Review: Godzilla vs. Gigan

Since he’s not really getting anywhere as a comic book artist, Gengo (Hiroshi Ishikawa) takes the advice of his karate-kicking girlfriend to go work for World Children’s Land, an amusement park dedicated to Godzilla (including a giant Godzilla tower). Unfortunately, he soon realises that the park is just a front for alien cockroaches (!) hell-bent on taking over the Earth. Aiding the aliens are monsters King Ghidorah and the titular Gigan, whilst Godzilla and Anguirus turn up to provide a counter-attack.

This silly 1972 Toho kaiju film from director Jun Fukuda (“Godzilla vs. Ebirah”, “Son of Godzilla”) and screenwriter Shinichi Sekizawa (“Mothra”, “Godzilla vs. Mothra”, “Godzilla vs. Monster Zero”) marked the first of three Godzilla movie appearances by Gigan, followed by “Godzilla vs. Megalon”, and the much later “Godzilla: Final Wars”. In all three films Gigan is either the best and only good thing, or near enough to it. Regarded by many as being among the worst Godzilla films in the entire franchise, I don’t think it’s a bad film but I agree it’s a bad Godzilla film. It’s probably one of my least favourite Godzilla films along with “King Kong vs. Godzilla” and the Roland Emmerich crapfest.

Things start well with Godzilla and the Akira Ifukube theme. It’s good to hear his unmistakable work, but most of the rest of the score sounds like a cheapo AIP movie from the 60s. So that’s a shame. Although we’re firmly in kiddie era Godzilla territory, the idea of a ‘World Children’s Land’ with a ‘Godzilla Tower’ is in theory clever and full of potential (It also looks -and is- hilarious. I kinda wanna go there). However, that potential makes way for yet another alien schemer plot, and in addition to having my fill of those (and you’ll probably remember that I generally like the trope), it’s far from the best one. Yeah, the ‘World Children’s Land’ is yet another front used by criminal baddies who in this case are mutant alien cockroaches. You don’t need to see their cockroach selves to know they’re aliens though. Their bespectacled leader wears an orange suit and pale pink shirt. No human being is that self unaware. Dead giveaway he’s not of this Earth. I did like the cool 70s set design though, the interiors have a James Bond villain’s lair look to them. I love me a James Bond villain lair. However, then Godzilla and Anguirus are shown having a conversation. With speech bubbles. Yeah, if you thought Minilla/Minya speaking English in “Godzilla’s Revenge” was bad, well I didn’t and even I think this shit is terrible. The speech bubbles are just a step too far. Speaking of Anguirus, he/she/it swims in this one. I’m not entirely sure if it’s advantageous for Anguirus to swim, but swim it does nonetheless. Actually, it looks more like it is walking, which is fine dependant upon how deep the water is and how tall Anguirus is meant to be. It just looks…wrong to me.

The film has some of the best monster vs. tanks action in the entire franchise, however the film also reputedly features a lot of stock footage from other films in the franchise. I’m not an astute enough viewer to be able to tell what’s new and what isn’t, so the action may not be a plus for those of you with better memories than I. All I can say is it was a highlight of the film for me. The film features two of the coolest-looking monsters in the Godzilla franchise: Ghidorah, and the titular Gigan. The former tends to be all show and no go in these films and yeah, that’s pretty much the tale here too. It makes short work of some buildings with its cool lasers, and that’s pretty impressive stuff. Ghidorah and Gigan really do impressively tear shit up for a while and setting it ablaze. It’s great fun. Then Godzilla shows up and…yeah, good night everybody! Ghidorah go night-night, now. As for Gigan, this monster is so damn cool it should’ve had its own franchise as a superhero alien monster, not being a punching bag villain for Godzilla. It’s utterly wasted in a film far beneath its worth. This is a monster with metallic hooks for hands and a buzzsaw belly, after all. Still, it’s great fun watching it buzzsaw some buildings and we also get a great aerial attack on Gigan that proves unsuccessful for humankind. The action featuring Gigan is obviously fresh, and it really is some of the best-looking action in the franchise, even if you know Godzilla’s going to kick arse before long. It’s a surprisingly bloody film, with an awesome bit where Gigan flies and slices Godzilla’s shoulder open. Ouch. Later Gigan just keeps bopping Godzilla on the noggin with its hook hands and cutting it open. It also kicks Godzilla while the G man is down though, which is such a bitch move. The emphasis on flares and fire in the big battle here really does give the film a nice aesthetic, though it’s too late to really rescue an otherwise quite dull and derivative film.

Anguirus proves completely bloody useless in battle. At one point, Godzilla (in speech bubbles) is pretty much brow-beating Anguirus like an abusive husband. Its fight with Ghidorah can best be described by a profane quote from “Dodgeball” about doorknobs and fornication. Needless to say Ghidorah comes off second best when fighting Godzilla. Meanwhile, aside from the chick who does karate, the human/humanoid characters here are boring and poorly acted. Comic book artist guy Hiroshi Ishikawa in particular is pretty awful.

Although better than say “King Kong vs. Godzilla” and “Godzilla: Final Wars”, this is one of the lesser Godzilla films. The action is terrific, but even some of that is recycled footage. Less forgivable are the recycled plot, dull characters, and poor performances. Gigan- and the audience- deserve better.

Rating: C+