Le Retour de Godzilla

Was very excited today to realise that there was a Japanese Godzilla film I TECHNICALLY hadn't seen.

When I was churning my way through the franchise in 2017-2020, I came across Godzilla 1985, and I guess I thought it was just a dubbed version of The Return of Godzilla. At the time it was the only version I could find, and so I thought it was good enough (even though I much prefer subtitles over dubs) and watched it, ultimately finding it decent but definitely not great.

Recently I learnt Godzilla 1985 and The Return of Godzilla were actually quite different, and today when I realised they were both listed separately on IMDB and had quite different runtimes, I figured I needed to watch Return ASAP.

Long story short, it's definitely not the best Japanese Godzilla film, but it's also far from the worst. I liked the political focus for the most part (though this approach was ultimately handled better - and in a more satisfying/satirical way - in 2016's highly acclaimed Shin Godzilla) and a lot of the monster action is highly satisfying, despite some inconsistencies in the special effects.

Pacing isn't always great, and the human characters are typically thin (it's a Godzilla movie; the human characters are like that 80-90% of the time) but I still enjoyed it a lot.

I've missed watching the adventures of my scaly boi, and I think I will rewatch the entire series soon. Picked up that glorious Criterion set on Bluray a couple of months ago, so am looking forward to seeing those older ones in better than DVD quality.

Here Toho tried to go back to the roots of the origina; 1954 Gojira film and make Godzilla more serious again, not as serious as Gojira but more serious than All Monsters Attack, its also just a good movie

After an extended break, Godzilla as a movie force made its comeback with this the 16th Godzilla film and the first of what would be the Heisei series. It's a reboot that basically follows on from the original Gojira film of 1954. Plot has Godzilla back as a destroyer of mankind, setting its eyes on stomping Tokyo into oblivion. As Zilla goes about its destructive way, and Tokyo attempts to repel the onslaught, there's a backdrop of a diplomatic crisis reaching boiling point as the Soviets and the Americans get ready for nuclear war. Thankfully the Japanese are able to convince the sane politicians that it is in fact Godzilla at the crux of things. Can the world powers join together to defeat the mightiest of lizards?

If a Godzilla fan you could be forgiven for going into this one fearing the worst, and yet it ticks many of the boxes for those who prefer Zilla as the destroyer of mankind as opposed to the saviour of mankind that the Showa period ended up as. There's the standard amount of miniatures and sets destruction, splendidly constructed as usual, nifty effects work and a whole bunch of iconic images to take from the experience (Zilla atomic breath destruction, stomping through the city, nuclear reinvigoration, back from the dead with awesome carnage following). There's good sci-fi within as well, such as the Japanese scientists having created a super fortress known as Super X, while sometimes all you need is to hear that brilliant roar followed by lizard devastation.

This was a return to the dark roots of Godzilla, complete with anti-nuclear sentiments. It didn't reinvent the wheel, but it did restart it successfully. 7/10

The highlight of the movie has to be the Godzilla costume. Compared to the first 15 Godzilla movies, this movie is an improvement in the special effects department.

The story, however, is nothing special. It's not bad, but it's not something you will remember after watching this movie.

The characters are ok, but I think I prefer the characters from the original movie. Also, it lacks the classic Godzilla theme song.

Overall, with the exception of some moments, it's a pretty entertaining movie. I just wish it had something more to it, to make it more memorable.

Almost after a decade of no Godzilla films comes a legacy sequel/reboot to the original with all the seriousness that was missing all those years between this and the original. Starts off as an 80s horror movie and then gets into the political landscape of the Cold War. The original was about the fear and the public consciousness surrounding the nuclear threat that was something the people witnessed. This is the next generation for whom nuclear threats are more of accidents or the egos of America and Russia in the Cold War. The various political conferences between experts and representatives of different countries are deliberately included to remind the threat is real and to highlight the policies and principles that should be upheld during such times. Of course, more ground-level characters to relate to are also there and those characters represent fear, hope and tenacity of the people to overcome this by relying and believing in each other. The last shot of Godzilla with just the music speaks a lot more than what could've been said. This is definitely the best one since the original one.