‘Godzilla Raids Again’ or — Monochrome Monsters?
I was a little trepidatious about watching ‘Godzilla Raids Again’ (1955) as all I knew was its reputation as one of the weaker entry in the Godzilla series, having been rushed out to cash in on the original so leaving little time for highly detailed effects work or tight plotting. This could explain why I’d left it till last as I worked my way through the Criterion Godzilla blu ray set which turned out to be a bit of a mistake on my part and a lesson to curb my presumptuousness as ‘Godzilla Raids Again’ has a lot going for it.
This time the big G… except he isn’t the big G as the original Godzilla was killed by the oxygen destroyer in the first movie so this is… another Godzilla? Either way, Godzilla has been awoken by more atomic tests along with a giant Ankylosaurus named Anguirus, one of Godzilla’s ancient mortal foes so, naturally, the two monster immediately start fighting.
Can the military stop Godzilla and Anguirus from inadvertently destroying Osaka during one of their squabbles? Watch ‘Godzilla Raids Again’ and find out!
What’s immediately striking about ‘GRA’ is that, apart from the 1954 original, it’s the only other Godzilla movie shot in black and white and I have to admit that although I love the bright colours of the rest of the franchise there is something particularly eerie about black and white cinematography that compliments Godzilla so effectively. After watching this I kinda wish a couple more had been made without colour. This was also at a time when the monster was still seen as a ‘bad guy’ and not on our side as yet, so very much still a destructive force and the monochrome look nicely emphasises Godzilla’s capacity to evoke terror.
Despite having two monsters on screen the ambition feels smaller in scale than the original and, overall, has a slightly lighter tone. Motoyoshi Oda’s directing is looser than Ishiro Honda’s and even if some of the grandeur is missing Oda still brings a sense of energy to the mayhem. The creature fight at Osaka is nicely done and there are a couple of shots, specifically of Setsuko Wakayama observing the cloud of destruction from a hill-top, which are genuinely chilling.
‘Godzilla Raids Again’ isn’t the best of the Godzilla series, making a few missteps along the way which stops it from really firing on all cylinders (usually when dealing with the humans), but neither is it a film that lets the franchise down or that feels too out of place compared to the others. Indeed, the fact it does have it’s own unique charm, sitting somewhere between the nihilism of the original and the more frivolous nature of what followed, was something I enjoyed and found refreshing. It also gave me context for ‘King Kong vs. Godzilla’ (1962) which was fun to discover (so that’s how Godzilla ended up in an iceberg!).
Not the best in the series but ‘Godzilla Raids Again’ is far from the worst.
