Il ritorno di Godzilla

Almost all Kaiju flicks involve two story lines, the story of the little guys and the story of the monsters. This is one of them where the story of the little guys is what really matters. A distinctly B movie, half-espionage and half-island-action, about a guy's search for his brother and getting caught up with a gang of various other guys and a beautiful native to stave off an organization's evil deeds in the South pacific. Pretty scenery. Pretty natives. Some fair jokes and some good 1960's style cheese action. Even Ebirah, a jumbo jumbo shrimp who guards the island, more or less, works well enough as a background piece. It is when the big piece of seafood tries to take center stage that things start slowing down.

By the time Godzilla shows up, the movie suffers from the monsters. Not only does the original Japanese soundtrack have a habit of playing just about the most inappropriate music for all of his scenes (look, jets are coming, let's play surf rock...he's smashing a base, let's play slow horror mood music); but there is the distinct problem the director has in getting the transition from Godzilla as a monster to a potential hero down right. Too often, Godzilla's actions make no sense. He seems to like people in one scene. In the next, he is randomly destroying things again.

The movies final problem is the Kaiju fights sort of repeat themselves. Whether it be the two monsters throwing rocks back and forth more than once, or the exact same "flip" later on, it does seem a little out of place.

This is actualy a fun film if you're a kid, and i loved godzilla when i was i think back to the days of watching those chessy B movies(i havnt realy progresed that far in 10 years) and this was one of my favriotes and now somthing that angers me is it having a 4 point rating i mean kids love this and its fun and next time you get a chance pop one of these in have a good laugh and look back at you're childhood you'll have more fun then you would think.Now that thats gone ill fill you with my memories of this film the specel effects are alright and about what you would expect. Plot? we dont need no stinking plot!!! so botom line if you're a kid you'll love it and if you're with friends and older and in serch of a laugh you'll love it for its chessyness.

This is one of the first Godzilla movies I saw, and when I see it now after seeing almost all of the other movies, it still holds up pretty well. The main problem is, of course, Ebirah. Definetly Godzilla's worst foe. I mean, really, A GIANT LOBSTER!? But, other than that, the film is quite good, following the usual trend that the Godzilla movies tend to have much better plots than their american counterparts of the time. Here we have a young man trying to find his brother taking his friends with him to look at boats. When they board one to look around, they find a man with a gun to greet them. He claims to be the owner and allows them to spend the night on the boat. When they wake up the next morning, however, the young man has taken the boat to find his brother. It's wrecked in a storm and they are stranded on an island where they discover a secret organisation called the Red Bamboo is using slave labor to make nuclear weapons. Ebirah, a giant lobster, prevents boats from entering or leaving the island, and Okondoru, a giant condor, prevents planes from arriving. The man who claimed to own the boat, Yoshimura, turns out to be both a thief and the most resourceful member of their little group (which now also includes an escaped slave played by the wonderful Kumi Mizuno). They discover that Godzilla is sleeping on the island, so they wake him up in order to stop the Red Bamboo. He trashes the base, defeats the two other, ahem, monsters, and the slaves and group are all saved by Mothra (who really isn't looking to good by now). The thief, Yoshimura, is definetly my favorite character in this, and the special effects are pretty good at times (he may be a pathetic monster, but Ebirah looks great). As a bonus, it also makes for a great MST3K episode.

Yes. I'll admit it . This is a bad movie. A bad movie that I've watched over and over and over and over again! It is weird how much I like this movie. You could say I like it ironically, but not really, because I believe it has a type of charm that I find intentional. The monster fights are fun, and I like the plot. I totally understand people that hate this entry in the series, but I find it to be one of the most fun Godzilla movies out there!

On my Top 10 Godzilla Films list, it is actually included. Here's the list: 1.Gojira 2.Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla 3.Godzilla vs. King Ghidorah 4.Godzilla: Final Wars 5.Mothra vs. Godzilla 6.Godzilla vs. Destroyah 7.Godzilla vs. Spacegodzilla 8.Godzilla, Mothra, and King Ghidorah: Giant Monsters All Out Attack 9.Ghidorah: The Three-Headed Monster 10.(this film.)

Of all the Japanese monster films that came out from the mid Fifties to the mid Seventies, Godzilla Versus The Sea Monster is the only one that seems to have taken a political stand on anything. The Japanese for obvious reasons are big on nuclear disarmament. This film involves Godzilla and two other giant monsters involved with the Red Bamboo who are a group conducting nuclear experiments on a deserted south sea island. Of course there was no such a group as the Red Bamboo, but the power across the Sea of Japan did have a Red Guard who were pretty active in those days. I think that was another political statement that Godzilla Versus The Sea Monster was making.

Anyway some 20 somethings who were involved in a dance marathon which opened the film, commandeer a boat that was to be the getaway vehicle of a bank robber to search for the brother of one of them who set sail southeast and was not heard from.

It's there that a storm washes them ashore on the island of the Red Bamboo. These dastardly folks are not only conducting nuclear experiments, they're making heavy water to use as nuclear fuel, but are using slave labor. The slaves are being taken from the island that Mothra resides, but he's sleeping and the natives are doing their best to arouse their friend and protector.

To discourage escape in the meantime, the island is guarded by Ebirah a giant lobster monster. The Red Bamboo controls him by means of the nectar of some exotic tropical fruit that acts as a tranquilizer.

When our heroes arrive, they discover that Godzilla is in some kind of coma asleep on the island. Needing an ally they look to get him awake to start doing his thing. Of course all three monsters battle it out in the end.

This particular all star monster spectacular is a cut above the others for its political statement wrapped up in the dopey way these films play. But I have to admit a soft spot in my heart for them.