Nankai no daiketto
Godzilla vs the Sea Monster
AKA
Godzilla; Ebirah; Mothra: Big Duel in the South Seas
Ebirah, Horror of the Deep
(1966)
(Page 2)
But it was too good to last. Godzilla vs. the Sea Monster is the first truly poor film in the Godzilla series.
I have tolorated many silly things in the series. The Godzilla films of the 70's, for example, alone could provide a very lengthy list. However, clump them all together into one lazy script, and I find it unacceptable. The script for this film is an unholy mess, full of contrived coincidence and questionable actions spawned by idiocy. Why does the bank robber let the strange trio stay on board the boat for the night? He's incompetant, that's why. Why does the group want to sleep on board in the first place? I don't know...their girlfriends kicked them out? Ryoto steals the boat for some of the flimsiest reasons I've ever heard, as well. Don't get me started on the point where Ryoto snags himself on a balloon and just happens to land directly on Infant Island right in front of his brother. Mothra's involvment in the film is as a contrived plot device, as he spends most of the film sitting motionless while natives pray to him, only to see her wake up in the nick of time and save the day. Perhaps the original concept of Mothra in this film was to have her in a cocoon stage, which would have made much more sense seeing how the last time we saw her she was a caterpillar and now she's a full grown moth. Unfortunatly, this more interesting route wasn't used, and Mothra is just taking a nap for no reason.
With the fun and different island setting, some good monster action could have probably saved this script, however Godzilla doesn't wake up and kick some ass until 50 minutes into the movie, allowing the random stupidity happening onscreen to sink in until you just don't care anymore. The last half hour is definatly the highlight, since we get a gander at Godzilla brawling in the water for a change. We also see him take battle with airplanes in one of the funner sequences of the film. There's also some cool casual shots of G, as we see cool images of him asleep and even glimps him strolling around, just chillin'.
Unfortunatly, the sloppy script takes it's toll on the monster scenes in just one brief minute of the film, in which a giant bird flies out of nowhere and starts pecking the hell out of Godzilla's head. An unfortunate product of an early draft of the script, in which King Kong was originally supposed to be in the Godzilla role, this moment if one of the oddest moments in Godzilla history. There's no explaination as to where this bird came from, and it's never mentioned again for the entire film. It's just there.
After helming four Godzilla flicks in a row, master kaiju director Ishiro Honda decides to step down from the series for the first time since 1955's Godzilla Raids Again. Maybe he was all Godzillaed out (though he didn't hang up his kaiju hat, since 1966 also saw the release of Honda's War of the Gargantuas). Godzilla vs. the Sea Monster was handed to Jun Fukuda, helming his first G movie. Fukuda went on to helm a total of five films in the series, which puts him second only to Ishiro Honda's eight Godzilla flicks under his belt. Unfortunatly, Fukuda's reputation isn't near what Honda's is. Fukuda never made a great Godzilla movie, and it's even arguable whether or not he even made a good Godzilla movie. Fukuda isn't the worst director in the world (though one can't deny the damage he did to the series with Godzilla vs. Megalon), but, to me, he always seemed like the guy Toho called up when they had a lackluster script and nobody else wanted to direct it (sort of a Japanese Renny Harlin, though nothing Fukuda put out was as mindnumbingly bad as The Covenant). The look of the film is nice, and the island setting looks very pretty in widescreen (if you have a widescreen TV, this movie will complement it well). If only the script wasn't so bad...
Godzilla vs. the Sea Monster is one of two Godzilla features that aired on the television show Mystery Science Theater 3000, a show dedicated to mocking bad movies (the other was fellow Fukuda crapsterpiece Godzilla vs. Megalon). I don't blame them. I've heard many Godzilla fans praise this one as a classic, but I just can't get past how lazy it is.
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