Review of King Kong vs. Godzilla (1962) by Adam F — 09 Apr 2014

"King Kong vs. Godzilla". It sounds like a dream come true, the match of the century, an epic battle to end all battles! On top of that, it's the first time these titans of cinema are appear on the big screen together, and the first time they're in colour, you can hear the excitement crackling in the air! Unfortunately it's probably also one of the worst "Godzilla" movies in the series. The special effects are atrocious, the costumes not particularly convincing and the big battle you're looking forward to is a big joke. But I'm getting ahead of myself, what is the plot here? Mr. Tako (Ichiro Arishima), head of Pacific Pharmaceuticals is upset that his company's ratings are down. He believes that the only way to boost them up is to get a mascot, not just any mascot though, a monster! He sends two of his employees, Sakurai (Tadao Takashima) and Kinsaburo (Yu Fujiki) to Faro Island, home of a race of primitive people who worship a creature named "King Kong". Meanwhile, the American Submarine "Seahawk" collides with an iceberg... an iceberg containing the deadly King of the Monsters, Godzilla himself! Kong is being brought to Japan as a mascot while Godzilla resumes his usual rampage across the country. It's only a matter of time before these two engage in a battle to end all battles!

The premise for this movie is cool, but the setup is totally ridiculous and doesn't work at all. If you're a fan of the original "King Kong" (and how could you not be if you're into Kaiju films) you might be able to ignore the fact King Kong is ridiculously smaller than Godzilla is (and they do give an explanation for the change in size) but they get basic facts about the character wrong. Where is Skull Island? What's this Faro Island here? Where are all the dinosaurs and the sacrificial women? Did they even see the original movie? Kong doesn't feel like the same character at all. In an effort to crowbar a matchup between two characters that really have no business together, they totally change Kong's character by giving him electrical powers. If he gets hit by lightning it charges him up. You might as well make up a new monster at this point. I'm also going to add that the costume for Kong looks truly awful, barely like a gorilla at all. It's made that much worse by the fact that in an attempt to make the costume more like the actual animal they extend the costume's arms, therefore making any grasping motions and arm movements look totally ridiculous and not the least bit convincing. Faring better is Godzilla, who's been given a more lizard-like appearance this time around. The big guy goes around like he did in the previous film, stomping around, wrecking Japan's cities and reducing military vehicles to smoldering wrecks. There's even a nice continuity from the previous film, where he emerges from a block of ice (he was buried in ice at the end of "Godzilla Raids Again". So with these two monsters introduced, we're told that they are instinctly drawn together because they're mortal enemies. Godzilla is the dumb brute, the dinosaur with the pea-sized brain and the significant amount of firepower. Kong is the smart one, less powerful but he's got the power to put together strategy. That's the theory behind it anyway. In practice, the intelligence factor is applied very little and it's just two monsters rolling around on the slopes of Mount Fuji while Kong begs for an electrical storm to power him up. The big fight between Kong and Godzilla is really a letdown, mostly because Kong doesn't stand a chance. I mean look at Godzilla. He's a dinosaur that can shoot fire from his mouth and is pretty much immune to conventional weapons. The filmmakers knew that there was no way this could really work so they delay the fight between the two as much as possible and when it does happen, it's nothing special.

The one biggest flaw of the film is the special effects. If you see this film you will be treated to what is without a doubt some of the worst you have ever seen. There are several sequences where actors must have been against a blue screen and then cut out and superimposed on another background to achieve the effect of making some creatures look enormous, but the effect is without a doubt the worst effort I've ever seen. It looks like the actors were illuminated under blue light or the scenes were shot at night because they all look tinted blue and they clash horribly with the background. Other times, the monster action must have been projected on a screen and the actors were told to stand in front of it. That effect works a bit better but it also creates the unfortunate effect of having them cast really dark, really glaring shadows on the monsters when they throw spears or torches or whatever at them. When it comes to the miniatures and models, those look pretty good for the most part, but even then there are some scenes where they look terrible. There's a part, about halfway through the movie where two tanks are equipped with special missiles, filled with tranquilizer gas, to shoot at Kong. Once you see them get fired, it's obvious that the missiles in question where paper images glued onto the film and simply removed (but not very well) once the projectiles were fired. When your special effects look worse than the ones from the two previous movies in the franchise, and those were in black and white you know your movie is in trouble. If you're watching the English/American version of the film you'll also notice that there is a lot of new footage added, and it's truly amateur hour. What is supposed to be a news set looks like someone's living room with a couple of maps pasted on the walls. So it boils down to bad costumes (in the case of Kong), bad special effects all around, a nonsensical, ill-conceived plot tying it all together and a movie that's a big disappointment.

This is one of those entries in the Godzilla series that is only meant for hardcore fans of the characters. I really mean hardcore, like it doesn't matter how bad the story or anything else is, you just get excited to see anything Godzilla or King Kong sorta fan. The plot isn't particularly interesting and the showdown between the two monsters isn't that impressive but really, it's the piss-poor special effects that really bring this one down. As a comedy/movie that you can sit down or make fun of, it's actually a lot of fun, just because it really is that poorly put together and made better by the fact that the movie is in Japanese and then dubbed in English so the lip synch isn't great. For little kids too, I suppose I can recommend it, but in this new age of computer effects even the youngest of children will be able to see what absolute rubbish it is. If the title and premise of the movie makes you want to see this, you'll have a good time making fun of it when it's bad and laughing at the intentional jokes when it's good, but when I say that this is probably the worst entry in the Godzilla series, I really mean it. (English version on Dvd, March 26, 2014).