Movie Review: The Return of Godzilla (1984)

With this film, I've finally seen all the main Godzilla films, not counting the Netflix anime movies. A fitting way to wrap up, I think. However, maybe not the most exciting way to wrap up. I've never found solo kaiju movies to be as fun as multi-monster mashups. In solo kaiju outings, the burden of spectacle falls on a singular monster stomping around and destroying miniature sets. Those scenes will always be fun, of course, but it just can't match the joy of two guys in rubbery monster suits duking it out. The Return of Godzilla is still a decent film, it's just not as appealing to me as some of the others of the Heisei era.

This is a reboot of sorts for the Godzilla franchise, ignoring every film except for the 1954 original. Godzilla, as the title would suggest, returns to destroy Japan once more. It's never clear if this is the same Godzilla who somehow survived being vaporized at the end of the '54 original, or a separate Godzilla altogether. Either way, volcanic activity in the ocean has brought the big galoot back to Japan, and he's on a rampage.

The bulk of Return is dedicated to Japanese officials trying to figure out what to do about their giant lizard problem. For a while, before the whole world realizes that Godzilla has in fact returned, his Soviet-submarine-destroying undersea rumblings are blamed on the United States. Cue a Cold War-era diplomatic crisis. Japan steps in, revealing that Godzilla's back, but now the U.S. and Russia want to handle Godzilla themselves. All the governmental back-and-forth and heated diplomacy feel quite similar to the original '54 film and prescient of the most recent Toho Godzilla film, Shin Godzilla. In a way, this is the connective tissue between the original and Shin Godzilla. Three solo Godzilla ventures that are much more concerned about Godzilla as an entity and how that affects international politics, rather than a bunch monster fights and sci-fi kookiness. 

Your mileage may vary with Return. If you prefer your giant monster movies to actually be thematic and trying to say something, this will probably be your cup of tea. Especially considering the majority of the 60's and 70's Godzilla films were silly and kid-oriented, Return comes as a darker, more grounded take on the monster. Some people might prefer that. If you're like me, you might like the serious tone but still find yourself pining for monster fights. Of course, the rest of the Heisei era films deliver in that regard, but it's still a bit of a let-down. This is a perfectly fine Godzilla film, just not what I'm looking for in this franchise.

Movie Review: Son of Godzilla (1967)

In my quest to watch all the Godzilla movies, Son of Godzilla was one I kept putting off. It just seemed like the dud of the series. Even Godzilla vs. Megalon, another well-known low point for Godzilla, has a major cheese factor to it that makes it kind of fun. Sure, the absolute worst of the series is probably Godzilla's Revenge, but I saw that as a kid and barely remember it (that still counts in the overall "I've seen every Godzilla movie" thing, so hush). As a fully cognizant adult, I dreaded having to watch something with Minilla, Godzilla's not-quite-son. Nevertheless, my compulsion to finish the series won out and I went ahead and sat through it. It wasn't as bad as I expected, but that's not saying much.

The human storyline, the part you usually tune out while waiting for monster action, is sort of interesting. A group of scientists stationed on a remote island are fiddling around with weather technology, trying to find a way to terraform inhospitable areas of the planet, thus preventing overpopulation in the future. This is all just a contrived excuse to get Godzilla to show up, but it's an interesting idea. Meteorology is not a common subject in science fiction, so even though it's not really relevant to the plot, it's kind of an interesting aside. An experiment with a weather balloon goes haywire, which screws up the weather and causes all the bugs on the island to grow to kaiju-sized proportions. The crazy weather also unearths a giant egg, which unfortunately contains Minilla. The egg hatches, which causes Godzilla to show up to the island. The movie acts like Minilla is related to Godzilla, but this raises a lot of questions. Who is the mother to Minilla? Is Godzilla an asexual creature that spawns its own eggs? Who knows? The movie sure isn't answering these questions.

Godzilla and Minilla have a weird sort of father-son relationship. Godzilla tries to teach Minilla to breathe atomic breath, but the creepy little dude can barely muster a smoke ring. Other antics include Minilla jumping over Godzilla's tail while his dad tries to sleep, and otherwise making a nuisance of himself. It would almost be charming in a dopey sort of way if the costume designs weren't so gnarly. The Godzilla costume was apparently redesigned for this film, ostensibly to make him appear friendlier for the kid audience. He certainly looks less reptilian, but I don't know if he looks any friendlier. His head shape and eyes are strangely humanoid, which is quite unsettling. Little Minilla fairs no better. He too shares his father's unpleasantly humanoid noggin, complete with creepy Hamburglar buckteeth. He also looks like a sack of potatoes, and his roar sounds like a braying donkey. Definitely not what you'd call cute, especially compared to the more aesthetically pleasing designs the series would go on to use in the 90's Godzilla films.

Son of Godzilla isn't the worst film in the 65-year-old franchise, but it's definitely one of the weaker entries. This one is clearly going for kids and kids only, which is a perfectly fine goal, but I don't know how many kids would enjoy this. The monster stuff is pretty sparse, and the stuff with the scientists is too dry to hold most kids' interest. Godzilla does eventually do battle with the giant bugs, so maybe some kid watching this on TV back in the 70s would have been placated by that. I certainly wasn't.