Runtime: Only 69
minutes... heh heh heh
Directed by: Ishiro Honda
Starring: Tomonori Yazaki,
Hideyo Amamoto, Sachio Sakai, Kazuo Suzuki, Kenji Sahara
From: Toho
Among all the movie's faults, what a waste of a cool English title:
A Godzilla movie as a clip show.
This infamous movie is only 69 minutes long (heh heh heh) and yet is filled with stock footage, as if it was an episode of a TV show which did the same method to make an episode on the cheap, give a lot of people time off, etc. As far as I can tell, why this was done for a movie where said footage was from four movies released only in the preceding few years before this came out... Toho really was that cheap. I haven't watched Ebirah, Horror of the Deep yet-that film was originally going to star King Kong but plans changed so Godzilla was substituted, which is why I understand that is rather strange as a Gojira picture but I am sure I'd rather enjoy those clips used here in context to the film rather than it being spliced in to kill time and provide some action.
All Monsters is also quite juvenile, and not just because the protagonist we follow is a bullied kid (Ichiro) who is like 8 and he dreams about visiting Monster Island, which is mostly stock footage and that's the only time we see any kaiju action. Godzilla Jr. (OK, his actual name is Manilla) is there, and at least in these dreams, Manilla speaks back to him and can change size as if he's Jet Jaguar! The enemy that Ichiro has is a bully named Gabara, so that's also the name of the one enemy kaiju created just for this film; research tells me it's supposed to be based on the Oni of Japanese folklore but to most in the west, it's a weird bipedal reptilian creature which as a face shaped like a cat. King Ghidorah, it ain't.
Much of the focus is on Ichiro's real life adventures; both of his parents are busy with work and he's an only child; at least he has a friendly adult neighbor, who was the 1969 version of a tech nerd. Our hero-who following kaiju movie tradition OF COURSE was wearing too-tiny shorts-also gets mixed up with a pair of bumbling crooks (they were gigantic fools) who stole a lot of yen and are trying to hide out before Ichiro stumbles upon them.
I suppose I can't get too mad at this as it has some nice messages for the kids and our lead learns some lessons which allows him to escape the criminals and also improves his life in general (although, perhaps kids shouldn't learn that it's OK to scare people painting a sign, thus causing them to fall and get paint all over them! Like I said, juvenile); however, such material being in a Godzilla movie just doesn't seem right. Its poor reputation is obvious to me; not even the short length makes this worthwhile to anyone except the die hard franchise fans.
This infamous movie is only 69 minutes long (heh heh heh) and yet is filled with stock footage, as if it was an episode of a TV show which did the same method to make an episode on the cheap, give a lot of people time off, etc. As far as I can tell, why this was done for a movie where said footage was from four movies released only in the preceding few years before this came out... Toho really was that cheap. I haven't watched Ebirah, Horror of the Deep yet-that film was originally going to star King Kong but plans changed so Godzilla was substituted, which is why I understand that is rather strange as a Gojira picture but I am sure I'd rather enjoy those clips used here in context to the film rather than it being spliced in to kill time and provide some action.
All Monsters is also quite juvenile, and not just because the protagonist we follow is a bullied kid (Ichiro) who is like 8 and he dreams about visiting Monster Island, which is mostly stock footage and that's the only time we see any kaiju action. Godzilla Jr. (OK, his actual name is Manilla) is there, and at least in these dreams, Manilla speaks back to him and can change size as if he's Jet Jaguar! The enemy that Ichiro has is a bully named Gabara, so that's also the name of the one enemy kaiju created just for this film; research tells me it's supposed to be based on the Oni of Japanese folklore but to most in the west, it's a weird bipedal reptilian creature which as a face shaped like a cat. King Ghidorah, it ain't.
Much of the focus is on Ichiro's real life adventures; both of his parents are busy with work and he's an only child; at least he has a friendly adult neighbor, who was the 1969 version of a tech nerd. Our hero-who following kaiju movie tradition OF COURSE was wearing too-tiny shorts-also gets mixed up with a pair of bumbling crooks (they were gigantic fools) who stole a lot of yen and are trying to hide out before Ichiro stumbles upon them.
I suppose I can't get too mad at this as it has some nice messages for the kids and our lead learns some lessons which allows him to escape the criminals and also improves his life in general (although, perhaps kids shouldn't learn that it's OK to scare people painting a sign, thus causing them to fall and get paint all over them! Like I said, juvenile); however, such material being in a Godzilla movie just doesn't seem right. Its poor reputation is obvious to me; not even the short length makes this worthwhile to anyone except the die hard franchise fans.
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