Godzilla Minus One / Gojira -1.0 (2023)
Director: Takashi Yamazaki
Screenwriter: Takashi Yamazaki
Starring: Ryunosuke Kamiki, Minami Hamabe, Yuki Yamada, Munetaka Aoki, Hidetaka Yoshioka, Sakura Ando, Kuranosuke Sasaki, Mio Tanaka, Sae Nagatani

As visually polished and park-your-brain-at-the-door fun as the Hollywood Godzilla films are, they aren’t exactly overflowing with big ideas or thematic subtext. That’s what the Japanese Toho movies are for. Now, with their most famous character in a shared custody arrangement with Legendary Pictures that currently allows them to unleash a new Gojira film only in years that don’t include a competing US Monsterverse release, they’ve come out of the gate in 2023 with an absolute barnstormer.

In the final months of World War II, Koichi Shikishima (Ryunosuke Kamiki), a kamikaze pilot deserter, witnesses the massacre of an engineering crew by an ancient dinosaur-like monster. As he returns to life in a bombed-out Tokyo recovering from the US Pacific Campaign, he gains a new family in Noriko (Minami Hamabe) and an adopted little girl. Soon the creature reappears, now mutated to a colossal size by radiation from nuclear weapons testing, and begins a new path of destruction across a country still in turmoil. 

Refreshingly for a kaiju monster movie, the human element is at the forefront of the filmmakers’ minds and, as evidenced by movies ranging from Jaws to Independence Day, it pays dividends to spend so much time on character development early on so you actually care when their world starts going to hell. The film highlights an unconventional family unit made up of unmarried domestic partners and an unrelated child rescued from the streets, which seems a little anachronistic at first (and Koichi’s domestic setup does give his colleagues pause the first time they visit him at home) but there must have been so many similar relationships formed out of necessity in the immediate aftermath of a costly war. This group of protagonists including military personnel, scientists and civilians of various stripes is perhaps the most compelling in any Godzilla movie. Hugely gratifyingly, everyone – but especially the guilt-ridden Koichi and his insecure partner Noriko, who both need to decide to truly live their new lives – has their own story to tell and their demons to face. 

In addition to often leaving the human element buried under rubble, the Hollywood Godzilla movies also don’t always manage to convey the sense of scale behind all the CG gleam and the dazzle of environmental effects. That’s never a problem here when we’re placed on a level with nuanced and grounded characters going through a waking nightmare and seeing the monster’s impact in their immediate vicinity.

Godzilla is no longer portrayed by a guy stomping around in a rubber suit, but even with modern VFX everything has weight and feels pleasingly tactile, a slow but inevitable doom on the horizon. The VFX teams are clearly proud of their work as aside from a brief prologue straight out of Jurassic Park, the Godzilla action takes place in broad daylight and is never obscured by a choppy edit. Even when he’s not on screen, his ominous presence is felt; an existential threat evoking recent atrocities that requires a nation trying to rebuild to once again make an immense sacrifice. Perhaps even more than the visuals, what gives these set pieces such impact is the punchy sound design that rattles you to your core.

It’s incredible how well the film’s modest budget (under $15million) has been utilised here, director Takashi Yamazaki also supervising the visual effects as he did with the last big screen Toho monster blockbuster Shin Godzilla (2016). There is very little sign of obvious fix-it-in-post work and the real in-camera elements, the subtle VFX used to extend and enhance, and the more explicitly fantastical, blend together beautifully.

Over the decades, directors behind Godzilla movies have alternated between casting the big scaly guy as an unknowable, nigh-on indestructible force (see Godzilla ‘54, and Godzilla 2000) or as a reluctant defender of people and the planet from far worse threats (Invasion of the Astro-Monster, King of the Monsters) and something in-between. Here, Godzilla is terrifying again; pointedly bringing with him the power not only to smash buildings and tear apart warships but the threat of further nuclear devastation, his distinctive dorsal spines now extending row-by-row to indicate a countdown to him unleashing his atomic breath.

The powder is kept dry on Akira Ifukube’s instantly recognisable original theme music until we see a sequence that directly lifts perhaps the most iconic image from the original 1954 movie. Naoki Sato’s new score melds really well with the classic music that is sampled and adds to the gut-vibrating richness of the soundscape as a whole.

Militarism and the tragic waste of war is rightly framed as abhorrent, and Japan’s uncomfortable place caught between the US and the Soviet Union’s post-WWII battle for territory is an interesting point highlighted in the script, but the film stops short of deeply interrogating the feelings of the late 1940s Japanese citizens about the right-wing nationalist ideology and the code of honour that demanded death before surrender that their country so recently operated under. This, along with an (if not predictable then) unsurprising final act are still minor quibbles when everything else is so well executed. 

