Godzilla (1954)

Me seeing this was long overdue. I confess I didn't much enjoy it. But I admired it a lot.

It doesn't mess around. As bad as the visual effects are (and they are atrocious) the thing I respect most about it how seriously it treats the subject matter. For many people, that's the precise reason to make fun of it. I won't even flatter those types of people by calling them cynics. I'll just say they have bad taste in what is important in entertainment and leave it at that. A film treating its own subject matter seriously is something to praise, ESPECIALLY if the subject matter is ridiculous. That gives the film MORE credit from me, not less. It's weird most people view that the opposite way.

Clearly Japan in 1954 was still undergoing shellshock from Hiroshima. And the PTSD of that event can be felt in every frame of the film.

Godzilla is not a hero monster protecting the populace from worse monsters. Godzilla is the creature that leaves a little girl screaming for her dead mother in a triage tent. The idea that there could be a monster who goes around destroying cities potentially on the side of humanity is ridiculous on its face, and as serious minded as the Titans Monsterverse films are, they still feed into that. And it's bogus.

The score is magnificent.

The film is imperfect. Usually I like that about great films. But it's only a GOOD one, so some of these flaws bugged me.

Once they revealed the existence of the "oxygen destroyer" I was like, "Really?" Besides it following no logical measure of science, it's the most boring and lazy name for the device ever. I sincerely hope the actual problem is the American subtitle translators had a lack of imagination. If that's the literal translation of the Japanese in the film, that's a failing. I especially groaned when Serizawa said he wanted to keep it secret until he could find a way to make it "benefit humanity". Right, guy, because you just KNOW something called an "oxygen destroyer" could TOTALLY someday benefit humanity. Dave Barry is not making this up. Let's get right on to brainstorming on that.

But because the film doesn't suck, despite that misstep, I appreciate that the actual emotional climax of the film is Ogata and Emiko having the dramatic ethical and philosophical argument (and later fight) about using it. I especially like the solution Serizawa came up with: Destroy the notes, and make setting the thing off a suicide mission so nobody could build another one. It probably should have been made a little more explicit in dialogue that was why he was making that specific sacrifice, but I got it without it.

When watching old movies for the first time, I am always wary of gender dynamics, and how invariably messed up they always were back then. Emiko IS a bit docile, but she's still a major part of the plot. I think the thing I liked best about this part of the film is at the diplomatic conference where one Japan's leaders was insisting on keeping this catastrophe quiet, the person screaming at him to tell the public the truth is a strong and confident young woman. That was not lost on me.

I appreciate that Ogata wept over Serizawa's death at the end. He's wasn't blubbering or anything, but tears were present. And it makes me find all other American male movie heroes of the era lacking for never being willing to let them do that.

I'm not going to watch any of the increasingly campy and ridiculous Toho sequels but I heard somebody say nice things about this recently, and checked it out. Surprise. It's a nice thing. 4 stars.