Godzilla Raids Again - You're Bored Now, Huh?
This movie is hard to talk about, honestly. It’s kind of a mixed bag across the board. Effects, performances, battle scenes, the list goes on and on. This one is just kind of hard to talk about. Which, I mean, why wouldn’t it be? Making a follow up to one of the most important films ever made isn’t easy. Making a sequel isn’t easy in the first place. But when you’re following up on a movie like Godzilla, you’d be hard pressed to make a movie that fully captures the same magic. And that’s not to the film’s discredit. Sure, Aliens and Empire Strikes Back sure as hell made making a sequel look easy, but it’s not as easy as you’d think. So, that being said, this movie is still really sloppy.Two pilots who get lost find a terrifying discovery: not only is there a new Godzilla, but he is also battling another giant monster, the thorny Anguirus. Armed with this knowledge, they return to Japan and must warn the country of the incoming attack from these leviathans. As the monsters ultimately reach Osaka and Godzilla is victorious, it is clear that once and for all; Godzilla must be stopped. The first thing I want to talk about with this one is a simple word: rush. Since a sequel was first made till now, there has been a want to pump out a sequel as fast as possible. Which I mean, whatever. I guess that's fair. But we come to the ever present quandary which will haunt humanity for the rest of time: quality over quantity. I myself prefer quality. The better the movie is, I don't care how long it takes to make it. If it took them 15 years between Godzilla and Godzilla Raids Again, I'd have no problem with it. Because movies deserve to have that time dedicated to them to make them perfect. This movie didn't get that time. Between the first premiere of Godzilla in Nagoya to the release of Raids Again, only six months passed. That's half a year to write a script, compose new music, make new miniatures for city destruction scenes, complete an entirely new Godzilla suit, hire actors and bring together an entire cast and crew. That is no where near enough time to get a production made right. Six months should be bare MINIMUM for development of a film, not the entire production time. That's just not fair to anyone involved. So, let's give a simple explanation of the plot, I suppose. A few months after the death of the first Godzilla, two pilots discover that another Godzilla is alive and this time he isn't alone. When they first discovered this new Godzilla in Siberia, he was discover fighting another monster: a giant mutated ankylosaur type dinosaur named Anguirus. Locked in a death battle with Anguirus and headed on their way to Osaka, the people now have to figure out a way to take care of two titanic threats and restore peace and safety to Japan. 
Try as I might, this movie is not exactly easy to talk about in a super positive light, so, this section is going to be really brief. My favorite thing about this movie is actually NOT Godzilla, it is the new monster, Anguirus. And honestly, it's not even because of this movie, it's really because of his impact and appearances throughout the rest of the series. Anguirus would go on to be a really great member of the supporting cast of monsters. A nice iconic design that's simple for kids to draw (yes I do think that is important), cool abilities that he would gain as the series goes on, a big personality that is really apparent in all of his appearances: his tenacious nature that always gets him into too much trouble. He's got a cool roar and is a great first opponent for Godzilla. While Anguirus won't exactly become a mainstay of giant monsters like Godzilla or other monsters we'll meet later on, he is definitely one of my favorites, and this movie despite its many flaws is not that bad of an introduction for Anguirus. Now. (If you can imagine me sitting on a couch taking a nice long sip of a glass of cranberry juice right now, that'd be great.) Where do we begin? Basically everything else about the movie is not a positive. I think if you asked most of G Fans about Godzilla Raids Again that they'd say similar things. I'm going to focus on my criticisms on three big things: effects, performances and writing.
First, let's start with the effects. Look, there's no way I can be gentle about this: these are the worst looking PRACTICAL effects in the whole series. To your right you will see a picture of the suit used in the film, GyakushuGoji. Look, there's no way around it. After the bar that was set by the first movie, this is just embarrassing. Of course, this goes for most of the effects in the movie. But it's really bad in this movie in particular. Godzilla's suit looks downright terrible, by far the worst suit ever used in one of the Japanese produced films. I've heard comparisons before of later Godzillas to look like the Cookie Monster. Well if those Godzillas look like Cookie Monster, well then this guy looks like Sloth from the Goonies. After the first movie, the only words that can be used to describe the effects in this movie is definitely laughable. Godzilla's face looks like the kind of person you'd ignore on the train. And this isn't even as bad as it gets in my opinion. I know I JUST praised the hell out of Anguirus, but there are shots in the movie where you can see that the shell on the suit isn't even complete! Originally, Anguirus' shell was going to be able to split in half and basically be able to lift and move around not unlike a beetle's. But as production went on, this became cumbersome and too many working parts to deal with with an already heavy suit. So instead they basically stapled them to the rest of the suit. Only problem: they never went back to refilm most of the scenes. Which is fine, I guess. But when you've basically put concept art onto the screen and called it the complete work, you're telling the world that a half finished job is all good. And after the first movie, that is unacceptable.