Godzilla Minus One has a very strong claim to being the best kaiju movie in 70 years. It gives an iconic Japanese monster his power back by combining grounded characterisation, some incisive thematic exploration, and technical excellence. The American Godzilla movies are fun and all, but this is proof not only that you can use dumb spectacle to articulate something really smart but that Japan’s greatest metaphor in pop culture is still awe-inspiring and more relevant than ever. The major Hollywood studios need to take note of this film’s worldwide success and maybe start greenlighting more modest genre efforts with real personality and something to say. 

Score: 22/24

Recommended for you: Showa Era Godzilla Movies Ranked

Legendary Entertainment, the production company behind recent box office successes Dune and Godzilla vs Kong, is currently eyeing a new distributing home after a three-year deal with Warner Bros recently came to an end.

Sony is currently the frontrunner to land a partnership with Legendary, Deadline reports, with Sony-owned Paramount close behind. It is understood that Warner Bros have also presented a new deal to the production company.

The potential move is significant because Warner was the first studio Legendary found a home at, and is where they have produced most of their films. Legendary did have a brief stint at Universal from 2013 to 2019, but returned to Warner due to being dissatisfied with box office returns. Put simply, Legendary is typically a company that is loyal to Warner Bros, one that has enjoyed much success in partnership with the studio behemoth. Together, they have partnered on The Dark Knight trilogy, The Hangover trilogy and more recently Detective Pikachu. 

But a move isn’t as out of the blue as it may first seem…

Firstly, there was Warner’s controversial decision to release their entire 2021 slate simultaneously in theatres and on streaming service HBO Max. Legendary, along with other production companies, were not given advanced notice of the new release strategy and were not allowed any input in how their films would be distributed. Since Legendary had two very high profile releases that year, Dune and Godzilla vs Kong, they were particularly upset over this decision and even threatened legal action.

An arrangement was made outside of a courtroom and their films performed fairly well, but the debacle soured relations nonetheless.

Warner Bros’ 2021 release strategy was also the reason Christopher Nolan and his production company, Syncopy, left the studio after a 15-year association.

In 2022, Warner Bros have entered the stewardship of a new regime. David Zaslav, the man appointed the CEO of the newly formed Discovery-Warner (following a merger), seems keen to stick to theatrical exclusivity, but has already caused a stir in Hollywood for less noble reasons.

Zaslav, who acted as Discovery CEO from 2006, was behind the decision to cancel Warner Bros’ near-complete Batgirl DC Comics film, opting instead to have the film written off as a tax return. As a result, the film can not be released in any form as Warner are now legally forbidden from making money on it.

On top of this, Warner Bros are facing financial issues at the moment, with a recent report suggesting they can only afford to release two more films this year, Black Adam and Don’t Worry Darling. Due to this, high profile releases such as Shazam! Fury of the Gods have been pushed to 2023. That, coupled with Zaslav’s ruthless approach, creates a degree of uncertainty for any production company working under Warner at the current time.

The potential move of Legendary to a rival studio would be a huge loss for David Zaslav and the new Discovery-Warner partnership, not just in terms of the franchises they’ll lose the rights to but for how it would symbolise a lack of support for the new regime.

A partnership between Legendary and Sony or Paramount could, however, prove exceptionally beneficial for either studio at the box office, with recognisable IP such as Dune and the Monsterverse likely to bring large sums of money to whichever company works out the best deal.

Representatives from Warner and Legendary declined to comment on the situation. A statement will likely appear once a deal has been made.

Follow @thefilmagazine on Twitter for daily movie news updates.

Here at The Film Magazine, our team of sensational, intelligent and (truthfully) overqualified writers have bravely battered away the anxieties and threats of the world to escape for an hour, two, three or even four (in the case of Zack Snyder’s Justice League) to bring to you essential coverage of over 100 new releases and present the very best from some of the year’s most reputable film festivals.

In doing so, our 19 regular writers and many more guest contributors have offered articles as wide in scope as “Where to Start with” guides and ranked lists, filmmaker interviews and breaking news stories, presenting hundreds of new portals into the world of cinema.

Together with our outstanding supporters and strong social media following, the efforts of our team have broken new ground for The Film Magazine with thefilmagazine.com having been visited by over 50% more people than in any other year in our history. Thank you for your support.

In this Movie List, we’re counting down the 21 articles that you (the readers) have judged to be our very best; ranking each in terms of visitor count, starting from the 21st highest and counting down to the most popular article released in 2021.

The rules are simple: this list only includes articles written and published in their first iterations in 2021 and therefore doesn’t include list updates, such as is the case for our popular “Spider-Man Movies Ranked” article. Please note that lists naturally accrue more visitors as they are set over multiple pages.

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21. Voice of Silence (2021) Review

Author: Jack Cameron
Twitter: @JackCam86118967

“So rarely has there been a film so gentle and heart-warming that also so deeply challenges your sense of morality.”

