Here I am with that follow-up I promised and I will cut to the chase. The original Godzilla: King of the Monsters is amazing!
While watching it I felt like I was seeing something I never had before – namely a monster movie that took no joy in showing us the monster. None. Everything from the dark lighting to the monster’s terrifying appearance and actions to his frightening roar to the destruction caused by him truly scared me.
Most of all, the people getting terrorized by him seemed genuinely horrified. Genuinely traumatized even. I read a long time ago that Godzilla’s reign of destruction was a metaphor for what the atom bomb wreaked on Japan and given that this film was made less than a decade after V-J day it would obviously be exposing still-fresh wounds. In fact, it’s made explicitly clear that Godzilla’s existence is a result of H-bomb testing.
As I started this post I realized a movie with a similar tone is Cloverfield. In one of the IMDB posts I referenced here and here I actually reviewed Cloverfield and said it did for the 9/11 attacks and New York what the original Godzilla movie did for the atomic bomb and Japan. Here is that review if you want to read it.
I talked there about how much I cared about the characters in Cloverfield and that’s the most important reason I find Godzilla, King of the Monsters legitimately unnerving – the peril of characters whom I care about, made that way by talented actors. Raymond Burr provides amazing gravitas and while some purists prefer the original 1954 cut instead of the American edit which added the traveling reporter played by him, as an American I liked having a character with whom I could connect. Granted, the Japanese version was over 90 minutes while this was only 80, which means that when you take into account how much footage was added with Steve Martin (yes, that’s the reporter character’s name) there must have been a significant amount of the Japanese characters’ story cut. Still, I found theirs quite moving as well!
I’ll add that having Godzilla as a doll instead of a CGI work of art didn’t bother me at all. I realized that you can make a sock puppet the monster and still have a great horror movie on your hands if you have the right actors conveying sincere terror – not to mention the right lighting, cinematography, and writing. I hope that inspires any horror filmmakers worried about their VFX eventually getting outdated and looking fake.
Note: I found out the 1954 movie released in Japan was simply called Godzilla. I suppose it was even more of an homage than I thought when the sequel to 2014’s Godzilla was named Godzilla: King of the Monsters.
Bottom Line: It’s a wonderful movie. Very strong recommendation.
Up Next: Find out more about this timeless character!
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