Return of Godzilla

A review by Forrest Humphrey

After Godzilla's immensely successful and popular crossover with Mothra as seen in our previous review, the franchise continued with vigor for another eleven years and nearly as many films before taking a decade long hiatus and making a triumphant return in the form of a film simply titled “Godzilla” or “Godzilla 1985” in the states, but the title you will see most is “The Return of Godzilla.” For his big comeback in a new decade, The effects received a significant upgrade, as well as a return to a grimmer, more somber tone not seen in decades after the franchise took a lighter approach for a younger audience in the 1960's and 70's. The film was a hit, and launched a new series of films that would continue until 1995 and another, shorter, hiatus

Our story is a simple one. We open with a fishing boat caught in a storm, sending out a mayday before a nearby island and a new, but familiar, roar is heard before fading out. A short time later our protagonist, reporter Goro Maki, finds the ghost ship and investigates, giving us a sequence out of a horror film where he finds bodies and only one survivor, the crew killed by a giant sea louse grown to gigantic size thanks to feeding on, what else, Godzilla. At first, the government instigates a media blackout to prevent a panic at the monster's return, but when Godzilla attacks and sinks a Russian submersible, they have no choice but to reveal Godzilla's survival to the world. Tension rises as Godzilla's return is printed in papers all over the world. 

Then, Godzilla finally makes proper landfall, attacking a large power plant in his first full reveal for the film. During the attack on the power plant, Maki and an esteemed professor he makes contact with to study Godzilla, using ultrasonic scans to make an interesting discovery: he has a similar brain to that of birds, and responds to the calls of a flock of migrating birds after his attack, following them back out to sea. Armed with this knowledge, a plan is formulated: The professor and his team will duplicate the sonic waves of these birds in an attempt to lure Godzilla to an offshore volcano, and attempt to lure it in and trap it with a controlled eruption.

When the ambassadors for the United States and Soviet Union try to insist on using the nuclear option to kill Godzilla, the Prime Minister resolutely refuses, correctly calling them out  on their comfort with the idea of dropping a nuke on a country that isnt them. They reveal two plans: The professor's plan as well as the reveal of a powerful new weapon, an aircraft called the Super X, which will be equipped with cadmium “anti-nuclear” cannons to fight Godzilla. 

The army does as well as expected at first, with Godzilla annihilating the ground forces until the aforementioned Super X makes it to the battlefield....and actually manages to kill him. Unfortunately, this victory is short lived, as during his initial arrival in Tokyo Bay, a soviet ship is damaged, and although the crew tried to stop it, a nuclear missle is launched at Godzilla. Desperate, the Prime Minister contacts the United States, and America agrees to launch an intercept missile, blowing the nuke up in the stratosphere before it destroys the heart of Tokyo. 

Who benefits from this sudden burst of radiation? Godzilla of course! The creature revives and rematches with the Super X, who ran out of their cadmium cannons in the initial fatal attack. Without this weapon, the Super X has no chance, and is destroyed. With nothing in his way, Godzilla continues his rampage into Tokyo, before he suddenly stops and begins to leave. The Professor has finished his device to lure Godzilla, and the creature leaves Japan. Arriving at the volcano, the team detonate the explosives around the mouth, causing the eruption and plunging the monster into the lava beneath the crust. Is this the end of Godzilla? For this film, yes.

As mentioned, this film drops the monster battles against antagonist creatures and returns Godzilla to his roots as a terrifying, unstoppable behemoth. Though he had been contacted, composer Akira Ifukube refused to score the film, citing displeasure with the comedic direction the series had taken in prior decades. The new score by Reijiro Koroku however, is excellent. It perfectly captures the sense of both awe and dread the film is going for, and Director Koji Hashimoto was up to the task of bringing Godzilla back to the big screen. The whole film has a grim tone, and as one might have caught in my synopsis, the tensions of the Cold War are all over the film, with Japan feeling trapped between two other nations ready to nuke each other at a moment's notice. As in the original film from 1954, the anti-nuclear message is loud and clear.

While suitmation was the primary means of portraying Godzilla as is tradition, the decade of effects progress is quite clear, as the sets, the suit, and the props are fantastic for the most part. The only portions of Godzilla that don't quite hold up are close-ups where a full size animatronic was used so Godzilla could give facial expressions, but it was still experimental and comes across as a tad off. But that is a small price to pay for the commendable camera and miniature work the series is known for being fully taken advantage of here, with improved green screens blending in the monsters with fleeing people and wide cityscapes better than ever before. And as I hinted, Godzilla's roar was updated to a much more guttural, snarling style befitting the scary tone the film wants to achieve. In fact, it would be used again in 1989 and 1991, and it remains my favorite version of the creatures iconic roar. 

The characters aren't especially memorable, but they are all acted out admirably, with Keiju Kobayashi's Prime Minister especially having a strong, quiet dignity to the performance. Again, I must advise watching the film in its native Japanese with subtitles to keep the performances natural and authentic, and spare yourself the lip sync or lack thereof. 

That leads into one of the more interesting aspect of the film from a post-release perspective: the “Americanization”. For one, this was the Cold War, and American studions were not happy with the fairly neutral portrayl of bth them and Russia in the film. America had to be the heroes, the Russians evil. So instead of the missile launch being an accident and soviet crew dying trying to stop the launch, their dialogue was translated wrong on purpose so they were evil men desperate to nuke Japan. Additionally, new scenes were added to remove the political undertones and alter the tone so it was less depressing and dark.

The other major change is a more positive one, from a certain perspective. Actor Raymond Burr, who stared in the American version of the very first film in 1954, was asked to reprise his role. When Burr read how comedic his part was to be, he turned it down cold, as Burr took Godzilla's anti-nuclear message very seriously. His part was re-written to be more in line with the original tone of the film, and Burr turned in a dignified, thoughtful performance. Its the only reason to watch the American version of the film, but if you can find it, check it out. Raymond Burr respected the film when nobody else would. 

And so we come to the end. The Japanese cut of the film was released on DVD and Blue Ray not too long ago and is readily available. If you enjoyed the black an white original, this film strikes a similar tone with a great musical score and solid performances from the cast. I highly recommend giving it a shot. Join me next time in my final film for my Godzilla retrospective: Shin Godzilla, in my mission to show that while maybe not always, there are certainly some Godzilla films worth your time.