Reviewed as an integral part of The Film Magazine’s Glasgow Film Festival coverage, this South Korean off-kilter drama from impressive debut director Hong Eui-jeong proved to be popular courtesy of guest author Jack Cameron’s impressive and tightly constructed review.

Read here.

20. ‘Planet of the Apes’ at 20 – Review

Author: Sam Sewell-Peterson
Twitter: @SSPThinksFilm

For the 20th birthday of Tim Burton’s critically maligned Planet of the Apes remake, Sam Sewell-Peterson sought to reanalyse and reassess Mark Wahlberg, Tim Roth and company, discovering that things aren’t quite as bad as we all remember, especially with the benefit of twenty years of reboots and remakes.

Read here.

19. Where to Start with Gene Kelly

Author: Joseph Wade
Twitter: @JoeTFM 

Shared by Gene Kelly’s widow Patricia Kelly on social media, this handy guide on where to start with one of Hollywood’s leading lights and most iconic faces is sure to lead you down a rabbit hole of spectacular musicals, ear worms and all the golden era Hollywood romance your heart can muster.

Read here.

18. Showa Era Godzilla Movies Ranked

Author: Sam Sewell-Peterson
Twitter: @SSPThinksFilm

Toho Studios founded Godzilla and made him famous. Putting the anxieties of Japan into mass circulation and gaining a worldwide cult following, they would make fifteen films through what is now known as the Shōwa Era, each of which were ranked worst to best by Sam Sewell-Peterson.

Read here.

Godzilla vs Kong (2021)
Director: Adam Wingard
Screenwriters: Max Borenstein, Eric Pearson, Michael Dougherty, Terry Rossio, Zach Shields
Starring: Alexander Skarsgård, Millie Bobby Brown, Rebecca Hall, Brian Tyree Henry, Julian Dennison, Kaylee Hottle, Damián Bichir, Eliza González, Shun Oguri, Kyle Chandler, Lance Reddick, Hakeem Kae-Kazim

It has all come down to this: the ultimate “let them fight” movie.

Following 2014’s Godzilla, 2017’s Kong: Skull Island and 2019’s Godzilla: King of the Monsters, we now have a grand finale in Godzilla vs Kong. It may not be clever, but it’s certainly big, and it could be just the kind of film spectacle that so many of us starved of blockbuster entertainment for over a year need right now.

After a handy recap montage of the previous three films in the Legendary Entertainment Monsterverse, we pick up the story five years after the events of King of the Monsters, with a now fully-grown Kong contained and studied by crypto-palaeontological organisation Monarch and Godzilla mysteriously emerging to destroy the flagship research facility of secretive biotech company Apex Cybernetics. With Godzilla bound to attack another alpha Titan on sight and leave untold destruction in his wake, Monarch and Apex fund an expedition guided by Kong’s genetic instincts and overseen by Dr Nathan Lind (Alexander Skarsgård) and Dr Ilene Andrews (Rebecca Hall) to the mythic Hollow Earth below the planet’s crust in order to take advantage of a new and seemingly unlimited energy source. Meanwhile, Apex CEO Walter Simmons (Damián Bichir) has dastardly plans to exploit the inevitable battle between Titans, whilst the daughter of two monarch scientists, Maddison Russell (Millie Bobbie Brown), aims to expose them with the help of a podcasting whistle-blower, Bernie Hayes (Brian Tyree Henry).

The two titular monsters, who come face-to-face for the first time about 40 minutes into the film in an eye-popping battle on an aircraft carrier, are framed very differently to begin with. Kong gets an idyllic introduction on his tropical island set to a crooning love song; Godzilla emerges from the water displaying his glowing nuclear intimidation display before bringing fiery destruction to everything around him, all set to Tom Holkenborg’s ominous, booming score. Kong is clearly our hero and Godzilla the antagonist.

Godzilla vs Kong may well feature the finest, most creative Kaiju fight choreography ever. There’s no hiding in shadows and smoke for these Titans – their final showdown is bathed in the glorious neon of the Hong Kong skyline like an illuminated title fight. You get to see Kong redirecting Godzilla’s atomic breath with MMA moves and using his simian agility to outmanoeuvre Godzilla’s lethal, crocodilian strikes. Kong drop-kicks Godzilla through a tower block and wields an axe with a Godzilla spine as the blade to even the odds, that is until Godzilla catches it in his jaws and throws it straight back at him like a boomerang.

When the monsters aren’t punching each other, this is a classic pulp sci-fi expedition story driven by the ridiculous but entertaining Hollow Earth Theory, a throwback to the stories of writers like Edgar Rice Burroughs and Jules Verne or some of the late 1950s/early 60s genre pictures made around the same time as Toho’s original Godzilla series.

