Godzilla

The original retains its dark tone and deadly serious anti-war message. For today's moviegoing audiences, this may not be your daddy's Godzilla movie, but chances are your granddaddy could teach you a thing or two about the context.

Godzilla is still the most awesome of tacky movie monsters.

It's a fascinating cultural artifact and a stomping good time.

The images are crisp. The story is restored. And there's no sign of Raymond Burr.

The new black-and-white print is gorgeous, the film plays well in this broader key and it sets the historical record straight.

The monster's mashing of Tokyo looks as Ed Wood-like as ever, but the film's humanity gives it depth.

Regaled for 50 years by the stupendous idiocy of the American version of Godzilla, audiences can now see the original Japanese version, which is equally idiotic.

There is no denying the massive cultural impact that Godzilla has had. It was really the first Kaiju film and from there, It spawned dozens of films. Thanks to this movie, Godzilla has become an epic franchise that has lasted for decades and for good reason. Godzilla, both the character and this film, remains untouchable.

Godzilla might lack the special effects of todays standards, but the story and message of this film is a very great importance. Filled with suspenseful scenes as well as emotional ones where Godzilla would make his debut in a nice touch on the monster genre.

Para haber sido hecha en 1954 tiene efectos especiales bastante convincentes, y la historia mas o menos original en su momento, pero el tiempo si que le paso bastante factura, haciéndose bastante predecible. Algo que si le tengo que criticar, incluso para la época son dos cosas. Primero que esta película se hubiera apreciado mucho mas a color, no solo los efectos, sino el escenario y Godzilla en general. Hubieron películas a color mucho antes que Godzilla, quizá fue para ahorrar costes, pero no deja de ser un punto negativo. Y segundo, siento que el descubrimiento del doctor para acabar con Godzilla es muy conveniente y esta rotisimo. En resumen, una película decente para la epoca, aunque si que es muy aburrida y predecible de ver a día de hoy.

[SPOILER ALERT: This review contains spoilers.]

This is a very old film and made in a very different time. It has a very slow start, the human story isn’t even remotely interesting or compelling. The characters are so badly written and uninteresting that it did make some points of the film tedious to watch. But that is not why we are watching, it’s because of Godzilla and when Godzilla is doing his cheesy glorious thing you cannot help but smile at how fun it is. This is where this movie is compelling, someone in a rubber suit stomping on a model of Tokyo. I feel I need to offer a bit of context, this is not the first giant monster movie but it probably is the first kaiju movie. The Lost World (1925) and King Kong (1933) are probable sources of inspiration with Them! (1954) also coming the same year as Godzilla. It probably is the first movie that uses a person in a rubber suit rather than stop-motion or an animatronic. The music is catchy. Even though it’s dated pretty badly it is still iconic.