The acting in this movie goes for a nosedive too. I can remember the cast of Godzilla very well. while of course that is in part due to my love of the original, it's also because the cast did a lot of work to make sure their words landed and that they did more to make this more than just another monster movie. That didn't really happen here. But, I will play fair and be a little nice to Hiroshi Koizumi (pictured right.) He plays one of the two pilots that the movie starts and ends with, Shoichi Tsukioka. And, despite most of the other performances either being very mediocre or flat out bad, he doesn't do that bad of a job. Now, don't get me wrong. It's still not the best work. It's not even his best work in this series as he will be reappearing a few times in upcoming films like Godzilla: Tokyo SOS. He does the best job he can with some really weak material, so he definitely gets props for doing his best. But, again, an actor can't really do that well if they don't have good material to work with. Which is a nice transition into my next quibble.This movie's writing is flat out bad. It's evident what movie you're in for by the first 10 minutes when Dr. Yamane (reprised by Takashi Shimura), comes back to basically explain the plot of Godzilla after you sit through a minute of stock footage from the same movie. He comes up with an actually interesting plan to keep Godzilla out of Osaka; committing the city to a blackout and scaring him away with bright lights that will remind him of the atom bomb. Great plan! Only it gets foiled by runaway prisoners crashing into a power plant and turning all the lights back on. Ain't that the most conveniently pathetic thing you've ever heard? 'Cause I certainly think it is. And then once Godzilla does come on shore, he isn't really that much of a threat. He and Anguirus basically only fight in one part of the city and then Anguirus dies. Just like that.By the time you think you're about done with the movie, it turns out that it hasn't actually been three hours and the movie is only actually an hour and twenty minutes long. But it feels like an eternity because nothing excited happens, but you wouldn't know because the effects are boring and you aren't motivated to watch. And you want to hold on for the acting, but the performances are mostly dry because the writing is not thoroughly thought out and then everything falls apart and then you look back and realize the movie is over and you missed the only exciting part of the movie because you were looking at your phone. This movie is boring. Really really boring. Which I find really upsetting because I feel like they wanted to try harder, but Toho's want for another box office success guaranteed this movie would go nowhere. Don't watch this one. Skip it and just watch something else instead. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Tomorrow's gonna be a really great movie, one of my favorites on the list, actually: Rodan! Thank you for reading, and I hope I see you back tomorrow!
The acting in this movie goes for a nosedive too. I can remember the cast of Godzilla very well. while of course that is in part due to my love of the original, it's also because the cast did a lot of work to make sure their words landed and that they did more to make this more than just another monster movie. That didn't really happen here. But, I will play fair and be a little nice to Hiroshi Koizumi (pictured right.) He plays one of the two pilots that the movie starts and ends with, Shoichi Tsukioka. And, despite most of the other performances either being very mediocre or flat out bad, he doesn't do that bad of a job. Now, don't get me wrong. It's still not the best work. It's not even his best work in this series as he will be reappearing a few times in upcoming films like Godzilla: Tokyo SOS. He does the best job he can with some really weak material, so he definitely gets props for doing his best. But, again, an actor can't really do that well if they don't have good material to work with. Which is a nice transition into my next quibble.This movie's writing is flat out bad. It's evident what movie you're in for by the first 10 minutes when Dr. Yamane (reprised by Takashi Shimura), comes back to basically explain the plot of Godzilla after you sit through a minute of stock footage from the same movie. He comes up with an actually interesting plan to keep Godzilla out of Osaka; committing the city to a blackout and scaring him away with bright lights that will remind him of the atom bomb. Great plan! Only it gets foiled by runaway prisoners crashing into a power plant and turning all the lights back on. Ain't that the most conveniently pathetic thing you've ever heard? 'Cause I certainly think it is. And then once Godzilla does come on shore, he isn't really that much of a threat. He and Anguirus basically only fight in one part of the city and then Anguirus dies. Just like that.By the time you think you're about done with the movie, it turns out that it hasn't actually been three hours and the movie is only actually an hour and twenty minutes long. But it feels like an eternity because nothing excited happens, but you wouldn't know because the effects are boring and you aren't motivated to watch. And you want to hold on for the acting, but the performances are mostly dry because the writing is not thoroughly thought out and then everything falls apart and then you look back and realize the movie is over and you missed the only exciting part of the movie because you were looking at your phone. This movie is boring. Really really boring. Which I find really upsetting because I feel like they wanted to try harder, but Toho's want for another box office success guaranteed this movie would go nowhere. Don't watch this one. Skip it and just watch something else instead. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Tomorrow's gonna be a really great movie, one of my favorites on the list, actually: Rodan! Thank you for reading, and I hope I see you back tomorrow! 
No comments:
Post a Comment