Around the film’s halfway point, Dr Lind courteously hands out sick bags to his fellow hover-craft passengers before the gravity inversion that allows passage into the Hollow Earth hits them. The first time we see this realm shortly afterwards, with Kong floating through the sky before gravity re-asserts itself, the gorgeous prehistoric diorama around him with storm cloud-capped mountains hanging from the sky, is truly something to behold. This has been a realm alluded to for years in the Godzilla franchise but seldom seen or visited.

Humanity of course manipulates Kong’s trusting nature because we’re the absolute worst, exploiting his innocent connection with deaf child Jia (radiant newcomer Kaylee Hottle). The humans get ringside seats to the central conflict, occasionally contributing but mostly at the mercy of the Kaiju and whatever they feel like smashing. At least the ground-level characters get split off into appealing teams this time, the scientists following Kong and most of the action, and Maddison and her computer savvy friend Josh (Julian Dennison) sneaking into Apex with Bernie despite his unsuitability for child-minding (“He carries a bottle of whiskey from his dead wife like a gun!”).

This is a monster movie, and as such you really shouldn’t think too much about the techno-babble thrown around, or how calm most people seem to be now the world knows unequivocally that monsters exist and have been stomping around the planet for millennia. Don’t over-analyse how easily a podcaster and two teenagers infiltrate the top secret levels of a state-of-the-art tech company either. And while you’re at it, don’t try and work out what the ultimate endgame in Apex Cybernetics’ master plan is once the Titans are out of the way. The answer to all of the above is probably because it’s a monster movie and these work on a different kind of logic to other films.

There are big surprises in store here that will leave any Kaiju fan in need of power tools to remove the smiles from their faces, but if you’re not already well up for this kind of film, you will probably be left bewildered.

This is not a grim-dark or gritty take on this material, and while it might be less jokey than some of the more comedic Godzilla instalments, it knows what it is and doesn’t take itself too seriously, as if you could in a film where Kong re-sets his dislocated shoulder with a skyscraper. This is vibrant, colourful and epic, like the drawings on the back of an imaginative kid’s school textbook made flesh. There may not be anything particularly deep going on, but there are also no pretensions, just a love of monster movies and a desire to make the most kick-ass one possible.

16/20

Godzilla (2014)
Director: Gareth Edwards
Screenwriters: Max Borenstein, Dave Callaham
Starring: Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Elizabeth Olsen, Bryan Cranston, Ken Watanabe, Sally Hawkins, Juliette Binoche, David Strathairn, Carson Bolde, CJ Adams

67 years ago, Japanese studio Toho burst onto the international stage with Godzilla, an astonishing sci-fi/fantasy allegory for the Japanese nightmares of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. In 2014, a new vision of this well-worn story emerged from Monsters and Rogue One director Gareth Edwards.

The film opens in 1999 with two scientists (Ken Watanabe and Sally Hawkins) investigating the accidental excavation of some colossal animal remains in the Philippines. Along with a reptilian skeleton the size of a skyscraper, they discover something has hatched from a pair of strange eggs and is heading straight for the Japanese mainland. On the outskirts of Tokyo, nuclear physicist Joe Brody (Bryan Cranston) discovers some seismic anomalies and advises the immediate evacuation of the plant he oversees, but not in time to save everyone he loves. Cut to years later, and driven by his guilt and obsessive searching for answers, Joe and his estranged Naval officer son Ford (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) get caught up the chaos and destruction of monsters new and old making their presence known to the world.

While Edwards’ Godzilla pays tribute to Ishiro Honda’s original film quite explicitly at times – a monorail train comes off quite badly after crossing paths with a monster, Watanabe shares a name with a key character from the earlier film – the real lifeblood of Godzilla 2014 owes a debt not so much to Honda, but to Steven Spielberg and Jurassic Park. There are an obscene amount of references to the classic dino-disaster in terms of the story’s shape, the look and tone of the film at large, and even specific individual shots. The Jurassic Park nods include, but are not limited to: a creature imprisoned in a cage of electrified wire pinging the wire with a claw as it escapes; a comic moment where a bus driver has to wipe away fog from his windscreen to adequately survey the carnage going on outside his vehicle; Godzilla striking a victory pose and roaring triumphantly after a particularly tough fight. There’s also a clear nod to Edwards’ own debut film, and possibly even a reference to Roland Emmerich’s much-maligned 1998 Godzilla remake.

Whereas Honda’s Godzilla had nuance, depth and something important to say, Edwards’ film feels annoyingly non-committal. It never dares to make the leap to blame any one source for the events of the film. The Toho Godzilla was unashamedly an anti-nuclear, and anti-war piece, but this movie can’t seem to decide whether nuclear power, the destruction of nature, pollution, mankind’s violent nature or all of the above are to blame. By being non-committal it ends up criticising nobody – it’s all just a bit wishy-washy and lacking much-needed punch in the script.

