Sunday, March 01, 2020

Movie review - "Godzilla vs. Hedorah" (1971) ***

Godzilla vs the Smog Monster was the American title and it gives a better idea of this ecologically friendly entry in the series. Its very groovy with some animated sequences, funky music and a scene at a nightclub where a woman dances and sings in a colored body stocking like out of The Trip and there's a right-on-man guitar playing college student hero who sings songs around the campfire. But there's actually not a lot of him.

There's a decent amount of monster acting - I like the idea of a smog monster, Hedorah's a worthy adversary (getting beaten easy enough straight up but then coming out really dangerous) and the final fight with Godzilla is fun. The hero is a doctor who spends most of the movie lying in bed recovering giving advice.

This was silly but the environmental stuff worked well (after all the first movie started with a social message) and was a lot more fun after two weak entries.

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