King Kong Vs. Godzilla is a weirdly wonderful movie. Godzilla exists in no small part because of the success of the re-release of the original King Kong in the early 1950's. Folks saw what an awesome monster movie could be like and they wanted more. That led to The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms and then Godzilla. Also it was apparently decided that this movie was to be a comedy. Understanding that has helped me "get" the Honda kaiju movies in ways I was blind to before. In times past I have always just seen monster movies as that, monster flicks which succeed or fail according to the tropes associated with that form. But now I understand that monster flicks are from many genres and the monsters themselves are just the characters. With that insight I am free to enjoy a movie like this for what it is, a satirical romp and that allows me to accept the understandable violation of some aspects which more seriously minded movies might adhere to. Godzilla itself is best understood as a horror movie, it's first sequel is a straight monster movie, Mothra is a fantasy, and so forth.
That said, King Kong Vs. Godzilla is a romp, as Kong rises up in his most moth-eaten form ever to battle the terrible Godzilla. The movie was hugely successful and on its own allowed for many sequels which never delivered the same audience, but sure tried.
More to come.
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King Kong grows from like thirty or forty feet to a Godzilla sized four hundred in this one. I reviewed this a long long time ago, man, I forget now. I liked the girl in it though. I forget her name but she was so cute.
ReplyDeleteOne of the girls in this one went on to be a Bond girl in You Only Live Twice and she is quite lovely. All the girls in these movies are very pretty.
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