Godzilla’s adversaries in the film, the radiation-sustained monsters dubbed “MUTOs”, are really dull in their inception, like a lazy amalgamation of the arachnids from Starship Troopers and the creature from Cloverfield. They inspire a newfound appreciation of how much effort and creativity went into designing the vibrant and varied kaiju of Pacific Rim.

Aaron Taylor-Johnson’s Ford makes for a serviceable but vanilla hero. His motivations – the protection of his young family (Elizabeth Olsen and Carson Bolde), and a general sense of duty – make sense, but the macho-reckless way he goes about fulfilling them defies logic, and undermines his character. It could have been really interesting having a young military father torn between his paternal instincts and his patriotic drive, but instead, half the time Ford seems to forget he has a family. The more talented cast members are either under-used (Cranston) or are good, but not good enough to hold up an entire film  (Watanable, Hawkins).

Alexandre Desplat’s score for the movie is admittedly gorgeous, a bright spot in a world of grey and brown. It is grand and rich, and sits perfectly between East and West orchestration styles, with cues echoing the original film’s iconic score.

The H.A.L.O jump set-piece that was splashed all over the marketing is a very impressively constructed sequence, a painterly image designed for cinema posters. Sadly it doesn’t last much longer than it did in the film’s trailer however, and no other action beat in the film comes close to matching it.

The idea that Godzilla essentially functions as nature’s factory reset button is cleverly presented, but the big scaly dude himself is hardly ever there. When he’s on-screen, either standing proud against devastated cityscapes, or swimming crocodile-like between aircraft carriers with his towering spines exposed, or unleashing his secret weapon to turn the tide of battle – he’s wonderfully realised, but fans won’t feel like they’ve really got their Godzilla fix, or, as strange as it sounds, won’t feel like they got to know him, which isn’t good in a film about (and titled after) Godzilla.

Gareth Edwards’ take on Godzilla had a lot of potential – a solid cast, an interesting up-and-coming director and a studio already well-versed in giant monster carnage. But Edwards may have bitten off more than he could chew by going straight from independent creature sleeper hit to helming the latest revival of one of the biggest icons in creature feature history. If only the script, the performances and the characters had been as impactful as the soundtrack and visuals.

10/24

Recommended for you: Showa Era Godzilla Movies Ranked (1954-1975)

Godzilla would go on to headline 32 Kaiju (Giant Monster) movies for Tokyo-based Toho Studios, battling a variety of titanic creatures in increasingly silly scenarios, causing untold collateral damage along the way but more often than not fighting to save the Planet Earth from whatever would seek to do it harm (including humanity).

English-language dubs and re-edits, a Hana-Barbera cartoon and several American blockbuster remakes of varying quality followed, but Godzilla’s status as King of the Monsters has endured into its eighth decade.

The Godzilla film franchise is the longest-running in history, as well as one of the most profitable horror and sci-fi series of all time – not bad for a brand that remained popular in its early days largely thanks to children’s love of watching guys in rubber monster suits wrestling and wrecking stuff.

In this edition of Ranked, we here at The Film Magazine are ordering Toho Studios’ first cycle of Godzilla movies, known as the Shōwa Era, from worst to best in terms of quality, contextual significance and long-lasting appeal. 15 movies, 15 conflicts between the King of the Monsters and his rogues gallery of colossal mutated animals, aliens, titanic prehistoric creatures, more aliens and a certain very famous ape monarch. Who will emerge victorious, who will cause the most destruction and who will come out on the other side of wearing a sweaty rubber monster suit with their dignity intact?

Let them fight.

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15. Godzilla Raids Again (1955)

This a boring, cheap, hacked-out-quick sequel to the hugely successful original film.

Throughout Godzilla Raids Again, military types keep warning of an incoming Godzilla-like object, but what else is Godzilla-like apart from Godzilla? Said Godzilla-like object is of course a different creature to the original as the first one wasn’t coming back for… spoilery reasons.

The action, particularly Godzilla’s fight against the spiny Anguirus – whose poor suit performer had to portray him on all-fours – is uninspired, the story is basic and the humans struggle to reach even a single dimension. There’s even a highlights reel from the first film disguised as a mission briefing to kill five extra minutes of runtime.

Amusingly, it looks an awful lot like Godzilla is stuck in a gin and tonic glass when fighter pilots are trying to bury him in an avalanche for the film’s finale, perfectly formed ice cubes tumbling around the massive lizard as he tries to claw at his airborne tormentors as they pass him by.

There may be worse Godzilla films on a purely technical level out there, but Raids Again is at the bottom of this list by the “virtue” of being the most boring movie in the series by far.

14. All Monsters Attack (1969)

Cute framing device and a worthwhile anti-bullying message aside, All Monsters Attack is a cheap, truncated clip show of a movie.

A little “latchkey” kid tired of running from his tormentors, and left at home alone by busy working parents, imagines a visit to Monster Island and hanging out with Godzilla’s son Minilla, who is also being hunted by bigger, meaner monster Gabara (an old repainted Godzilla costume with the tail removed and a new head). Meanwhile, a heist has gone down in the city and the gang responsible are looking for somewhere to hide from the pursuing cops.

