Son of Godzilla

#14 in my ranking of the Showa Era Godzilla films.

The return of Jun Fukuda to the Godzilla franchise pushes the whole affair more fully towards silliness and outright appeal to childish entertainment. Ishiro Honda did not approve, but he was not involved. There was almost always a certain seriousness to the monster action, making them real threats with puny humans underfoot, but the introduction of a kid monster, the child of our central hero monster who had gained favor with audiences over the years, pushes it all directly towards light-heartedness that undermines the action itself. So, we have the rather typical underdeveloped human side of things combined with a less effective sense of monster action. I mean, it’s not the worst thing, but this is very much a step down for the largely moderately successful series.

Professor Kusumi (Tadao Takashima) is leading a team of scientists on the remote island of Sollgel in the remote reaches of the Pacific Ocean. They are performing an experiment (heavy sigh) to counter the incoming overpopulation bomb by trying to freeze giant sections of land and save foodstuffs for the coming times when we can’t grow enough food for everyone (the nonsense science in these movies is regularly just…whatever). Anyway, in parachutes the reporter Maki (Akira Kubo) who wants a story, refuses to leave, and gets recruited to be the team’s cook. There are also giant, man-sized mantises that terrorize the place, keeping the team on edge, and necessitating their use of guns on a largely deserted island. There’s also a girl, Saeko (Bibari Maeda), that Maki sees that none of the others do who swims and disappears when noticed.

Their attempt to conduct the experiment is derailed when a mysterious radio wave (with brainwave properties, or something) interferes with their communications equipment to the probes rising in the sky, firing the key component at the wrong moment, and turning the island into an over-heated wasteland (that immediately greens again because budget). It also has the side effect of taking the already large mantis creatures and enlarging them to Godzilla size. Godzilla is gonna need something his size to fight, anyway, because the radio signal was a telepathic signal from Godzilla’s still egg-bound baby that the large mantises immediately attack when they are big. What was Son doing this before the mantises got big? I dunno. Coincidentally about to grow up, I guess, and wanted his daddy around.

So, all of this is really just busyness to get us to the giant monsters. It’s not particularly worse than the average of the other films in the series because most of what preceded it is rather unimaginative and not that interesting beyond Honda’s efforts to change genres from time to time. I mean, the science is goofy, but it’s done in service of some nice miniature work by Eiji Tsuburaya and Sadamasa Arikawa. Where it falls apart is really the titular Son of Godzilla.

First, it’s introduction is weirdly done. The baby is prostrate (presumably because it can’t walk yet), so it’s not actually a man in a suit. It seems to be a large puppet that just moves weirdly. And then it gets silly. Godzilla shows up to save the day, killing a couple of the mantises (how many there are total is never all that clear, they just kind of keep showing up), and then Son holds onto Godzilla’s tail to get dragged away. I mean…there was silliness in watching Godzilla sit on his tail and take a nap in Ebirah, but this is a whole different level. Then we get to watch Godzilla teach some basic monster stuff to Son, in particular the nuclear fire breath. In my mind, the appeal of giant monsters isn’t that they’re “just like us”, including parenting techniques, as Maki makes mention of when he and Saeko witness the act. It’s taking that which is giant and huge and bigger than us, and trying to make it human-sized. I just don’t think it works in the least.

However, that’s not the extent of the monster action. There is real monster action, including the sudden appearance of a giant spider buried in the side of a mountain. There are some weird issues with some of the action, though. The giant mantises are obviously run on a rail, and their movements look largely fake. The spider, though, is just outright great and might be one of the best monsters in this whole series. It’s kind of sad that he’s something of a throw-away and won’t be coming back because the puppetry on him is shockingly good.

So…I don’t hate it, but it’s bad. The charm of the special effects is reduced by, ironically, the effort to make them more charming. The story itself never has much to do or say while getting to a point where characters are just spinning their wheels because the film can’t come up with anything for them to do when the monsters start getting going. Still, the special effects do have a charm, and the story doesn’t actively bore. Again, there’s something to be said for having less than good movies move along quickly. It’s not enough, though.

Rating: 1.5/4