Review of Godzilla 1985 (1985) by M. K — 26 Jul 2009

**This review is of the original Japanese version, NOT the recut American version**.

There's a lot of interesting ideas floating around in Gojira (1984), which is one of the few films in the craptastic Godzilla series that's actually worth watching. The fact that the ideas never come into real focus is, of course, due to the fact that this is a film about a giant rubber mutant dinosaur destroying a decently rendered miniature Tokyo, but hey, at least it tries.

In visual terms, the film is a pleasant surprise. The cinematography is excellent, with lots of gloomy, apocalyptic imagery. There are several shots that linger in the mind: a POV shot of the title beast as it approaches a nuclear power plant through the fog; the Japanese Prime Minister framed between two immovable stone pillars as he debates US and Russian ambassadors (a brilliantly subtle touch); Godzilla reflected in the innumerable glass windows on the side of a skyscraper. The score by Reijiro Koroku is a masterpiece of epic menace, gorgeous melody and fabulous orchestration--easily ranking alongside Akira Ifukube's legendary score for the original film (its not too hard to track down a copy of the score on web forums).

The banal monster-meets-hipsters Cloverfield appears to have gleefully lifted a sequence near the opening here, where the main character is attacked by giant mutant sea lice that have sucked dry all the crew members of an abandoned ship.

Alas, it can't be all good. The plot to lure Godzilla to his doom is laughably innane ("dinosaurs evolved into birds, and birds follow electromagnetic currents in the Earth, so logically, since Godzilla is dinosaur and related to birds, we can lure him somewhere using recorded bird calls!"), Godzilla himself is saddled with gigantic white googly eyes that rob him of any seriousness, and the human characters are all thinner than tissue paper.

Despite all its many, many, MANY faults, Gojira (1984) has just enough style and just barely enough substance to still make it worth a viewing. Just try to suppress your giggles.