Thankfully this is the shortest of the Godzillas, because the repetitive use of stock footage and the thoroughly disconnected-feeling action scenes are tiresome in the extreme and completely uninspiring.

A small bright spot in the film is little Ichiro fighting back against the incompetent criminal gang in an abandoned warehouse, Home Alone-style (perhaps this inspired John Hughes?), but there is very little else to recommend here.

Recommended for you: Home Alone Movies Ranked

13. King Kong vs Godzilla (1962/1963)

King Kong vs Godzilla Review

One of the first major franchise crossovers, made duplicitously behind the back of one of the title monsters’ creators (King Kong’s mastermind Willis O’Brien) – the behind-the-scenes story of the making of King Kong vs Godzilla is in many ways more interesting than the final film ended up being.

The American cut of this has some of the least convincing English dubbing of all time, and the frequent and jarring cuts to newscasters and experts in tweed jackets works purely to dumb down an already stupid film further, none of which helps you to stay engaged with the story.

The original Japanese version is much better, more energetic and a worthy entry in the series, but still some distance from being genuinely good. Both versions have a creepy taxidermy zombie-looking Kong and a distressing amount of Japanese actors in blackface (though no version of King Kong has managed to avoid offense in the native islander scenes).

Any satire of lowbrow TV programming that might have felt relevant in the early 1960s feels rather tame now, and the film as a whole lacks bite for all its surface-level entertainment value.

King Kong vs. Godzilla (1962)
Director: Ishirō Honda
Screenwriter: Shinichi Sekizawa
Starring: Haruo Nakajima, Shoichi Hirose, Ichirō Arishima

Note: This is a review of the original Japanese cut.

The Godzilla franchise is unique in that our imagination is a crucial component to enjoying any of its films, as much a part of the film as anything on the screen. To watch a Godzilla movie is to be 7-years old, playing with action figures and destroying cities made of cardboard. The third entry in the series, King Kong vs. Godzilla, gives many of us our first taste of that true adolescent energy – this is a film that takes more than simply accepting the fantastical, it demands that we enthusiastically suspend our disbelief.

An American military submarine crashes into an iceberg, unleashing a trapped Godzilla back into the world. Meanwhile, Mr. Tako (Ichirō Arishima), the head of a pharmaceutical company, grows exasperated with the programming his brand are sponsoring. In a rather extreme move, he enlists two men (Tadao Takashima and Yū Fujiki) to travel to Faro Island to retrieve King Kong and use the beast to boost his ratings. Shockingly, this does not go to plan and Japan unwittingly becomes the battleground for the world’s two biggest monsters.

King Kong vs. Godzilla sees Ishiro Honda return to the series he began in 1954 after Motoyoshi Oda took over directing duties for the first sequel Godzilla Raids Again in 1955. With Honda comes the satirical tone that Godzilla was built on, an element absent from Oda’s film. Kong’s cautionary tale of man destroying nature and Godzilla’s nuclear bomb allegory are downplayed, with Honda setting his sights on the television and advertising industries. The excitable Mr. Tako plays like the J. Jonah Jameson (Spider-Man franchise) of Japan, furiously determined to get footage of Kong at any cost, even if it means endangering the Japanese population. Like Carl Denham in Peter Jackson’s King Kong or Preston Packard in Kong: Skull Island, the stand-out characters are the ones driven to the verge of madness by their obsession with these commanding creatures, and Mr. Tako remains the sole human highlight of the film. However, this is a giant monster movie, and humans are not what we came here to see.

When viewed with a contemporary eye, it is easy to dismiss the Kong effects compared to Weta or ILM’s digital versions. More surprisingly, however, is how badly they hold up even to Willis O’Brien’s stop-motion effects from nearly 30 years prior (1933). This is undoubtedly the worst Kong has ever looked on screen – at a distance he resembles a man covered in roadkill, yet facial close-ups reveal that it may not be dead after all. Godzilla fares slightly better with a more lizard-like design than in his previous two incarnations – the lack of multimillion-dollar effects doesn’t wound the atomic dinosaur quite so much. For him, it’s all part of the charm.

Kong’s appearance isn’t the only problematic element of the film. Arrival on the ape’s native island gives way to a mass wave of blackface, with every tribesperson, young or old, portrayed by a Japanese actor in make-up. Likewise, a simple and cowardly crewmate named Konno provides an even more dated display of Black characterisation that will leave most viewers drawing air through their teeth. That’s not to mention the almighty cigarettes used to broker peace between Kong’s pursuers and the tribespeople…

The featured newspaper headline “Godzilla Awakens Again and Wreaks Havoc” may serve as a blueprint for every film in the franchise, but it’s in Honda’s hands that Godzilla is at his most effective. The effects and racial insensitivities may be funny and/or cringe-inducing at times, but the curiously serious tone that Honda strikes is not, and while there is more comedy here than in either of the two monsters’ previous films, underneath it all is the same feeling that pervades the 1954 film – that this planet may be our home, but there may be more danger here than we can fathom, and we will only know about it when it’s too late.

