, has been researching for her job on the upcoming TV show, Mysteries Of The 20th Century? Pretty likely, I would say.

Confusingly, Yuriko Hoshi was in Godzilla VS Mothra playing a similar but totally different character. It’s puzzling since another of the main protagonists, Professor Miura played by Hiroshi Koizumi, reprises his role from that same film. He is studying one of the ‘mysterious meteors’ with strange properties that have crashed in the area. Meanwhile, the Princess resurfaces as an uncannily true prophet, who walks around in an almost trance-like state warning people to flee, as she believes she is a Venusian who can see into the future. Which she kind of is actually, because the Venusian light thing that rescued her from the plane is obviously controlling her actions.

She warns people to keep away from a mountain, for example, just a short while before Rodan busts his way out of it. Then, after Godzilla goes on the prowl again, out of the blue, she also warns about the creature that's the instigator of the destruction of the Earth, King Ghidora, the three headed monster of the title... who promptly hatches in a strange, phoenix like manner from the mysterious meteor.

Meanwhile (again), Mothra’s tiny guardians, played once again by the pop duo The Peanuts (their third and final appearance in a Godzilla film), are in town for a TV appearance and we are informed that, of the two surviving Mothras from the previous movie, one has passed away. Which is a shame. However, when Ghidorah starts his rampage, The Peanuts summon Mothra (who stays in larvae state for the entire movie) to talk sense into the warring Godzilla and Rodan, in a sequence in which we see Mothra talking to them while The Peanuts translate for the benefit of the audience... and so the stage is set for an epic battle at the end of the movie where Godzilla, Mothra and Rodan team up to battle King Ghidorah.

While all this is going on, we have the cop trying to protect the transformed princess from a group of hit-men who have been sent from Sergina... so we have a Godzilla movie with some proper gun battles in it too, which wouldn’t, it has to be said, look totally out of place in a Seijun Suzuki movie. The second half of the film also features legendary actor Takashi Shimura in his last appearance in a Godzilla film, as yet another new character, Doctor Tsukamoto.

And... it’s a really entertaining movie and a lot better than how I’d remembered it.

The special effects on this one are great and even the scenes where live action and miniature work are blended look pretty good (as opposed to the previous movie). There’s a lovely shot too, where Godzilla rising up out of the sea is preceded by the backs of fleeing whales rippling the surface of the water... this is really nice stuff.

The sound design is a mixed bag though. Nice work with the silenced guns of the villains, so the heroes louder gun shot sounds have their own signature and you can hear just who is doing the shooting at any one time in a gun battle. I’ll never understand, though, why Rodan always seems to sound like a jet engine. That just never works for me.

Akira Ifukube provides a magnificent score for this one and uses his big, ponderous Godzilla main theme a lot. There’s even something like a theremin used for some of the UFO/meteor moments. Curiously, though, his big Godzilla march still doesn’t make a reappearance here, at least that I could hear. There’s a wonderful musical build up when we first see King Ghidorah attack a city and we see the people shutting up shops and fleeing.

There’s a big musical misstep here though, as far as I’m concerned and, yes, I know selling records would have been a priority here... but there’s a brand new Mothra song which The Peanuts perform in two scenes and, well, it’s just not good... although matched visually by some nicely montaged shot compositions, such as the heads of the two blown up large on either side of the frame, superimposed with the chanting natives on Infant Island sandwiched between them.

All in all though, Ghidorah, The Three Headed Monster is a really entertaining and rewatchable entry into the series and brings in the concept of space aliens and space monsters to the films, acting as a great prelude/set up to the next movie in the series the following year, which was always one of my favourites, Invasion Of The Astro-Monster.

It also marks a great turning point in the series because Godzilla starts off as a menace but, when talking to Mothra and revealing his reasons for his former behaviour... and then agreeing to team up and help protect the earth from King Ghidorah... he finally takes on the mantle of heroic protector of Tokyo which would pretty much stick with him for most of the following films in The Showa Era. There’s also a hint at how whacky and comical the character would become as his laughter and amusement at Rodan getting equally covered with Mothra’s semen-like silk is plain old slapstick, pantomime acting... it’s quite hilarious, as are some of the reactions the monsters have to each other during the fights. This is one of the best movies in the series, for my money but... the best was yet to come.

