Review – Godzilla, King of the Monsters

Fans of the happy-go-lucky giant lizard who bravely defends Earth against the likes of Ghidorah, doing a gleeful little hornpipe after vanquishing his foes, will scarcely recognize the nightmare creature in this, the first Godzilla movie ever. The black and white film gives the movie an almost documentary feel in places, and it’s not hard to view this as at least a half-hearted attempt at some serious social commentary about the dangers of nuclear war and science-run-riot. The version most commonly available here in the States is a peculiar melange of the original Japanese version, dubbed and un-dubbed, and filler scenes shot with Raymond Burr to help explain the plot for the American audiences (not to mention providing the film with a caucasian hero). Someday I’d like to see a print that doesn’t include a bunch of Burr talking to actors that we only see from the back (because they’re standing in for the actors in the original Japanese version and, presumably, the Japanese actors weren’t available to have pithy conversations with an American actor just for the sake of the US release). Worth seeing