Godzilla vs. the Sea Monster
Year:
1966
Directed by:
Jun Fukuda
Rated:
PG
Country:
Japan
Runtime:
1 hr. 27 min.
Production Company:
Toho
Written by:
Shinichi Sekizawa
Starring:
Akira Takarada
Kumi Mizuno
Chotaro Togin
Hideo Sunazuka
Similar Films:
One of the not-good ones.
Godzilla vs. the Sea Monster is as bland as its title. Like too many Godzilla films, it consists of a boring, arbitrary plot that leads to some good monster action that is worth the wait probably only to die-hard Godzilla fans. Said monster action consists mostly Ebirah, a giant lobster who rivals the original King Ghidorah in clumsiness, attacking boats and, later, attacking Godzilla. Throw in a group of bundling thieves trying to bring down a rogue nuclear facility they've stumbled upon, then add almost nothing else to the film at all, and you have a movie that succeeds only in saving me the time of having to write a detailed plot summary.
This film has a number of coincidences so great that even those most adept at the art of suspending disbelief will be a bit jolted. At one point, the thieves, along with a female captive they have rescued, hide in a cave and discover -- a dollar to the first person to guess which monster -- Godzilla, comatose (or perhaps dead, it is never completely clear). What are the chances? They later decide that waking him to fight the evil nuclear organization is their only chance. How do they do it? Well, the girl with them just happened to snatch a line of wire when they snuck in the nuclear facility (she wanted to wear it as a huge necklace), so they do the obvious: they attach one end of it to Godzilla and the other to a machete (another random find) on top of a mountain. The idea is that the machete acts as a lightning rod, conducting electricity down the wire to wake Godzilla, Frankenstein-style ("Frankenstyle"?). Oh, but they need a thunderstorm. I hope one comes ...
These moments of implausibility are not necessarily demerits against the film. I believe (and hope) the filmmakers are trying to be silly (based on some greater silliness that ensues later). However, these scenes do very little to help the film, even if they are accepted as attempts at humor, because they offer at the most a quick giggle, and while there are far too many of them to allow for a serious viewing of the film, there are far too few to provide sufficient entertainment. Because of this, the plot rides the mediocre middle path between serious and stupid.
There are several other laughs that are much funnier, even if they still aren't enough to make the film, overall, good. When Godzilla first meets Ebirah, they partake in one of the funniest little sparring rounds in Godzilla history, involving a boulder that gets thrown repeatedly back and forth. Also, when Godzilla rips Ebirah's claw off at one point, the humor of what he does next is on par with the playfulness of what Kong does when he kills the T-Rex in King Kong. I don't want to keep giving things away, but Godzilla's taunt-dance when the fighter jets arrive is also quite laughable, as is his way of dispatching several of them. The last quarter or third of this film has a good bit of humor. It's too bad the majority leading up to it is just dumb.
One other funny thing -- one that I really don't know is purposeful -- is the music that accompanies most of Ebirah's appearances. All Godzilla fans are fimilar with the doomsday march theme for Big G. You would expect something vaguely similar for pretty much any monster, right? Well, Ebirah marches to a different beat; he gets a James Bond-esque riff, as far out of place as it could have been. Whenever he appears, I feel like he's about to start sneaking around with a silenced pistol. Now that would have been funny.
So far I've talked only about the humor of the film. Don't let this fool you into thinking it is overall entertaining. It is not. The last half of it has some good giant monster stuff, yes, but before we get there we have nothing more than the main-character thieves running around, crashing onto the island, breaking into the nuclear facility, running from soldiers, and hiding in mountains, all while Ebirah makes a handful of brief appearances. Oh yeah, Mothra's in it too, but he's asleep until the very end. One character quips that Mothra needs an alarm clock. I disagree; it is more likely he was just waiting for some semblance of a monster movie to begin playing.
For fans of humor-tilted Godzilla films, Godzilla vs. the Sea Monster has exactly what is to be expected, just not nearly enough of it. If the monsters showed up sooner and more often, or if the characters had something interesting to do, or if the funny things that they do were funnier and more frequent, this may have been up there on the level of Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla. But that is far too many "if"s. There's no excuse for that when you have multiple giant monsters at your disposal.