Mothra

I Larvae Good Movie

Mothra 
Japan 1961 
Directed by Ishirô Honda
Toho/Mill Creek Steelbook  Blu Ray Zone A

And so onto Mothra.

Made by the director of the original Gojira (aka Godzilla, reviewed here), Ishirô Honda, Mothra is similar in style to that movie in that it’s a fairly slow burn for the first part of the story. It’s strong on characterisation though, focusing on a scientist, a reporter and the reporter’s photographic assistant, played by Hiroshi Koizumi, Furankî Sakai and  Kyôko Kagawa respectively. We also have screen legend Takashi Shimura turning up as the chief editor of the newspaper where the reporters in question work.

The film starts off with a somewhat overly long opening credits sequence where the typography is superimposed over shifting shots of very colourful rock textures, before we get into a ship crashing on the supposedly irradiated shores of Infant Island in yet another reference, presumably, to the real life radiation accident with a bunch of fishermen that inspired the original Godzilla movie. When the few survivors are rescued it is found that they are not irradiated at all and a group of investigators, including the main scientist and the reporter (who stows away), are sent to Infant Island to investigate. It is there that they find two teeny tiny doll sized ladies played by the Japanese pop duo The Peanuts, who are kind of guardians of the Mothra legend and held in high regard by the group of natives who, just as in King Kong VS Godzilla (review coming very soon), consist of a bunch of Japanese people in black face. Not very politically correct these days, I guess, but fine for anyone over the age of thirty, I would imagine.

It’s in this first section that Honda sets up the necessary human villain who is the spanner in the works regarding the peaceful coalition of islanders and civilisation. This is a ‘single monster’ movie (albeit a dual incarnation monster) and so there has to be an antagonistic element somewhere. This comes in the shape of a philanthropist bad guy and his henchmen who all come from the country Rosilica. In my naiveté, I suspected that Rosilica was a less than subtle stand in for Russia so the writers could have a dig at that country and show them up to be the land of origin for the less than intelligent and evil antagonists. As it turns out, I was only half right... it’s an amalgam supposed to represent both super powers... Russia and the USA, showing them up to be the bad guys as, well, subtly as it can manage I guess.

Anyway. Long story short... the villain kidnaps The Peanuts so he can put on shows with them in Japan and so they sing (regularly) and this, combined with their psychic link to the sacred Mothra egg and the natives doing their ritualistic dance, causes Mothra to hatch as we first see her, in larvae form... which is basically a white grub-like creature which swims across the seas to rescue The Peanuts, causing a wake of destruction in her path. This is because, in the words of the two ‘small beauties’ (as they are referred to in the film), Mothra has no sense of right or wrong... which is possibly at odds with her heroic nature later on in the Godzilla franchise but certainly it’s a step in the right direction to having a film with a ‘good monster’ in it as opposed to the normal perception of them.

From hereon in, the movie is about the cities trying to battle the Mothra larvae while the heroes are trying to track down the film’s prime villain, who has stuffed The Peanuts into a suitcase and is on the run with them. At one point, when the humans think they have destroyed Mothra, all that’s happened is it has cocooned itself, emerging from the cocoon a day later as the full on flying ‘moth’ version of the creature, with it’s voice as distinctive as Godzilla’s roar.

And that’s pretty much everything and the story continues mostly as you’d imagine but, once again, Honda shows a real knack for framing and building characters rather than just concentrating on monstrous action. Indeed, the first half of the movie is devoid of this kind of spectacle asides from a fairly cheaply done blood sucking plant on Infant Island. He also takes time to hone in on little details which other directors might not bother with, such as a view of a ship’s wake through calm water by way of an establishing shot and to add to the atmosphere of the thing.

We also have Yûji Koseki’s score, which seems organ dominated at times and which is, mostly, very different from what Akira Ifikube would do for a film like this. And, of course, there are the songs sung by The Peanuts including the famous Mothra Song. Plus some nice use of leitmotif as the Mothra theme comes back in different arrangements in moments when you’d least expect it to.

All this and some nice but variable special effects. The model work in some of the scenes is still quality stuff and some of those tanks must have been just fronts of lorries for some of the shots because there’s an impressive moment when a human, not a puppet, is riding a motorbike right next to one of those things. And it still makes me laugh when somebody says that they’ve called on the 'Rosilican Heat Ray Brigade', as though those mobile heat ray cannons actually existed... but the model shots of them and the tanks battling the Mothra larvae are still very impressive here.

