Godzilla Raids Again (1955)

directed by Motoyoshi Oda

Japan

82 minutes

2.5 stars out of 5

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Of every Godzilla movie, this was the last one I'd only watched once since I saw it for the first time four years ago. I don't think I'm alone in considering it possibly the worst Godzilla movie (certainly, if I may get on my soapbox, worse than the Heisei movies that people tend to deride, like vs. Megaguirus or 2000), which was an opinion I'd had ever since I first watched it, but enough time had passed that I wanted to see if maybe I liked it better this time. As it turns out, the opposite happened: I think I actually like it less. But I do, at least, have more to say about it now.

I think the most obvious area where Raids Again is lacking is in the human story. There are human characters there, but they don't have the kind of depth to them that the human cast in the '54 film did; however, I don't dislike the characters in this one, because even if they aren't fleshed out on a personal level, they're interesting for the position that they occupy. All of the main players in this are military pilots who are actually fighting Godzilla up close and personally. Many Godzilla movies following this one have focused on members of the military or of a defense team, but usually when this happens in later films it's because there's something special about the team itself: maybe they're a newly-formed splinter operation with a unique superweapon and skills specifically created to combat Godzilla, or they work closely with an outsider scientist/psychic to come up with the best possible strategy to defeat Godzilla. Not the guys in Raids Again. These are just JADF pilots, and god damn, they're good pilots. It took the most frightening weapon the world had yet seen to kill Godzilla in the first film, and this crew buries - not kills, but buries - Godzilla by shooting at it with a bunch of normal planes. It's been interesting post-Minus One to go back through the franchise and appreciate all the things that influenced MO, of which I think this movie was one.

The other thing I really like about this movie is the way the kaiju fights are filmed. Raids Again introduces fan favorite (if not Toho favorite) Anguirus for the first time, and the scuffles Anguirus and Godzilla get into are remarkably violent and animalistic. This is because, while kaiju scenes are usually slowed down in post to give a sense of enormous scale, the fight scenes in Raids Again are instead either at normal speed or actually sped up. I don't know if it's true or not, but I've heard that this was an error on the part of the camera operators that got left in because the crew thought it looked cool. And it does! It's possibly the only interesting and unique part of the film.

There are other moments, too, where this feels like it gets close to capturing some of the magic of the first movie. Mostly these moments come when individual characters are focused on. I really enjoyed the scenes when Hidemi (Setsuko Wakayama) is alone with the radio on, listening to radio coverage of Godzilla and Anguirus' fight and the JSDF's attempts to stop it, and she looks out her window and sees a massive cloud of dust and debris out over the sea where the fight is happening in real life. That was a really neat trick of perspective and made the action feel massive but also real and close to home. The aerial combat scenes are also very well done, but Eiji Tsuburaya was special effects director, so "well done aerial combat scenes" are basically a given.

All in all, though, this is just not a great movie. It's a decent movie, but it's not great. I honestly think a lot of this might be down to Motoyoshi Oda as a director. I like his other movies, but he mostly did either lighthearted comedies or slightly scandalous horror-mysteries. Oda seemed like a cool guy personally and I think he's a good director, but Honda's direct experience with war gave the '54 Godzilla a weight and direness that's totally lacking in Raids Again. And it's a shame, because this is the only one of his movies to have any kind of release outside of Japan. His most internationally-famous film and it's the one that reflects the most poorly on him as a director. Someday we will see A Texan in Tokyo. I bet it's better than this.

The storyline also just faffs around a lot. The prison-break subplot is flat-out bizarre and I forgot it was in here. Like almost every Godzilla fan, I bought a copy of the novelization of Shigeru Kayama's Godzilla/Godzilla Raids Again story treatments, and I'm really curious to read it and see if the prison break is there.

I'll end this by saying that it's essentially impossible for me not to like a Godzilla movie. I just love Godzilla and everything it represents so much that if you stick Godzilla in a movie I will watch that movie and enjoy it, no exceptions. But there's just something off about Raids Again. It's absolutely, undoubtedly an attempt to cash in on the popularity of the first film - I mean, this came out six months after the first one, six months - which doesn't inherently doom it; the same crew were working on it, for the most part, so it comes from the same talented hands as the first movie. But it still comes out lacking. The first Godzilla was an allegory, and an incredibly sober, haunting one. Raids Again is a monster movie. I love monster movies with my whole heart, and they can be as deep as the '54 Godzilla if they want to be, but this rushed, awkward sequel does not seem like a "wants to be" situation.