Godzilla Raids Again (1955)
Directed by Motoyoshi Oda & Ishiro Honda
Nearly every great movie gets a sequel, in the case of Godzilla, he got like a million. Well Godzilla Raids Again was the first in that massive line. Was it an instant classic like its predecessor? Not really, but it isn’t the worst in the series, not by a long shot.
In the 1955 follow up to Godzilla, the titular monster faces off against an irradiated ankylosaurus named Anguirus. The two massive beasts fight and destroy Osaka Japan, not Tokyo this time around. Again, the people of Japan must find a way to deal with the monsters and keep their population safe. Apparently this time Godzilla is attracted to light…like a moth, but not Mothra that’s later on in the series. So they use flares to keep him from the shore, it barely works, of course. Big G ends up killing Anguirus rather easily, by biting his neck. The humans end up burying Godzilla in an avalanche at the end, in a grueling, plodding sequence that takes half my life.
Godzilla Raids Again is good for a few things. It continued the series I would love as a kid, it introduced Anguirus whom ends up being Godzilla’s wimpy tag partner, and deepened the backstory of Godzilla some. The movie as a whole seems rushed, because it was. It came out like six months after the original and it is very clumsy. Not only are the monster fights a bit of a mess, but the miniatures aren’t as good as the first movie. The monster fights are really bizarre, they were filmed wrong really. Apparently the fights were suppose to be in slow motion but a camera fucked up and filmed them too fast. The director seemed to not care so they went with it. In the end it just looks goofy as shit. Godzilla this time around looks kind of clunky. The suit was slimmed down a little but the head stayed relatively large, making him look like a sock puppet or something. Anguirus looks a little strange but the overall design is pretty cool.
Acting wise, again it is hard to determine what is bad and what is good, because it is foreign and old. I didn’t roll my eyes much and laugh at the people so it couldn’t have been that bad. I think where this movie suffers the most is that it is boring at times. The pace is rather slow, even with only running 1hour 20minutes. There are times during the movie where theres no dialogue, or music, or sound effects, just crackling air. I seriously thought there was something wrong with this movie, but I was watching the original Japanese cut with subtitles, so who knows?
While this movie isn’t great, it is far from the worst installment in the series. I enjoy seeing Godzilla fight another monster, albeit sped up super fast and awkward haha. If you love kaiju movies, check it out because it is important to the genre. I give this movie a C-, it is dull and clunky but not without its charms.
