Spoilers for Godzilla Raids Again and The Godfather ahead
Godzilla: Raids Again was the best mistake Toho ever made. Despite being undoubtly invaluable for the longevity of the Godzilla franchise, at the time of release the 1955 film was a farcical mess. Immediately following the success of the original 1954 masterpiece of Gojira, Toho immediately set out to make a sequel. To those that have seen the original, this might strike them as odd, as the movie did not seem to need a continuation, as the narrative itself, although open-ended as to if a Godzilla could return, carried with it a bittersweet finality; a not only satisfying end to the film, but in a way, a tonal end for the franchise, at least for a time. Yet despite this, Toho, with dollar signs in their eyes, decided that the harrowing journey through a post-war nightmare required a follow-up.
Released only 6 months after Gojira, Raids Again took a decidedly different approach to the Godzilla mythos. Where Gojira was a grim, somber story about the pains of nuclear devastation, Raids again is far more typical of monster movies of that era: big, dumb, and with lots of action. It is in this change of tone that Raids again is as important of a movie as it is. It was not just that a sequel to Gojira was made that allowed the franchise to survive as long as it has, it was the kind of sequel they chose to make. Instead of maintaining the somber tone of the original, Raids Again is a goofy, fast-paced, and at-the-time, intense monster mash. This was achieved through the introduction of Kaiju battles via the new and fantastic monster Anguirus. A giant mutated Ankylosaurus, Anguirus made for a perfect first combatant against the King of the Monsters, and ultimately, the perfect best friend as the series progressed. The scenes they share are somewhat paradoxically the best and worst parts of the movie, as although they have aged like fine milk, the character plot is relatively forgettable, but serviceable enough.
Following similar narrative beats to Gojira, with an underdeveloped love interest, a brief cameo from Dr. Yamane to recap the plot of Gojira, and just enough fluff to justify the monster scenes, the human characters are fine, but nothing spectacular. Although an end sacrifice of one of the main characters adds some interest to the proceedings, I can't help but wish that the movie spent more time on the monsters and less time on the people, a trait that is a recurrent problem for much of the Showa era (as much as I love it). That isn't to say that the monster scenes are all that great, but they absolutely are at least visually interesting.
The times where the monsters are on screen are chaotic, but with that, somewhat confusing. Eiji Tsuburaya, the special effects genius who worked on many of the early Godzilla films and the Ultra Q and Ultraman series, made the baffling decision for to speed up the footage when the monsters were fighting. This is the opposite of what he chose to do with Gojira, and all other Godzilla films he worked on, which is instead to film at a very high framerate, and slow the footage back down to 24 frames to give the monsters extra weight. This speed makes the scenes look particularly artificial and goofy, and quite honestly I have no idea what he was thinking. Although it does make the scenes faster, the effect moreso makes every scene of monster action almost nauseating, as the unnaturally fast movements make it difficult for your eye to track the monsters through the muddy visuals. Where Gojira used high contrast to help the monster stand out against a flaming city, Raids Again features dark colored monsters on a dark colored backdrop, with little in the way of clever lighting to highlight the monsters or their genuinely good designs.
This isn't to say the effects are necessarily bad for their time, infact they are quite good, with the suits for Godzilla and Anguirus intimidating and slim enough to allow for greater comfort for the suitactors (although the hand puppets used for close-ups continue to be distractingly fake looking). Anguirus in particular is a fantastic piece of Kaiju design, instantly forming a timeless and brilliantly indearing silloutte that was wisely used as an ally in future Godzilla projects. Yet in this film, both Godzilla and Anguirus individually look intimidating. In fact, recent years has brought a new focus on how down-right frightening Godzilla's design is, particularly when there are close-ups of the suit itself; so much so that analog horror pieces have been made editing scarier eyes onto the suit, such as this:
This is helped by just how slim the suit is, giving Godzilla a gaunt, almost zombie-like appearance at times. Although not an intentional aspect of the design, it absolutely helps the film in making Godzilla scenes more effective. My previous criticisms of the effects is not to say that there isn't mastery at play here; in one scene in particular, the exceptionally smart decision is made to remove all music, and allow the tension of the scene to work on its own. This moment is genuinely chilling, as Godzilla comes up from the depths, with only his echoing roar breaking up the near silence of the moment. The American version of the film adds music to this moment, ruining the effect, but the original is truly terrifying. I apologize for the low-quality of this clip, it was the best I could do as I do not have the film's files on hand and had to work with what I could find.
Moments like these elevate the movie slightly above more typical schlock that is common in the monster movie prior to the advent of the Kaiju film genre (although some of Godzillas movies to come a lot closer to being the schlocky messes of more contemporary monster movies, not benefiting yet from the lighter tone afforded to the late showa films). For its time, however, Godzilla Raids Again was exceptionally innovative, effectively birthing the Vs. film genre as we know it today, even if the execution leaves much to be desired.
At the time of its creation, Godzilla Raids Again was a slap in the face to the masterpiece of the original; similar to if the sequal to the Godfather involved Vito Corleone coming back from the dead and starting a brawl with Barzini in order to get revenge for the trouble he'd caused him. That being said, in isolation, Raids Again is an entertaining, and well-paced film with effects that, although good for their time, have aged poorly. Utlimately, the film suffers on closer examination, and is best understood as a piece of history rather than a film in and of itself. Like L'Arrivée d'un train en gare de La Ciotat, it is less an impressive piece of filmmaking itself, and more an important film for what was made because of its existence. Although I do not often rewatch Raids Again, as it ranks fairly lowly in comparison to the other Godzilla movies, it is undeniable that we have it to thank for the Godzilla series, and the rest of the Kaiju Vs. genre existing at all.
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