Saturday, February 15, 2020

Movie review - Godzilla#3 - "King Kong vs Godzilla" (1962) ***1/2

The film that brought back both King Kong and Godzilla after a break - King Kong's was longer. This is the Japanese version - apparently the US one isn't as good - and it's great fun. The first section is mostly a Kong story, with a wacky TV producer sending a comedy duo on an expedition to go to a mystery island. We get Japanese actors in brownface playing islanders, which was unusual to my eyes, but it works on a junky level as they discover Kong, Kong fights a squid and is captured. There's a subplot about a US sub crashing into the ice and unleashing Godzilla and then Godzilla goes on a rampage and becomes the main plot. Fortunately Kong comes along.

Monster mash ups can be great fun - eg Frankenstein versus the Wolf Man - and this one is. I enjoyed the comic relief (no one ever admits that about monster movies as if admitting to some impurity or something). I love how they keep cutting back from monster rampages to various characters discussing them wondering what the creatures will do. And how the humans give up and get King Kong to do battle for them.

Very satisfactory final battle between Godzilla and Kong.

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