What’s not so impressive are the matte lines where shots are composited together and, as you might guess, this nice new Blu Ray transfer of the film just makes that dodgy stuff all the more apparent. It’s also really easy to spot the strings holding Mothra up too so... that’s not necessarily a good thing either, to be honest. Although, having said that, I’m glad they didn’t make the heretical decision to digitally remove the strings for the Blu Ray edition.

In terms of the leading villain, I find it curious that a big, elaborate ‘death by Mothra’ scene was planned for him originally but, in the final movie, he never actually meets Mothra. Instead, he just has a ‘super villain mad moment’ towards the end and is gunned down by the authorities for his trouble. Which actually seems quite a lot bleaker, truth be told.

All in all, though, while it possibly drags a little for some people's tastes during the first three quarters, Mothra is a solid entry into the kaiju eiga of Japanese cinematic legacy and it’s easy to see why she was revived for the Godzilla franchise a little while later. Although, due to the way she’s pitched here, she doesn’t die at the end (instead is seen as a rescuer character), it should have made bringing her into the Godzilla franchise an easy task but my memory is kicking in and telling me that it’s not necessarily the ‘same’ Mothra in the later films because, I seem to remember she starts off in her larvae state in the first of her Godzilla appearances too?* I’ll know soon enough because it’s in the Criterion Blu Ray set I’m steadily working my way through so I’ll report back on that sometime soon. If you’re a fan of Japanese monster movies then the original 1961 version of Mothra certainly isn’t the worst of them and it’s well worth a look, especially to see how the human characters are portrayed in these things.

*My memory was faulty, it turns out. There are, in fact, three Mothras
 in that next film and it does follow on from events in this one... kinda. 

Thanks to Charlie Brigden for helping me source a Blu Ray copy of this.

Godzilla - King Of The Monsters

Ghidorah, Mon Amour

Godzilla - King Of The Monsters
USA/Japan 2019 Directed by Michael DoughertyUK cinema release print.

Okay, so Godzilla - King Of The Monsters is the third in an predominantly American made series of new ‘Monsterverse’ films based on the various Toho Kaiju Eiga such as the Godzilla films. The first of these was Godzilla (reviewed by me here) and the second being the much better Kong - Skull Island (reviewed by me here). Now the fourth entry in this series, due next year, will be Godzilla Versus King Kong which brings me to ask... why have so many of these films got titles ripped from older movies utilising the same characters.

This film is particularly problematic in this aspect since Godzilla - King Of The Monsters was the title for the American release print of the 1954 film, Godzilla (aka Gojira) which started it all. You know, the one where a lot of it was cut, Raymond Burr was added into the linking scenes and Akira Ifikube’s masterful score was mostly replaced with old Universal monster movie cues tracked in. So, yeah, this particular title evokes some bad memories and associations at best.

However, while I can see exactly why many of the critics are giving this one fairly negative reviews, it’s actually far superior to the 2014 Godzilla movie and I enjoyed this one a lot.

There are four main monster characters in this one plus, or so we are told, some new ones. There is The Big G himself, of course, in what I suspect is a slight redesign that does the character absolute no favours. He pretty much looks like a mean thug in this... just the kind of giant, fire breathing reptile monster you wouldn’t want to meet in a dark alleyway on your way home from work one night (as opposed to the more friendly and convivial giant reptiles you might wish to pass on the street). Which could have worked really well for the character if he was, as he was in a few of the early Toho films, being portrayed as a villainous force of nature that needed to be stopped. However, it’s made abundantly clear from the story here that he is definitely being seen as the heroic saviour of mankind so the extra mean look didn’t really work all that well for me, it has to be said. Just a pair of googly eyes would have done the trick.

We also have three more ‘fan favourites’...

We have Rodan, who starred in his own films as well as crossing over with the Gojira movies back in the 1970s and probably later. We also have everybody’s favourite larva turns giant moth creature Mothra, who is also seen as one of the ‘hero kaiju’ in this (as she pretty much always is whenever she’s in the movies, it has to be said). Lastly we have the kaiju who I always think of as Godzilla’s arch enemy, the three headed dragon-like creature Ghidorah (or King Ghidorah as he used to be known). It’s actually the best of the Ghidorah’s I’ve seen in the way the various heads of the creature interact with each other and, as far as I’m concerned, even though he’s the lead non-human villain of the piece, he’s also the best of the monsters in the movie. In a nice touch, the less clued in audience members (as far as the history of the genre goes) don’t find out Ghidorah’s name until much later in the movie. Instead, the humans have designated him Monster Zero, in a nice touch to the history of the character and his designation in his second appearance back in Invasion Of The Astro Monster (aka Godzilla Vs Monster Zero).

