Son of Godzilla (1967)

PG for surprisingly little death.  I mean, they torture the heck out of this little baby Godzilla for laughs.  But honestly, this might be the first Godzilla movie where no one dies.  I mean, you better be comfortable with bug phobias, but even that is pretty mild because of the quality of the special effects.  Someone gets shot with a gun.  There's some pretty dated gender roles, but nothing that would be considered egregious.  A well-earned PG rating.

DIRECTOR: Jun Fukuda

What is happening with these movies?  I mean, oh my goodness.  Before I get too deep into my flabbergasted blog about a movie that probably shouldn't exist, I would like to state ahead of time that today is a rough writing day.  Everything is taking longer than it should.  It's writing through molasses.  I'm way behind on everything and I'm trying to get this extra writing out, so please forgive me if this thing is hot trash ahead of time.  I'm a little bummed that I'm in the middle of a real slog of a Godzilla disc trilogy right now.  I think that Destroy All Monsters might have promise based on the fact that I know that title.  But these movies...what is going on?

Like, I dare you to put this as the second film in a Godzilla double feature with the original Godzilla.  This movie would make even less sense than it already does.  It's not like earlier Godzilla movies are known for making a ton of sense.  But this movie almost feels drug inspired.  Everything is being thrown at the screen and there's almost little concern for quality control for this franchise.  The most hilarious part is that these are all Criterion movies.  I own this franchise because they are on Criterion. I get it.  Not every Criterion movie is great.  I'm sure that, somewhere in Criterion's mission statement, lies the notion that these are movies that made an impact on arts and culture.  But right now, I'm just powering through these movies to say that I've done them.  That's horrible.  Most of you are probably yelling at me that I don't have to do this and it's probably pretty toxic behavior.  Do you understand that I still have hope for these movies?  I want to be a Godzilla fan, but then there are movies like Son of Godzilla that are just daring me to quit the whole franchise.  Is it that bad?  Honestly, no.  It's not even the worst Godzilla movie that I've seen.  I don't know which one is, but this one is pretty bad.  Part of it comes from the handoff that came with the last movie, Ebirah, Horror of the Deep. Both movies have the same tone and the same vibes, coupled with the fact that they both share the same director.  But I can't help make the comparison between Batman Forever and Batman and Robin.

Batman Forever is not a good movie.  I'm sorry to people who like those movies.  (Again, also apologies to the people who love Son of Godzilla.)  Batman Forever began the shortlived era of Batman that tried to reclaim of the poppy tone that the Adam West series held onto tightly.  The visuals were bright and the tone was overall optimistic.  While I don't like Batman Forever, I appreciate the fact that it tried something daring and new.  It reflected the culture of the '90s, giving us something different to look at when it came to being a sequel to a very bleak take from Tim Burton.  But then Batman and Robin came out, and it was too much.  It doubled down on the risks that the first movie took and kind of failed at.  While I tolerate Batman Forever, I loathe Batman and Robin.  It's the insane amount of excess that ultimately puts style over substance.  The same can be said of Ebirah and Son of Godzilla.  Both of those films share a lot of DNA, but Son of Godzilla is almost all style over substance.  The movie starts with a solid premise.  A bunch of scientists are discovered by an eager reporter, but they're now all stuck on an island.  We are told that the scientists, in an attempt to counteract diminishing food supplies, are doing weather experiments on this island to change growth conditions.  None of this has to do with the main story: Godzilla and son fighting a giant spider.

It feels like Godzilla kind of just stumbled into someone else's movie.  There was a plot there where the reporter finds things that the scientists had overlooked in terms of safety.  The human characters start getting interesting and then Godzilla shows up to just undo that plot.  Someone out there is arguing with the screen (if anyone who reads my blog has strong opinions about Son of Godzilla, I'm proud to facilitate that completely bonkers Venn Diagram) about the fact that the weather experiment comes into play in the final fight.  To that, I call "Shannigans!"  While the humans attempt to use their weather experiment to stymy the fight between Godzilla and giant bugs, that doesn't help or hinder Godzilla at all.  If anything, it just leads to a cool shot of Godzilla and son being covered by snow.  But Godzilla, at the end of these movies, just kind of goes away.  You don't really need to have snow to explain why Godzilla isn't following them.  Godzilla's personality, by this point, is semi-embraced by humanity.  It's weird that people forget how many deaths Godzilla causes regularly.  They're always trying to help Godzilla, probably because he fights other monsters.  But Godzilla --at this point in time --also enjoys tearing up buildings and destroying Japan.  

The neglect of the human story is frustrating.  But the more frustrating thing may be a cultural misunderstanding on my part.  I know that people don't like Godzilla's kid.  I don't know if he ever formally gets called "Godzookie" outside of the animated series.  For the sake of shorthand, I'm going to call him "Godzookie", just so I don't have to write "Godzilla's Kid" the whole time.  If Godzookie is genuinely a different character, then I apologize.  I don't like Godzookie not for the premise, so much as the character is largely undefined.  But even more than that, the entire bit is that the kid takes damage.  It's an opposite of Home Alone​.  Imagine that Kevin McCallister spent the entire film getting hurt instead of dealing out hurt.  Like, it's not meant for sympathy.  The goofy music in each of these scenes is meant to show how wacky the entire concept is.  It's not fun.  It just seems mean.  I know.  The kid ain't real.  I should be okay with it.  But if I'm emotionally trying to get invested in this character, none of that violence is helping.  

The second part is...who is Godzilla's kid?  Part of me thinks that the current Godzilla was Godzilla's kid. (Maybe it was a sibling?) But also, this egg is just underground.  The mantises dig this egg up and they start attacking this egg.  Why is the egg there?  Is Godzilla a lady?  Did Godzilla put that egg there?  Does Godzilla have a mate or do they reproduce asexually?  It's this weird story that no one in the movie is questioning.  Also, they saw this kid and instantly recognized it as "Godzilla's kid."  Godzilla wasn't even around for the beginning of the movie.  Why do people make that leap?  I suppose we're supposed to pretend that they look alike, but that's a stretch of the imagination.  It's just so much laziness in terms of developing a character that we're supposed to care about as this franchise progresses. (Also, I just discovered that Godzilla's son is known as Manilla, not Godzookie.)   These movies are coming out too often for any effort to be put into them.  I know.  I'm an old man screaming at a TV screen.  There never was an expectation for effort.  But there's also no reason that these movies have to be as vapid as they are.  

This movie was frustrating.  I don't want to watch more.  Thank goodness Destroy All Monsters is next because I need something to pull me out of this slump.