In a Nutshell. Mini reviews of movies old and new. No fuss. No spoilers. And often no sleep.

Friday 23 May 2014

Godzilla (1954)

The monarch of kaijū eiga is a force to be reckoned with and is more than just an excuse to have a guy in a rubber suit trash tiny models. You don’t need to be a history scholar to pick out the wartime parallels: nuclear weapons testing in the Pacific, irradiated wells and footfalls that sound like distant bombs impacting and exploding are all highlighted.
The film is cleverly constructed so that even when forced to take the role of the aggressor the Japanese people don’t cease being victims.
All of that, and more, make it both culturally significant and cinematically more interesting than many of the sequels and the dozens of clones that followed over the years.

4 warning bells out of 5

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