In addition to these, I’m pretty sure I spotted Kumonga a couple of times but it wasn’t shouted out to the audience like the others were.

And its a really fun film with some nice twists and turns to the characters and all the human story built around the monsters, in structure at least, is really well done and gives the film a certain lift absent from the previous US attempts to bring the Godzilla character to life. That being said, the human element of the story is also where the film fails in some regards. By that I mean...

Well, like the two predecessors, the film is cast with some major A list actors who always do a fantastic job with the material they are given to work with. I mean we have Kyle Chandler, Vera Farmiga, Millie Bobby Brown, Ken Watanabe (reprising his role as the modern version of Dr. Ishiro Serizawa), Ziyi Zhang, Sally Hawkins (back as Dr. Vivienne Graham), Charles Dance as the human villain of the piece (or one of them... don’t want to get into spoiler territory here) and David Strathairn (back again as Admiral William Stenz). These are all fantastic actors and they all do a hell of a job with the dialogue they are given. Which is the main problem, I think, if any were to be found in such an entertaining confection as this. The dialogue is truly atrocious and the phrase ‘trying to get a silk purse from a sow’s ear’ comes to mind. Some of this dialogue is just embarrassing, even when it’s not trying to jargon the ears to death with its fictional, scientific gibberish.

Coupled with that is some unusually stylised acting from pretty much all the players. Every eyebrow twitch or look or head movement seems to be directed to the camera with the express intention of underlying and punctuating every dramatic moment to the nth degree. It’s like the director was saying... “More gravitas. More weight. Less subtle... give me moooore!” all the way through. Seriously, just between Chandler, Watanabe and Hawkins we have more chin and brow action than you’d get on an episode of Battle Of The Planets (aka Gatchaman). I was sitting there in the audience thinking I was stuck in some kind of artificial ‘gravitas well’. It might be that this style of acting is more appreciated in Japan, one of the primary targets for these films I suspect but... all I’m saying is that, as great as these performers are, they all looked like they were trying to get away with understating, as far as possible, some really broad strokes in terms of their physical presence and... well, it’s certainly something that stands out.

However, for all this, the film still manages to be immensely superior to some of the other Godzilla movies over the years and, frankly, there are some really nice references to the history of Kaiju Eiga productions for the ‘old school’ days... such as the use of the ‘oxygen destroyer’, featured in a few of the movies including Gojira’s 1954 debut. Heck, there’s even a revelation that one of the main characters is descended from the characters played by The Peanuts in the original Mothra movies... which is a really nice touch. There are also a fair few references to Skull Island and the history of the organisation Monarch, which is being established.

An inconsistency with the previous two movies is that this one doesn’t have a similar opening title sequence as those two, utilising real and fake news coverage. However, this one does use this device over the end credits to help set up the coming Godzilla Vs King Kong movie so at least there is some brand consistency here. And, by the way, you might want to stay until the end of the credits for another scene that might be important in a future movie in the franchise.

The cherry on top of this film is the new score by Bear McCreary. I’ve been saying how good this composer is for years now (since the modern Battlestar Galactica TV show which he scored) and he really delivers the goods here, utilising not just his own music which perfectly matches the mood of the film but also bringing in some new versions of the Ifikube scores with the two main themes you might associate with Godzilla plus the Mothra main theme (alas, the Mothra lyrics don’t make an appearance here). The score is brilliant and... mixed way too low during the action scenes so, yep, waiting for the double CD to turn up from Amazon any day now. Can’t wait to hear this one away from the visuals.

And there’s not much more ‘spoiler free’ stuff to say about Godzilla - King Of The Monsters, I think. Some good acting (despite the script obstacles to it), some great action, a nice story idea and, alas, the death of my two favourite human characters... one in the first third of the movie and another during the inevitable act of heroic redemption at the end. Definitely a film to watch if you liked the previous two and are a fan of the genre in general. Despite bad reviews for this, which are mostly unwarranted, I think we have a remarkably ‘on the right track for once’ American look at the title character and I am really looking forward, now, to next year’s monster smack down.