Viewers of Gareth Edwards’ 2014 US Godzilla reboot often criticised the lack of monster action to be found in the film, however King Kong vs. Godzilla may just make them feel lucky. Although their own individual scenes are interspersed throughout, it takes the two kaiju a full hour to finally meet, and their first brawl is over within a couple of minutes, teasing you until the finale. And is it worth it? If your idea of a good time is watching two men in rubber suits summersault into each other, then yes. Over the course of the film, we get to see Kong get drunk on berry juice, knock himself out during a fight, and attempt to stuff a tree down Godzilla’s throat. Say what you will, but it’s hard not to take some amount of joy in sights such as these.

Undoubtedly, whether you’re laughing with the film or at it, there’s an endearing quality to this style of filmmaking that makes it ultimately enjoyable. Dated though it may be, some respect is due for the first meeting of these two kings.

13/24

Written by Scott Z. Walkinshaw

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Godzilla: King of the Monsters (2019)
Director: Michael Dougherty
Screenwriters: Michael Dougherty, Zach Shields
Starring: Kyle Chandler, Vera Farmiga, Millie Bobby Brown, Zhang Ziyi, Sally Hawkins, Ken Watanabe, Bradley Whitford, Thomas Middleditch, Aisha Hinds, O’Shea Jackson Jr.

Godzilla: King of the Monsters is a beautiful piece of cinematographic art that suffers from a banal script and fails to deliver a satisfying story separate from the film’s action. It is also a picture that seems unable to present a clear philosophical and/or moral thesis regarding the “goodness” and necessity of titans (the term the film substitutes for kaiju), and fails to give any good reason for humanity to not simply kill them all (if humans are even capable of such a task). Perhaps logic isn’t the most pressing concern within monster-bash movies, but King of the Monsters may have gone too far.

At the top of the list of good things King of the Monsters has to offer is the work of Lawrence Sher, the VFX team and director Michael Dougherty on the visuals. The CGI is nothing short of incredible, and on par with Aquaman for the best seen on the big screen over the past 6 months or so. The red, yellow and blue coloration associated with monsters (blue for Godzilla, yellow for Ghidorah), character emotions and plot developments, ensure that the visual splendour on offer also has meaning, bathing the picture in not only a visual treat for the eyes but a significant one at that. To this point, the most strikingly beautiful visual component of this film is the plethora of Lovecraftian shots of enormous titans contrasted with tiny humans, especially those shot in the ocean that parallel Lovecraft’s most famous works Dagon and The Call of Cthulu.

Where this film differs from Lovecraft is in the concept of cosmicism; in Lovecraft’s fiction, humanity is insignificant in the grand scheme of the universe, and his Old Ones (who are natural beings like the titans in the film) are indifferent to humanity. This film puts humanity front and center for this battle between cosmically powerful beings, going so far as to consistently revisit human drama despite each of the human characters lacking depth at best, and being totally void of personality at worst. The human antagonist Jonah (Charles Dance) is introduced through an expository round table that all of the good guys are at, and he does little else besides say a couple of evil lines here and there. The film’s height of hubris and absurdity is the discovery that human voices are an important element in the audible signal that the characters use to control, or at least manage, titans.

The worst aspect of this film is its writing. King of the Monsters not only fails to incorporate strong and understandable laws and limits within its own universe (including zero attempts to answer why humanity hasn’t just wiped out the entire clan of titans by now, or why any of the titans can be considered to have different motivations from one another in the first place), but also incorporates one of the least imaginative tropes of blockbuster cinema, as evidenced in Batman v. Superman, where characters explain that we needn’t worry about loss of life because huge metropolitan areas where epic fights take place are evacuated and/or abandoned. Charles Dance is also shamefully underutilized and barely featured despite being the only true human antagonist in the film. He delivers stupid one-liners (for example, “long live the king”) like they’re lines from early ‘Game of Thrones’, and his character’s lack of depth and importance to the overall narrative is evidence of deep-rooted issues regarding the film’s characterisations.

Dr. Mark Russell (Kyle Chandler) is written to be about as one-dimensional as a protagonist can be – the only adversity he faces is the plot, but fortunately he always finds the right answers when called upon. Then there’s a side character, Dr. Rick Stanton (Bradley Whitford), who is almost exclusively used for comic relief and keeps bringing up the Hollow Earth Theory to explain titans travelling really far, really fast – it becomes a rarity for him to have more than one sentence to offer in any of his exchanges. Beyond that, sacrificial lambs are picked off at will, often with little to no emotional impact due to the overwhelmingly little they’ve had to do until that point and the stereotypes that make for their foundations.

