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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Five star Popcorn movie from the old days., July 30, 2007
HA! Imagine that, I'm the first one to get to review one of the old classics! HA! Finally, today is my day.
First of all, I like all these old monster movies, especially the really big monsters. Godzilla is somewhere between 300 and 400 feet tall (I got that from the dialogue in the movie), that constitutes BIG. So you can expect my review to be a half star to one star higher than most others.
So lets get with it. (I'm watching it again as I review it).
PROS:
1. Stars Raymond Burr, that's a star.
2. Great music, four notes on a piano and three notes on a clarinet--works just fine. That's a star.
3. Special effects, everybody knows the Japanise did the best scaling on cities and toy cars and things than anybody else. Though you can in several scenes (where godzilla is jerking around) tell it's just a man in a rubber suit...so what. It's all shot in that great old Black and white film. They get a star.
4. The acting, directing, writing are just fine for an old popcorn movie, that's a star.
5. The idea. That's another star because of the way it is handled. A very big lizard is waken up, or resurrected, or frankensteined together, because of H Bomb Test. And what's a big lizard to do when woke up from a 200 million year sleep?...go find the guys who did it and stomp their city to rubble. Yes sir, NOBODY does it better or equal to godzilla! The story starts off with Raymond Burr's plane flying several miles above the ocean just as the big lizard decides to sink its first ship. He is questioned by the authorities--he was asleep and spends some part of the movie running around with the scientist and military as they try to figure out what is going one. It helps that godzilla stomps his way onto one of the islands late night and smashes a rather large village, small town. Of course it has to be the one Ramond is sleeping on. He doesn't see the monster but everybody hears it coming. I guess the whole world knows THOSE foot steps. We don't get to see it either except for the bottom part of its' left leg. But that's okay, the next time it comes stomping ashore it does so in full day light.
Welp...there's no doubt now!
Yea know, godzilla has just about the same amount of respect for a military tank as a tornado does for a trailer...something about those two just don't get along!
Moving along: There a few incidents, all of them seem well done, the scaling continues to be the best out there...no need for computer graphics in these old movies. They must have had background actors in the high hundreds to low thousands to shoot some of these scenes.
Well, I don't want to giveaway all the story to those of you who have never seen this movie before--all three of you. I will say, it is a clean movie through and through. It is the stuff that used to give me nightmares when I was a young kid 45 or more years ago. Some of the scenes actually look real. I do recomment it to all the growing popcorn crowd and all of you who like to watch 'old' classics. For all the old giant monster type movies this is probably the best one to ever come from overseas.
CONS:
1. I could set here and pick this or any popcorn movie to pieces...but why do it? It is a fine movie. It is a monster movie. It is a BIG monster movie. I've seen better, I've seen worse. It is a BIG MONSTER movie that demands popcorn and soda. Remember, it is a classic and is the original godzilla from which all the others came from.
Buy, don't rent the classics.
Bye!
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Historically Significant Monster Movie?, June 20, 2009
Believe it or not, the answer to the question posed in the title is "Yes". The movie, a Japanese production, was originally made in 1954. This edition was remade for an American audience in 1956 by using Raymond Burr as reporter Steve Martin. He serves as an on-scene reporter (and narrator) of the movie.
The film begins with Godzilla rising from the ocean floor, killing a number of peaceful Japanese fishermen. The historical parallel is to the real life radioactive contamination of 23 Japanese fishermen on the "Lucky Dragon 5" fishing boat. The first two nuclear test explosions on the Bikini Atoll and the ocean surrounding the atoll were conducted in 1946 (learn more at my review of "Radio Bikini"). The fishermen were contaminated by a 1954 test in the same area.
Godzilla is a product of a nuclear explosion. Unleashed on Tokyo the destruction he reeks is as destructive as the fire bombing of Tokyo in WWII and, of course, the A-bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. That is the point of the movie. In 1956 the Japanese were raising the question of what the unintended consequences of the use of the atomic bomb would be in the future. The movie's answer: monstrous mutations like Godzilla.
After this movie the Godzilla monster retreated into standard monster fare. Later Godzilla movies were mostly a matter of finding another appropriate monstrous colossus to fight it. Raymond Burr's performance is solid as usual. Everyone else in the movie is Japanese and dubbed in English.
One piece of trivia I found interesting is that Burr turned down the role when it was first offered to him because of time commitments. He was persuaded to take it when he was promised that he would only be required to work one day. The producers then made him work a straight 24 hours with only occasional breaks. Monstrous!
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5.0 out of 5 stars
5.1 surround sound GODZILLA!, February 18, 2009
Everyone has seen this movie. It's a classic. Watch it now in 5.1 surround sound. Godzilla will shake the house.
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