Godzilla vs. Angirus: Sunday's bout of two yakozoons ... It would seem how important this film was to the history of cinema! The first daikaiju with two giant rubber monsters, the first film where Godzilla has a monster-rival, the last black and white film about Godzilla. The film, in which, unlike the original, Godzilla was not even killed, so in fact, the entire further Shova era from film to film travels this - Second Godzilla, at the box office of the United States called Gigantis.
The sequel plays on the field of its predecessor, but already lacks the emotionality of the disaster film with which Ishiro Honda approached his work. Instead of a talented director, here the director is a medium-sized artisan, barely able to stage a battle between two monsters, but completely unable to work with human characters.
Since in the film, two fighting monsters all perfectly understand that the plot here is secondary. Who cares what they don't share? Who cares if an ankylosaurus mutates into an aggressive predator. And it doesn’t matter which characters will revolve around the “Sunday fight of two yakozunas.” But Honda’s movie had a soul, a thrilling love triangle, and very strong characters — that’s not taken away. And in the sequel, none of this, alas, no longer.
From the original film, only a professor of paleontology migrated here, but he rarely appears to be a coherent link. The main character is a pilot working for a tycoon of canning factories. He and his friend Kobayashi fly, look for gatherings of fish schools and send fishing boats along this course. He has a female radio operator (the daughter of the boss), and Kobayashi has a photo of the lady of the heart, hidden from everyone.
The whole, so to speak, human part of the film is very crumpled and resembles a patchwork blanket. A thousand incoherent scenes sweep through just to plug the holes on the screen between the appearance of rubber dinosaurs. Here's the escaped inmates doing badaboom, here's a musical number with dances, here's the wedding, drinking sake - all sorts of different characters flash in the frame that do not stand out and do not remember.
You don’t want to scold the picture either – it just felt the ground, for the first time for Japan, its cities were not just destroyed by the invasion of a monster, but became a battlefield. Godzilla himself has undergone some changes in appearance. At least, it’s very hard to believe that it’s the same suit, the crooked teeth have become, something has clearly changed and it’s made worse. The image may be uglier, but it's still far less terrifying. But the “atomic respiration”, which is still here in the form of steam, is still painted slightly into something more like a ray.
But the Monster King appears in the eighth or ninth minute, including the American version. And the enemy appears there, literally in the prologue of the film we see a small clash of Godzilla with Ankylosaurus, after which they fall into the water until the middle of the film.
Ankylosaurus in the future will be called Angirus, aka Ankylas or Angilas, in general nicknames for the monster almost as variants of the name of the film itself. A monster made, by the way, not bad. Evil, aggressive, with a spiked tail and spiked shell, while still full of sharp teeth - constantly rises on his hind legs and tries to cling to Godzilla's throat.
The fight of monsters, unfortunately, is also quite fresh. Mash-ups with people are practically absent, and the fight of giant monsters is not much to impress. The whole film is like three distinct episodes - the very beginning with a short battle on the island, the main fight of two Kaiju in the middle of the film, and after a long pause, the final act in the ice without any rematch. Angirus is dead and Godzilla is buried under an avalanche.
And it should be noted that if Honda in his film really demonstrated the military power of Japan, before showing all sorts of miniatures showing real tanks and vehicles with military personnel, then there is nothing like this in the sequel, everything is initially too toy. That’s why we love Kaiju movies. But it's clearly a bit of a mess. With the general “seriousness” of the picture, this is no longer a disaster film or horror, but rather just a fantastic action movie, which, however, fits most Kaiju films and is not a censure.
Carrying a picture - for example, in the future Godzilla will also be repeatedly frozen, in fact it looks too fresh and expressionless. It’s not that “nothing”, but it’s like a go-ahead movie, just for a tick to be. Thanks to a couple of good scenes – it’s still a good movie, but to review it many times and make a list of favorites, I think few will. Maybe there are big fans of Angirus except...
But the battle itself happens very quickly, and besides without any spectacular scenes. Remember the first movie - Godzilla came to the city and you immediately pay attention to the episode with the train, the episode with the clock tower, the moment of melting power plants, both scenes with bridges and much more! And here? Except that the moment with frame-by-frame animation on a cracked building somehow attracts attention. Well, the victory of Godzilla, chewing the throat of his opponent.
To the honor of the director can be attributed only the shooting of the final bombing, the only more or less exciting shots here are shot as if from the first person of fighters flying past Godzilla, who either knocks them down with his paws or destroys them with his beam-breath. Unfortunately, due drama the ending does not cause, as well as the most famous monster of cinema buried under the ice.
It is also good that the film gathered enough viewers at home not to be considered a failure. Although, I think, there were not a few rather devastating reviews and not too satisfied with the reaction of the audience - after all, instead of another film about Godzilla or at least a fight of giant monsters Toho began to do "solniks" about other monsters: in 1956, Rodan (aka Radon) was released, in 1957 - Misterian, in 1958 - Varan, in 1961 - Motra, in 1962 - Horace with a giant walrus Maguma ...
And only by August of the same 1962, "King Kong vs. Godzilla" was released - where, as if to save the return of the Monster King, it was necessary to give him not some Ankylosaurus as an opponent, but another movie legend. But this is quite different... “Sunday fight of the two yakozoons” – in 2020 they promise another skirmish, already under the leadership of Hollywood. But whether we will ever see again Angirus – not yet known. But he was quite a frequent guest in Godzilla films.
6 out of 10
Original