Godzilla, King of the Monsters (1956): written by Shigeru Kayama, Takeo Murata, Ishiro Honda, and Al Ward; directed by Ishiro Honda and Terry Morse; starring Raymond Burr (Steve Martin), Takashi Shimura (Dr. Yamaane), Momoko Kochi (Emiko), Akira Takarada (Ogata), Akihiko Hirata (Dr. Serizawa), and Fuyuki Murakami (Dr. Tabata): Not the Japanese cut of Godzilla (well, Gojira) but the American version, a big hit in the States that helped fuel the giant monster boom of the 1950's and 1960's.
This version basically tells the same story as the original Japanese film, but with Raymond Burr interpolated into the movie as narrator and lone Caucasian (well, his editor gets a brief appearance too). Burr plays Steve Martin (!!!!), an American journalist on vacation in Japan when Gojira...errr....Godzilla emerges from the sea to wreak havoc.
Steve Martin is the only American journalist in Japan at this time, or at least it sure seems so. And what a great job he does! In the daring tradition of frontline reporters, he's pretty much everywhere Godzilla strikes, albeit never in the same shot.
He's also friends with all the major characters of the original cut. We know because they spend a lot of time talking to him, but only in the same shot when they're photographed from behind.
Anyway, I can't say as the frame story improves the movie. The characterization of the Japanese characters gets whittled down to almost nothing because STEVE MARTIN must tell us what's going on. If only they could have tricked Godzilla into putting on.... THE CRUEL SHOES.
The sequences showing the destruction of cities, people, and trains still hold a curious and elemental power. The original movie-makers weren't squeamish about showing people engulfed in flame, or doomed mothers and children about to be crushed, burned, or boiled to death.
The 'Godzilla Attacks' theme is one helluva piece of music, too. I wish the whole movie were scored to that unnerving, propulsive, jittery string-based symphony of destruction and dread! Thank you, composer Akira Ifukube!
It is interesting to evaluate the two major English-language cuts of Godzilla/Gojira together. The non-Burr version is better, scarier, and sadder. Still, reporter Steve Martin has a lot of gumption! And this American version is remarkably free of racism -- what we are presented with are simply Japanese citizens faced with an immeasurable horror. Recommended.
Gojira (1954): written by Takeo Murata, Ishiro Honda, and Shigeru Kayama; directed by Ishiro Honda; starring Akira Takarada (Ogata), Momoko Kochi (Emiko), and Akihiko Hirata (Serizawa): Gojira/Godzilla is a colossal prick in this American release of the Japanese original. There's no Raymond Burr here to explain things, as he was added to the mass release/re-edit of Gojira known as Godzilla, King of the Monsters (1956). Instead, we get what is often a traditional horror movie, occasionally an intermittently shocking disaster movie.
There's also a love story, some commentary on atomic bombs and atomic testing, a doomsday weapon called The Oxygen Destroyer (what a band name that would be!), and a lengthy prayer/song sequence. Gojira is all monster here. It's sometimes forgotten that Gojira is naturally 150 feet tall, though the atomic tests that awoke him probably gave him that deadly radioactive fire breath.
Some effects don't work at all, most notably a sequence in which jet fighters engage Gojira with some hilariously inaccurate firecrackers meant to be missiles. Other effects still work, though, especially those involving the devastation of Tokyo and the pitiful fates of those caught on the ground by this new God of the Atomic Age. Where are the heroic Mothra larvae when you need them? Recommended.
Pacific Rim: written by Travis Beacham and Guillermo del Toro; directed by Guillermo del Toro; starring Charlie Hunnam (Raleigh Becket), Idris Elba (Pentecost), Rinko Kikuchi (Mako Mori), Burn Gorman (Gottlieb), Charlie Day (Geiszler), and Ron Perlman (Hannibal Chau) (2013): Pacific Rim is a hoot, an expensive homage to every Japanese movie and cartoon that gave us gigantic, city-destroying monsters and/or giant, man-shaped, world-saving robots and cyborgs. There's even a rocket punch, and monsters that could clearly beat the crap out of Leonard Maltin AND Sydney Poitier. But not Robert Smith!!!
The movie even mostly hangs together as a thought experiment, though it overcomplicates the plot in a couple of ways. The most problematic overcomplication is the movie's premise that humanity has stopped making Jaegers -- the giant human-run robots that are the only effective defense against the monstrous Kaiju that periodically come striding out of a dimensional rift in the Pacific Ocean floor -- and instead turned to building a giant, and soon-to-be-proven useless, wall around the Pacific (!!!!!!!!). It would have been a lot simpler to note that the defense program is temporaily short on Jaegers due to the increase in period and frequency of Kaiju attacks, and move on.
Other than that, though, the movie is a lot of fun, with an emphasis on teamwork over individuality, and a multi-national cast that may have hindered its box-office performance in the United States. Either that, or they should have just titled it Transformers: Pacific Rim, even though the robots don't actually transform.
The main cast of Charlie Hunnam, Rinko Kikuchi, and Idris Elba is tremendously likeable; the twitchy scientists played by Burn Gorman and Charlie Day are intermittently amusing and ultimately heroic; the Kaiju organlegger played by Ron Perlman is a welcome jolt of energy. The robots look great, as do the Kaiju, though I wish the filmmakers had spent a bit more on visual effects and given us one extended Jaeger vs. Kaiju battle staged entirely in the day-time. The murkiness of the night battles and the undersea battles sometimes gets a bit annoying.
The best Kaiju sequence, as if from a postmodern fairytale, involves one of the gargantuan monsters -- this one vaguely crab-like -- chasing a little girl through the streets of Tokyo. It's scary and funny, and better than pretty much any visual effects sequence from any other blockbuster this summer. Highly recommended.
