ChanFamous
I wanted to like it more than I actually did... But much of the humor totally escaped me and I walked out only mildly impressed.
InformationRap
This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.
Seraherrera
The movie is wonderful and true, an act of love in all its contradictions and complexity
JLRVancouver
Following the child-focused "All Monsters Attack" (1969), Godzilla returns as an ally of man in the battle against pollution, as personified (kaijufied?) by Hedorah (the Smog Monster)*. There are a number of stylistic changes from previous movies in the franchise, including James Bond-like opening credits, surreal psychedelic interludes (the fish-headed people at the 'go-go' club are memorable) and a number of odd animated inserts reminiscent of early 70's public service cartoons. The musical score, much of which sounds like background music for slapstick comedy or uplifting marches similar to the grating (but catchy) Gamera theme, is horrible. The franchise is still targeting younger audiences, so the central human character is a little kid (Ken Yano, played by Hiroyuki Kawase) who, among other things, comes up with the name for the new monster (Hedorah) as well as a method to destroy it. He also seems to have a psychic bond with Godzilla, and the last scenes of the film are straight out of "Shane" (1953, except that Shane is now a giant mutated dinosaur). Despite being a child-oriented film, "Godzilla vs. Hedorah" is much grimmer than any of the previous sequels, with human body counts after the monsters clash, on-camera 'deaths' of individuals (such as the gamblers or the driver of the truck crushed by Hedorah), and most jarringly, the 'melting' of people exposed to Hedorah's noxious exhalent (Ken encounters the gruesome partially-dissolved bodies of a number of these victims). Hedorah itself is so improbable looking that it might as well be accepted as a metaphor rather than a monster, but the titular fights are pretty good. The anthropomorphisation of Godzilla, who now constantly uses human-like gestures (almost rolling his eyes at mankind's ineffectual attempts to stop Hedorah), continues (although one delirious surprise in the film is the revelation that Godzilla can fly (!), a ridiculous-looking skill that would have come in handy in previous outings). All in all, "Godzilla vs. Hedorah" (the eleventh film in the franchise) while not a great kaiju film, is eccentric, imaginative and entertaining: a deviation from the downward slide that leads to the next two entries in the series (the woeful "G. vs Gigan" and "G. vs Megalon"). (*these comments pertain to an English subtitled version of the film).
jefuab
This is a surreal experience and the strangest Godzilla film I've seen... I laughed so hard at this film out of pure enjoyment rather than mockery.It serves as a warning to children (and, of course, everyone who watches it) of the dangers of long-term pollution. There are amazing scenes highlighting environmental problems that are served in a variety of creative ways.Godzilla is hilarious in this film.Do not make the same mistake I did and watch the film with the brightness on half, I actually watched it the first time thinking you weren't supposed to see anything in the night time scenes... turned the brightness up and realised!
MisterWhiplash
You never really think about a monster movie being "psychedelic", do you? What if someone decided to take the world of kaijus and big battles between guys in rubber outfits and make it into a completely insane experience, though keeping a sort of innocence in its weirdness as if it was like the really early days of Sesame Street? This is what happens in Godzulla vs Hedorah - or as the title I like to call it, Godzilla vs the Smog Monster - where the director Yoshimitsu Banno (who also co-wrote the script - wait, this has a script?) and it's what happens when the milieu of art-house cinema of the period (this is Antonioni at some times, Beyond the Valley of the Dolls at others, though it's still *for kids* in theory) crosses paths with the typical Japanese monster flick.Oh, and it's about how much we are polluting the water. MESSAGE! I think I had the opposite reaction than I did when it came to Godzilla vs Megalon, but it's particular in each case: Megalon I'm sure I would've been wild about as a kid, though now I see as grade-A cheese, while I'm not sure what my reaction would've been as a kid, while today I think it dances with being one of the masterpieces of the genre (it isn't, but the fact that it gets close is me as an adult with thousands of movies under his belt saying that). To say it's weird is a given, but just how much so? It's not that it's completely a mind-f*** for every frame of film.It's more like there IS a conventional story in here somewhere about a young boy and his parents (his father being a biologist of some kind, the kind that, you know, is able to do lots of tests in his home since a lab would cost extra money for the producers) and there is a monster created thanks to loads of garbage in the ocean which mutates tadpoles and brings them together to create a giant floating thing. Eventually, needless to say, it turns into something like a gnarly-er version of Cthulu.So far this doesn't sound too wild, right? How about you throw in a couple of characters at a psychedelic-inspired dance club (think Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas' scene at the Matrix in 1965, or, again, BVD), and the guy, whether it's from the booze or something of Hedorah's traces in the air, sees everyone dancing in the club with fish heads? What if we see multiple TV screens, like 16, then 32, all lined up showing different reactions from the public and the monsters and then it turns into a multi-colored rainbow display? Or animation interludes that are out of Sesame Street in structure but also reminds one of the grime of The Wall? And there's also a history lesson with slides about the planets (Hedorah, to confuse things more, may also be a product of something from outer-space, sure, why not, we've come this far!) And then another animated bit to show us how atoms are split and created with smiley faces on them(!) It's ironic that I come to this right after seeing Megalon as that was the movie ordered into production by the producer after seeing what Banno presented to him: that is silly and dopey, but it's also safe in the way of, 'hey, it's monsters fighting but that's all you get and that's fine'. Here, it's like the equivalent of if today someone like, I dunno, Leos Carax got the keys to make a Pacific Rim movie! You can't make this kind of thing today, even down to how when Godzilla fights Hedorah it's not paced to something that is super-exciting, but that's not a problem for me. I was wholly fascinated by so much of this, especially when it came to the fights; Godzilla fights like he isn't sure what to do with this thing that is created due to human's laziness and waste, which throws lots of poisonous sludge his way that slows things down, so that the fights aren't these fast brawls but more like a slow waltz or something. Again, as a kid, I really have no idea what I would've made of it, so if you're a parents thinking of bringing this to your child's attention know what you're getting into as far as that goes. This is the Godzilla that I could've pictured becoming a midnight sensation, or on a double bill with The Holy Mountain.Does the anti-pollution message get heavy-handed at times? Does a Godzilla s*** in the ocean? It's clear what the intentions where on that score, but why carp too much - this series started as a tome against nuclear weaponry, so you could say this is the nuclear creation vs the pollutant one. It's not subtle, but I didn't expect that either. So much of this is over the top, but there's such sincerity to how the director wants to make this unlike anything we've seen before - in a Godzilla movie or simply any movie, which includes bits of large groups of people dancing like it's damn Woodstock and interrupted only because Godzilla is on the way (oh, and this kid knows Godzilla is coming because he appears in a dream where Zilla is poised walking against a giant morning sun!) - that it's kind of a tremendous achievement.In brief, I'm not surprised this was Roger Ebert's favorite Godzilla movie; if it weren't for the 1954 original I'd go for this one as well. A totally bonkers, post-modern experience, Godzilla and Ghidorah action figures *in the movie* included.
