Godzilla Raids Again (1955) review
The first time I set out to watch Godzilla, I remember wondering how long it would take for the series to forget the sombre tone of the original. Well, you do not need to wait long, because a year after they made Godzilla Raids Again (1955) and it is deeply silly in comparison.
It is not the whimsy that would come to characterize the Showa era Godzilla movies. While Godzilla (1954) feels grand as a movie production, Raids Again feels cheap. It comes off as a case of »Well, we spent money on the suit, might as well reuse it«. Everything is scaled down compared to the original. Less sets, less characters, less narrative.
The plot follows a pilot for a private firm that does… something? He flies around the ocean with his best buddy and wingman — while his fiancee back at the head office works as a radio operator. Her father is the boss of the company, and that setup seems like it would be a springboard for all sorts of dramatic scenarios that simply fail to manifest.
I will be honest and say that the plot itself has always been quite hard for me to follow. Not because it is complex — but by being both staggeringly boring and kinda inconsequential. Watching Godzilla films as a non-Japanese speaker, you do run into a slight disconnect from the language barrier — which is only amplified by being made a generation before I was even born. Most of the »human plot« of Godzilla movies are based on dialogue. Watching actors stand around without doing much other than talking, means it is harder to pick up on contextual clues.
So I will admit that there might be nuances of the plot that eludes me. We could never quite figure out if the main trio were wrapped up in a subtle love triangle or if everyone was just acting awkward. At the climax, the best friend dies from what seems to be an heroic sacrifice — again, it can be a bit hard to tell. A plot element like that feels like it should have some narrative resonance, but it is hardly commented on in the script.
Something important that this movie does teach you as a fan, is that continuity between entries was never a big focus for the series. While there is not anything that directly contradicts the first movie — they even bring back Professor Yamane for a short scene to bridge the gap — there is made no effort into qualifying this as a continuation of the previous story. Why is Godzilla back you might ask? Did the monster not famously die at the end of that movie? Was the entire moral dilemma of the third act not dependent on killing off the creature for good? So how is it back again?? Well, there is an easy answer to that.
There was a second Godzilla.
A contributing factor to the cheap feel of the movie is the staggering amount of stock footage. The 1954 original used what is clearly archival material from the Pacific War — something I have always found to be part of the je ne sais quoi atmosphere of that movie. But here it is just laughable. When the exact same shot of a squadron of fighter planes is shown three times back-to-back, you are not drawn to the historical context of the production. You just think »Damn, they were really running on a shoestring budget here, huh«.
The only cool part about this movie is the introduction of another giant dinosaur monster — Anguirus. You might ask why there is another giant monster rampaging around, but this is treated with the same handwaving as Godzilla’s return. The movie makes it clear that you do not need to care about hows and whys. You are here for the spectacle and not much else. And for what it is worth, the best part of the movie is the spectacle. Seeing Godzilla and Anguirus go at it is entertaining — although coming off as crude compared to what is to come. And ultimately, Anguirus is just another ill-fated part of the movie. I forget it is even here, because his appearance makes no impact on the plot.
Part of what sours me on Raids Again is that it is utterly dependent on the first movie to be dramatic — but its own climax is entirely divorced from it. At the end of the movie the army manages to bury Godzilla alive in an icy grave. While they might not be able to kill it, they find a way where they can bomb the issue away. Praise be for our boys in the JSDF!
There is not an overt jingoism to be mad at. Raids Again just seem completely unwilling to engage in what made the first movie interesting. If they had not kept making more movies, this would ironically be the movie that killed off Godzilla.
Raids Again is not the worst Godzilla movie, but it is the most inconsequential. Should you watch this movie? Only if you are really curious about the history of Godzilla, because if the big guy had not been in this movie, I do not think anyone would remember it.
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