Monster and Kaiju Movie Thoughts and Impressions

#2: Godzilla Raids Again

I really wish I had more to say and more positive things to say about this movie. Anguirus has always been a favorite of mine. I think it stems partly from the fact that when I was a kid Godzilla vs Gigan and Godzilla vs MechaGodzilla were among the most likely Godzilla movies to come on TV. In fact there were a number of movies it took a long time to see because of how it worked in the old broadcast days. I got a really poor summary of Godzilla Raids Again from my dad but it was a long time before I saw it, so I had this sort of inflated idea of how important he was in Godzilla material. Seriously it was to the point that whatever Godzilla toy I had available had to be partnered with whatever relatively to scale ankylosaur toy I cold find so I could pretend it was Anguirus. In High School I had this comic about Godzilla monsters and my own creations and they mostly tended to treat Anguirus as a #2 character like a sidekick. (I'm not uploading any one of them, they are ugly and terrible.) So, right away it's definitely slower than Gojira, but it's kind of funny seeing a movie depict a plane losing power and gliding down pretty casually after so many years of inaccurate but dramatic "plane lost power, plane drops like a rock" scenes we've had in movies. Still it doesn't take that long for the first bit of the monsters at least. I do like the old monster movie trope of getting the witness to flip through a dinosaur book to find the creature that's had their picture inserted into it. Even at the time they had to realize any potential resemblance would be weak at best, but it never fails, the awakened atomic monster always has a convenient identifying image glued into the existing book. I find the 'ankylosaurus facts' they spout off are awfully funny. Stock footage started early. Runs pretty long here too, showcasing the Godzilla costume's floppy feet.

In my re-watch I fell asleep somewhere in the movie and it took a bit of back and forth to figure out where I went out for the night, but I got it. The whole sequence where some prisoners escape then cause an explosion feels like it takes a while, and I wish I'd skipped the dance scene. Overall the movie usually feels like it's dragging. The military response looks rather more competent this time around anyway. I figure this is one of the very first times that actors wrestled each other in big bulky dinosaur costumes so I can't be annoyed with the awkwardness of the battle. It's kind of endearing even, a sign of the silliness to come in later movies. Still, it doesn't lend to a compelling experience does it? I feel like I should feel something when the first incarnation of Anguirus dies, but there wasn't much screen time and no chance to show much real personality – not that they were going for that at all this early into kaiju movies. I could go down and summarize movie parts but I just don't care much about this one. It did start some things; monster battles, burying the kaiju working better than bombs, and surely something else I'm not thinking of right this second, but I just don't have strong feelings about the movie. I might have discussed the human characters but I honestly couldn't remember any of their names even immediately after finishing the movie.

I can see why this movie didn't do the best in the box office. Let's be glad that King Kong vs. Godzilla was the third movie and not 'Bride of Godzilla' or else the Godzilla movies would only be a super obscure trilogy of movies of wildly dropping quality in each installment and we'd be out an icon of the kaiju genre.