Even the titular character, Legendary’s Godzilla, is (according to the film and at odds with what it seems was established in the first movie) a somewhat benevolent being that is consciously causing mass destruction to restore balance. Dr. Emma Russell (Vera Farmiga), never relents on that point, and thus discovers that Ghidorah is malevolent because it is not a native titan – the message of the “other” as “evil” being counterproductive to our current societal concerns and the character seemingly only used to advance the plot. How they can tell the difference between one titan’s destruction and another’s is not explained, it’s just asserted by Dr. Russell and Dr. Serizawa (Ken Watanabe) that some titans are good. It read like a justification for America’s destabilization efforts in the Middle East; sometimes you gotta lead a few covert coups, drone strike civilians, or start long, bloody wars to bring about freedom! It is (consciously or not) propaganda attempting to normalize an “ends justify the means” approach to destruction.

At the end of the day, nobody needs a summer blockbuster to try so hard to make philosophical points and explain science, people go to watch big monsters fight. So while the cinematography in Godzilla: King of Monsters is good, it doesn’t make it worth seeing the the movie. The issue here was that there needed to be less focus on humans, more monsters punching each other, and they definitely needed to take themselves less seriously if they were going to offer so little by the way of logic within the film or fundamentals within the script. 

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With plot details being kept under wraps, it is not yet known which role Whitford will portray in the movie that is set to be written and directed by Michael Dougherty (Trick ‘r Treat, Krampus). Dougherty, whose screenwriting credits include X2, Superman Returns and X-Men: Apocalypse, is the man tasked with taking over from Godzilla director Gareth Edwards who departed the franchise for LucasFilms’ Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016) with a hefty amount of praise.

‘Stranger Things’ actress Millie Bobby Brown was announced for the movie as far back as January (2017) and will play the daughter of Vera Farmiga and Kyle Chandler, the latter of whom will play the role of a pivotal scientist. Sally Hawkins, O’Shea Jackson Jr., Thomas Middleditch and Ken Watanebe have also been confirmed for the film.

Godzilla: King of Monsters will be a part of Warner Bros’ planned ‘monsters universe’, officially titled ‘The MonsterVerse’, that also includes King Kong (seen in Kong: Skull Island – 2017), Mothra and King Ghidora, amongst others.

This franchising of some of the biggest names in monster cinema is not the first that Warner Bros has attempted, and the franchising of said characters was a huge success in Japan throughout the 1960s in particular, but history could be against this new “universe” given the relative lack of success similar projects have found in the face of mainstream hits Harry Potter and the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

Coming off the back of generally favourable reviews and a positive audience reception, it would seem that fans of old fashioned monster movies may at least be willing to give this particular franchise a chance, especially with a rumoured Godzilla vs Kong movie coming down the road.

In doing so, he repaid Steven Spielberg’s favor of featuring Yoda the 1982 film ‘E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial’.

However, it’s the animation company Pixar that is probably the most famous company to include numerous movie-linking Easter Eggs.

Pixar has been using Easter Eggs to hint at future movie projects and tie together the Pixar film universe since their debut movie ‘Toy Story’ in 1995. While, for instance, toys from ‘Toy Story’ appear in other Pixar features, their most famous Easter Egg is probably the Pizza Planet truck. Aside from ‘The Incredibles’ (2004), the pizza delivery truck has been included and can spotted in every Pixar feature.

For the average viewer this may not seem like much, but fans of the production company actively search for this Easter Egg in every film. It has become less of an animator’s treat to him or herself and more of a community scavenger hunt. In fact, over the years it’s actually been getting harder and harder to find the truck. While the truck was prominently featured in ‘Toy Story’ (because it was integral to the movie’s plot), it was extremely hard to find in Pixar’s newest piece, ‘Inside Out’ (2015).

After months of searching, it was only recently revealed that the truck in ‘Inside Out’ could be spotted in several memory orbs from the movie. Even more recently than that, images started popping up online with screen caps of the truck’s cameo and it really isn’t an easy find:

As Easter Eggs go, we have to hand it to Pixar – they know how to keep their fan base engaged. In general, Easter Eggs are always fun to find and share with friends. They not only allow directors, writers, and production staff to have a little fun with infusing some of their own favorite pop culture references, but they also add an extra level of engagement for dedicated viewers. Film Easter Eggs can even spark really cool fan theories like Jon Negroni’s “Pixar Theory” found here.

People of all ages can search for and share their finds, even viewers who aren’t totally invested. That’s why we love Easter Eggs so much. Let’s just hope that Easter Eggs continue to be a staple in modern film, and that Pixar never stops including the Pizza Planet truck.

What are your favorite Pixar Easter Eggs? What are some other cool Easter Eggs not mentioned in the article? Tell us in the comments section below!