William Samuel
Godzilla vs. the Smog Monster is the kind of movie that doesn't know what kind of movie it wants to be. It must be a kid's movie, because the protagonist is an annoying kid who idolizes Godzilla. Yet some scenes would be more at home in a horror film; as when crowds of people are asphyxiated and skeletonized by the smog monster's noxious emissions. At other times there are signs that this movie wants to be a drug fueled exploitation flick. There are weird cartoon sequences that seem inspired by Yellow Submarine, and at one point a character in a dance club starts hallucinating, for no apparent reason, that his fellow party-goers have paper Mache fish for heads. There's also a perfunctory astronomy lesson with no real connection to the rest of the film, plus a shot where Hedorah, the titular Smog Monster, flies through a construction site, and the structure collapses, but with no sound. Was the recording track for scene damaged at some point? If that were the case, you would think the filmmakers could re-record the sound effects, or substitute a clip from the studio's library.But I'm forgetting what this movie is all about, which is Godzilla- and the need to protect the environment. In 1971, when the film was released, this message had not yet become a cliché in children's movies. It was also a very relevant at a time when there was little to no regulation of factory emissions and hazardous waste disposal, and when rivers in downtown Cleveland could suddenly burst into flames.But Godzilla makes a very odd environmental spokesman, to say the very least. When he first appeared in 1954's Gojira, he was the embodiment of the death and destruction that nuclear weapons could, and had, unleashed on Japan and on the world. Now however, he is Tokyo's savior, a completely benign figure who doesn't knock over a single building, even by accident. Godzilla doesn't always have to play the villain, but he should at least be an anti-hero, dangerous to man even when he's protecting us from other monsters. Godzilla also makes one of his least dramatic entrances in this film. Instead of slowly rising from the sea, or bursting out of an iceberg, he ambles out of the sunrise as annoying trumpet music blares. Regrettably, this score will be repeated in most scenes where the big guy appears. As for Godzilla's opponent, Toho has come up with one of its cooler ideas here. Hedorah is not a single organism, but rather colony of billions of rapidly splitting microorganisms. This means that it can change form at will, and can repair almost any damage suffered by producing new cells. Unfortunately, the idea just didn't work. What we end up with, at least in the monster's final form, is a giant, misshapen blob of rubber under which the actor can barely move. This brings us to the battles between the monsters, usually the high point of any Godzilla film. Some of the earlier fights aren't too badly staged, but once Hedorah learns to fly, Godzilla's main tactic seems to be standing around and failing his arms angrily. And as for the final battle near Mount Fuji, having the military build a pair of giant electrodes to dehydrate the Smog Monster is a fairly good idea, since by this point it's clear that Godzilla can't do it on his own.But why oh why did this have to mean a protracted sequence in which our hero rips apart his now helpless opponent piece by piece (twice!), to make sure that every drop of moisture is evaporated? Wouldn't it have been more effective for Hedorah to instantly dry out and crumble to dust, like a vampire exposed to sunlight? This isn't Godzilla vs. the Smog Monster, it's Godzilla vs. the giant mud pie.There's also the question of how Godzilla knew the purpose and operation of the electrodes, and why his atomic breath provided power to them, rather than blasting them to bits like everything else it touches. But this isn't where our suspension of disbelief is really tested. I mentioned earlier that Godzilla had to go through the process of drying out Hedorah twice. This is because the first time, there proves to some life still left in the blob of filth, and its prior flying form escapes into the sky. So how does Godzilla catch up to his rival and bring him back? Simple, he flies after him. That's right; Godzilla actually flies by using his atomic breath as a form of jet propulsion. This may be the single most ridiculous sequence in the history of Japanese cinema.I'm not recommending that no one ever see this movie. It achieves a sort of campy grandeur, almost to the point of being so bad that it's good. I would suggest viewing this film just once, so you can gawk in amazement at its sheer awfulness. Or, if that's too much for you, just type in "Godzilla flies" on YouTube. You won't be disappointed by the result.
